Tag Archives: function
22 Apr Breaking Down Language Structure and Function
Grammar Acquisition Some experts suggest that a correctly formulated adult grammar is acquired by children on the basis of sentences they hear in their first few years (Pinker, 1984, p. 5). The proponents of this theory assume that a young child perceives sentence structure or is able to detect elements of grammatical structure – a […]
01 Jan Axon and Dendrite Growth
Link Formation in a Bio-Network It was once believed that the link structure of the nervous system was formed randomly during embryogenesis and remained static after maturation – sometime between early development and adolescence (except for regeneration after injury). Due to improved imaging resolutions and preparation techniques, we now know that axon termini, dendrites, and spines […]
31 Aug Building a Cathedral of Knowledge
Good fiction, especially good historical fiction, gets my brain spinning. Ken Follett‘s The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End describe the technology, born in the “Dark Ages” in which mortal men were able, with limited technologies, to build edifices that could stand throughout the ages. At the same time as Mr. Follett’s mythical cathedral […]
18 Aug Neuromorphic Computing
To Mimic is Human When is imitation not flattering or sincere? I try to be sincere in my blogging, and I have tried not to unnecessarily emphasize the computing ability of the human brain, but the whole point of this blog is to imitate it using computers. A neuromorphic (resembling the brain and/or neurons) computing model […]
23 Jun Varieties of Nerve Cells
Did you know that not all brain cells are created equally? I think they are more different from one another than snowflakes and some of the differences are astounding. The heterogeneity of neurons indicates that modeling brain functions may require a heterogeneous approach (as opposed to many neural networks that are homogeneous). Besides the differences in branching patterns […]