Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!cat.cis.Brown.EDU!agate!library.ucla.edu!csulb.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!wmills
From: wmills@netcom.com (William J. Mills)
Subject: Re: 100 Billion Nuerons
Message-ID: <wmillsCsrLH9.Dp0@netcom.com>
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Date: Mon, 11 Jul 1994 07:15:08 GMT
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bsmall (bsmall@sfrsa.com) wrote: : eds@sfrsa.com (Ed Severinghaus) writes: 

: >  
: > Brad, 
: [deleted] 
: > no resolution in the "weighting" process. Forget 8 or 16 bits, go for 
: > 2-bits.  Maybe three. 
:  
: 2 or 3 bits!  Outrageous! But I like your thinking. Perhaps 
: that kind of resolution is all that is needed. It also keeps 
: the counter bits down as well. Less addition to do if the 
: counting is done in an 8 bit counter. 
:  
: Brad

The granularity needed would seem to be fairly small but is also time 
dependent right?  The counter could increment based on other neurons and 
decrement back to 0 over time.  The counter basically being a 'saturation 
of neurotransmitter' which is re-absorbed from the synapse.  Is neuron 
firing based on the sum of all of the synapses?  If so then the synapses 
might be simple while the whole neuron obeys a slighlty more smooth 
behavior with a few more bits of representation for the neuron itself.
