Sunday, September 18, 2005
Constant parameters in the anatomy and wiring of the mammalian brain
There are a number of useful observations here; but the one most often cited is the network diameter of the cortex -- the average number of hops from any neuron to any other neuron.
According to the paper, the average distance from any neuron in your cortex to any other neuron is 2.6 steps.
But that's a bullshit measure, in my opinion. Those short-cut connections that serve to make the network diameter so small can only be useful for synchronization, I argue, not for computation. The reason is simple -- they have no bandwidth relative to the rest of the network, thus can't carry enough useful information across.
There are a number of useful observations here; but the one most often cited is the network diameter of the cortex -- the average number of hops from any neuron to any other neuron.
According to the paper, the average distance from any neuron in your cortex to any other neuron is 2.6 steps.
But that's a bullshit measure, in my opinion. Those short-cut connections that serve to make the network diameter so small can only be useful for synchronization, I argue, not for computation. The reason is simple -- they have no bandwidth relative to the rest of the network, thus can't carry enough useful information across.
# posted by Notetaker @ 11:13 AM 
