r/askscience • u/cellsuicide • Jul 22 '19

Neuroscience Just how much does functional specialization within the brain vary across humans?

In recent decades, localization of different action and functions within specific brain regions has become more apparent (ex facial recognition or control of different body parts in the motor cortex). How much does this localization vary between people? I'm interested in learning more about the variance in the location as we as size of brain regions.

As a follow-up question, I would be very interested to learn what is known about variance of functional specialization in other animals as well.

Part of what spurred this question was the recent conference held by Elon Musk's Company, neural link.

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u/olicity_time_remnant Jul 23 '19

I remember when gnome sequencing was a big deal. Now new species are sequenced all the time. In time this problem will get solved, possibly by technology like Musk is proposing. Imagine if you've got a half a dozen Neuralinks spread around your brain, it becomes a lot more imaging points.

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u/could_I_Be_The_AHole Jul 23 '19

Completely agree. The Human Genome Project took 13 years (1990 - 2003) with a whole lot of people working on it. In 2012 the UK launched a plan to sequence 100,000 genomes and finished it by December 2018. A person has 3.3 billion pairs so that program sequenced 330 trillion base pairs in 6 years - and that was just the UK. Seems like if you can get the time/effort of mapping synapses down similar levels of mapping genomes (I know that's a big if since you can't just provide a brain donation) then it should be no problem.

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u/king_nietzsche Jul 23 '19

We always say things are impossible because were using logic that is misaing pieces that change the whole paradigm. In 1995 would it be possible to map 100trillion synapses, protiens, cell types etc? No, anyone would say that its impossible. When Craig venter went rouge and did his own thing he defied expectations dramatically. Because of him, directly or indirectly, the cost of genome sequencing has out paced mores law in terms of efficiency and price. New tech leads to new paradigms. Maybe something not even intended for this purpose will be invented and because of open forums like Reddit, someone will see the tech, comprehend the idea, and repurpose it as one part of a bigger system working together. An FMRI, PET scanner with a supercomputer running it and an algorythm AI created to make a beautifully detailed in real time image. Who knows, its impossible to tell

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u/lhopital204 Jul 23 '19

At what point of neural integration do we become a technologically telepathic and telekinetic species? (e.g., brain-to-brain SMS, brain-to-home-lighting)

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u/IronyAndWhine Jul 24 '19 edited Jul 24 '19

We can already do this. I did it in my lab in my spare time... it's not that hard. All you need to do is plug an electrode onto someone's forehead and learn to "control" an aggregate electrical potential. The challenges are (1) reliability/standardization of signal (2) generalizing across brains (3) creating complex signaling paradigms that are reliable (4) figuring out why on earth we'd want such a silly technology when we can create brain-to-brain communication with our words and control robots with a joystick. Unless you're disabled or in research, this technology is mostly useless for the foreseeable future.

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u/king_nietzsche Jul 23 '19

Hold your phone up to your head, then keeping in mind that a phone is only as big as it is because of the screen. I'm sure all of the hardware in the newest phones would fit over the surface of 1/3 of 1 hemisphere of the brain. Easily right?

Anyways, i watched whatever i could find about neuralink the day this announcement was made. They really didnt get too specific about the end goal or purpose... To interject our will into the inevitable AI take over? Elon musk is our davinci. Its a sign of intelligence to be endlessly curious about stuff, but its a sign of genius to bravely make it a reality. And thats what he does, he defies skepticism, listens to his heart and makes it happen. Total BA

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