Reverse-Engineering the Brain for Better Computers
From: EE Times - 09/18/2007
By: Clive Maxfield

University of Texas at San Antonio researchers are trying to build a better
computer by reverse-engineering brain neurons. UTSA biology researchers are
using Interactive Supercomputing's Star-P software to run
biologically-realistic simulations of molecular diffusion in neurons with the
hope that understanding how neurons process chemical signals when a person
learns and retains information will result in more reliable computers that
have stochastic computing components. Stochastic computing is a type of
artificial intelligence that uses probabilistic methods to solve problems.
The human brain has trillions of different types of neurons, each with
complicated branching dendrites, so running the complex simulations to model
even a single neuron requires massive amounts of computational performance
and memory resources. To meet these requirements the researchers used a
Star-P license to link their desktop computers to an eight-processor parallel
cluster, and the team will soon be able to use a 120-processor cluster thanks
to an additional license from ISC. In addition to advancing computing
techniques, UTSA's research could lead to other neurobiological research
breakthroughs, particularly in sensory acquisition, motor learning, and
neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, schizophrenia, and
epilepsy. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201807227
http://www.supercomputingonline.com/article.php?sid=14431

Links:
Star-P
http://www.interactivesupercomputing.com/IT/

Interactive Supercomputing
http://www.interactivesupercomputing.com/

Fidel Santamaria, PhD
http://www.utsa.edu/today/2007/08/santamaria.cfm
http://bio.utsa.edu/faculty/santamaria.html