As part of the Carboncopies Foundation’s ongoing effort to build and maintain an international network of companies, institutions and labs engaged in projects of high relevance to whole brain emulation, our researchers identify new startups that address relevant issues: this includes an evaluation of companies that focus on problems of individual access to new technology and problems around economic support of necessary research into emerging technologies.

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Neurons are the computational elements that compose the brain and their fundamental principles of activity are known for decades. According to the long-lasting computational scheme, each neuron sums the incoming electrical signals via its dendrites and when the membrane potential reaches a certain threshold the neuron typically generates a spike to its axon. Here we present three types of experiments, using neuronal cultures, indicating that each neuron functions as a collection of independent threshold units. The neuron is anisotropically activated following the origin of the arriving signals to the membrane, via its dendritic trees. The first type of experiments demonstrates that a single neuron’s spike waveform typically varies as a function of the stimulation location. The second type reveals that spatial summation is absent for extracellular stimulations from different directions. The third type indicates that spatial summation and subtraction are not achieved when combining intra- and extra- cellular stimulations, as well as for nonlocal time interference, where the precise timings of the stimulations are irrelevant. Results call to re-examine neuronal functionalities beyond the traditional framework, and the advanced computational capabilities and dynamical properties of such complex systems.

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This experiment is evidence that consciousness is not a simple matter of brain function even though a brain is necessary for consciousness it does not equal it nor is it simply an emergent property of it. There is a very fine point here which is difficult to express, but I will make the effort in what follows: When I move myself, the perceived things have an apparent displacement that is inversely proportional to their distance — the closest move more ------ The extent of the displacement can serve as an index for the distance. Fundamental: it is absolutely artificial to recompose the phenomenon as geometrical optics does, to construct it on the basis of the angular displacement on the retina of images corresponding to such or such a point. I am ignorant of this geometry, and what is given to me phenomenally is not a set of displacements or non-displacements of this kind, it is the difference between what takes place at one distance and at another distance, it is the integral of those differences; the "points” that the optico-geometric analysis gives itself are, phenomenally, not points, but very small structures, transcendencies. Even to describe these as “alterations” or “non-alterations” is already to substitute the original differentiations, “projections” on a space for objective analysis. To tell the truth, movements, rests, distances, apparent sizes, etc., are only different indexes of refraction of the transparent medium that separates me from the things themselves, different expressions of that coherent distention across which Being shows itself and conceals itself.

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Diana Deca: "My book chapter on grid cells, hardware implementation and whole brain emulation finally out at springer"

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The article from the latest issue of "Journal of Consciousness Studies".

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The precise annotation and accurate identification of neural structures are prerequisites for studying mammalian brain function. The orientation of neurons and neural circuits is usually determined by mapping brain images to coarse axial-sampling planar reference atlases. However, individual differences at the cellular level likely lead to position errors and an inability to orient neural projections at single-cell resolution. Here, we present a high-throughput precision imaging method that can acquire a co-localized brain-wide data set of both fluorescent-labelled neurons and counterstained cell bodies at a voxel size of 0.32 × 0.32 × 2.0 μm in 3 days for a single mouse brain. We acquire mouse whole-brain imaging data sets of multiple types of neurons and projections with anatomical annotation at single-neuron resolution. The results show that the simultaneous acquisition of labelled neural structures and cytoarchitecture reference in the same brain greatly facilitates precise tracing of long-range projections and accurate locating of nuclei.

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The lack of a formal link between neural network structure and its emergent function has hampered our understanding of how the brain processes information. We have now come closer to describing such a link by taking the direction of synaptic transmission into account, constructing graphs of a network that reflect the direction of information flow, and analyzing these directed graphs using algebraic topology. Applying this approach to a local network of neurons in the neocortex revealed a remarkably intricate and previously unseen topology of synaptic connectivity. The synaptic network contains an abundance of cliques of neurons bound into cavities that guide the emergence of correlated activity. In response to stimuli, correlated activity binds synaptically connected neurons into functional cliques and cavities that evolve in a stereotypical sequence toward peak complexity. We propose that the brain processes stimuli by forming increasingly complex functional cliques and cavities.

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Summary: I outline a likely scenario, with practical constraints, of how the development of a whole brain emulation device would likely involve serious ethical problems. After discussing the problems and possible solutions, I argue that those who desire digital afterlives must also insist on ethical development of whole brain emulation devices.

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