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Voxmanns t1_j4q5q1w wrote

Reply to comment by ThePokemon_BandaiD in Researchers develop an artificial neuron closely mimicking the characteristics of a biological neuron by MichaelTen

I think it's hard to tell.

I see this being most applicable to some brain and nerve damage, and maybe reduce the effects of decaying brain function in old age eventually.

It could also be a step towards better research of the brain. Since neurons are one of the building blocks of the brain, they might be able to create their own artificial synapse networks and learn more about how to treat, repair, or even augment complex neural networks inside of a real brain. Hell, if you push it far enough it might even be a means for them to build mimics of (or even totally new and useful) neural networks for people.

I'm getting ahead of myself though. I think the big step in this is that it's a fundamental piece of doing those crazy brain and CNS things we want to do. On its own, it's probably not going to be any thing super crazy. But it is a big piece of the puzzle.

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ThePokemon_BandaiD t1_j4q677q wrote

My point is its not simulating any of the computational aspects of the neuron, which lie mainly in neurotransmitter receptor expression and regulation, its basically just simulating the biochemical version of wires, which for computational purposes, can be simulated more simply with just regular wires, which are also much faster.

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