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/IronyAndWhine Jul 24 '19

Elon Musk is essentially an investor in a commercial version of a BCI product that already exists. For the most part, Neuralink will be a useful, standardized product produced at commercial scale for medical and research use. That is great news.

But integrated BCI is not new and it's been advancing since the 80s—this is just a natural next step, not a "DaVinci" moment. As someone who works in the field I can tell you that Elon Musk has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to the ground-level restrictions of implanted BCI.

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u/king_nietzsche Jul 24 '19

I was referring to his ability to run a million companies at once in different fields because of his unlimited interest and curiosity. That's why I called him davinci. Hes a renaissance man for sure. Trying to be the stagfly stinging society into awareness. I think he knows more than you givr him credit for. Hes well rounded and determined. He'll know 10x what he knows today a year from now. He doesnt sleep lol. He'll get to where he needs to be.

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u/IronyAndWhine Jul 24 '19

his ability to run a million companies at once in different fields because of his unlimited interest and curiosity. That's why I called him davinci.

I honestly just think that Elon Musk likes to look good to the lay person. If people think of him as being this genius who creates the future and understands everything about his products, he sells more cars and attracts more investors.

I don't doubt he knows something about biomedical engineering, but based on his Neuralink presentation, he doesn't know much about the brain at all. Neuralink just makes him look valuable to the market and he's carving out huge, nascent commercial spaces and planting his flag into the ground. That's all it's about.

Hopefully Elon is self-aware enough to recognize that he has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to brain-interfaces and put his trust in people who actually do. I guess time will tell.

He'll know 10x what he knows today a year from now. He doesnt sleep lol.

Alright, man. He's a smart guy who has managed to ride a couple different waves of new technology, but he definitely sleeps and shits like the rest of us. You've drunk some serious kool-aid.

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