Brain Mapping
The President recently proposed a ‘brain mapping’ research initiative. I think it sounds like a great idea but it would really be better described as not drawing a map of the brain but creating a key to the map of the brain. Why is that? You think the human genome was tough to catalog? Try doing that for 85+ billion neurons and 100 trillion or so synapses. In other words, there is a lot of ground to cover.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t get started on it, it just means it will take a while. And a lot of money.
_________________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Emerson Pugh, American Physicist, 1929 – not dead yet
_________________
we’re getting into some serious numbers when we talk of mapping the brain’s activity. i hope we never stop trying.