bloom america

The superior colliculus, located on the dorsal side of the upper midbrain, is a hierarchical structure composed of gray matter and white matter arranged alternately. It can be divided into superficial structures and deep structures, collectively called the superior colliculus nucleus.

Leonard took his two children into the laboratory...

"Are these your children, Leonard? They are so cute!"

The people in the laboratory greeted Leonard, but they didn't notice that the expression on Leonard's face was so heavy.

"Yes, this is my son, Leonard Testarossa, and this is my daughter, Tessa Testarossa."

The son is Leonard Jr., and the daughter's name is also very cute.

But the staff was surprised: because these two people did not have Leonard's last name!

"This is to commemorate their mother." Leonard said tenderly.

Mother?

They were all quite puzzled.

Later, someone found out what was going on.

——His wife died in childbirth...

What's even more frightening is that Leonard's two children also suffered medical accidents during childbirth.

Although the two children are now healthy, their eyes are dull.

——Palino syndrome.

Parrino syndrome, also known as epithalamic syndrome, midbrain tegmental syndrome, and superior upward paralysis syndrome.

Vertical eye movement disorder caused by subcortical center lesions of the vertical eye movement in the superior colliculus of the midbrain. Destructive lesions involving the superior colliculus can lead to inability to move both eyes upward in the same direction.

But... there is still a chance!

Trim broken neural connections with magnetic pulses, and that's the beginning.

"They can serve as volunteers. I hope to be able to cure their diseases."

Leonard's words made the staff in the research laboratory a little overwhelmed.

But the other party believes that this can be changed.

Honeycomb Labs believes that low-intensity pulses can reverse developmental abnormalities, while Leonard believes that damage to the nervous system itself cannot be repaired. However, through this model, treatment seems to be possible.

At this point, some people reluctantly agreed... to conduct experiments with two children.

But they don't know that this is just the beginning.

From the beginning, Leonard did not focus solely on this place.

There are two types of afferent fibers in the superior colliculus.

First, the superficial structures receive fibers projected from the retina through the optic tract and superior colliculus arm, and also receive projection fibers from the visual area of ​​the cerebral cortex and the motor center of the extraocular muscles.

Then the deep structures receive projection fibers from the auditory center of the cerebral cortex, inferior colliculus, trigeminal spinal tract nucleus and spinal cord.

At the same time, there are three types of efferent fibers in the superior colliculus.

The first is the projection fibers from the superior thalamus to the thalamus. Through the thalamus, it transmits information about the speed and direction of eyeball rotation to the cerebral cortex.

The second one is the projection fibers from the superior colliculus to the spinal cord, which go forward around the periaqueductal gray matter in the midbrain and cross the ventral midline of the periaqueductal gray matter in the lower part of the superior colliculus to form a dorsal tegmental cross.

, the pons and medulla oblongata descend, and then reach down to the middle zone of the cervical cervical segment of the spinal cord and the medial part of the anterior horn, which is called the tectospinal tract.

The last one is the projection fiber to the brainstem. It ends in the paramedian pontine reticular formation and the cranial intermediary nucleus of the medial longitudinal fasciculus related to the vertical and horizontal rotation of the extraocular motor nuclei of the eyeball.

The superficial and deep structures of the superior colliculus can integrate different modes of incoming information. Through their ascending and descending projections, they participate in the control of the extraocular muscle motor center of the cerebral cortex on rapid vertical and horizontal movements of the eyeballs, and participate in the coordination of the eyeballs and head.

The directional movement of the body in response to sound and light stimulation.

Synesthesia.

Or in Leonard's eyes, this is a kind of strengthening of the human body. It is not "sympathy" in the traditional sense.

The "synesthesia" that Catherine calls has surpassed the "synesthesia" of the existing human hostages and has entered a new state.

In Leonard's opinion, he can definitely let his children have such power...

Yes, they can also have this magical ability...

This is beyond doubt.

Leonard does not know the deeper technology of the hive like Jenny, but at this level, it is enough.

Leonard has his own way.

What is nanotechnology?

Nanotechnology is the science and technology of manufacturing substances using single atoms and molecules, and studies the properties and applications of materials with structural dimensions in the range of 0.1 to 100 nanometers.

With today's technology, it is somewhat difficult to engage in nanotechnology.

But the school district is different, and the Hive Laboratory is also different.

Many times, the improvement of technology is like the barrel, the water inside depends on the shortest piece of wood.

The school district has brought together most of America's elites. They may not be able to make the longest board much higher, but they can make the shortest board taller than it originally was.

Carbon nanotubes, graphene, these are the latest and most cutting-edge technologies.

In other places, it may take a long time from discovery to research of these technologies.

But in the school district, it's different.

We have the best and most cutting-edge technology here.

So in this place, technology is making rapid progress.

While allowing his children to undergo experiments, Leonard also began his own research.

Leonard has been conducting his own research since a few years ago - to be precise, since the beginning of the brain broadcast system.

——Since only people with specific brainwaves can receive their own signals, why not start from a more basic place?

Since you can’t make ordinary people receive specific signals, why not just create tools that can allow people to receive signals!

At this time, carbon nanotubes, which belong to the field of nanotechnology, came into his sight.

Renard used carbon nanotubes to build a carbon nanotube synapse circuit.

In experiments, this circuit exhibited the functions of neurons, the basic building blocks of the brain.

At that time, Leonard felt very surprised, and he has been conducting such research since then.

Computer systems inspired Leonard a lot, and he used interdisciplinary research methods to combine circuit design and nanotechnology to solve the complex problem of brain function.

Carbon nanotubes are extremely small carbon molecular structures, one millionth the diameter of a pencil tip. These nanotubes can be used in circuits, acting as metallic conductors or semiconductors.

——Of course. If it becomes a compound of tempered carbon nanotube fibers, the conductive properties will disappear.

At that time, Leonard was very ambitious. With his sudden achievements, Leonard was no longer satisfied with creating a "brain receiver". At this time, he was thinking about whether he could build a circuit to make it function as a neuron.

?

The next step is even more complicated. How do you use these circuits to build structures that mimic the functions of a brain with 100 billion neurons, each with 10,000 synapses?

It can be said that since that time, Leonard has been studying the possibility of developing artificial brains.

Perhaps for others, it will take decades to truly develop an artificial brain or even just a certain functional area of ​​the brain.

But for Leonard and Hive Labs, it's completely different.

The existence of repair proteins allows them to maintain the activity of the organism while conducting brain research.

This means that they can observe the results they want anytime and anywhere.

How will different artificial nerves behave at different locations, and what do different nerves mean to the human body...

These can be said to be all research fields and scopes.

However, throughout a person's life, the human brain continues to create new neurons, establish new connections, and adjust. Replicating this process using similar circuits will be a huge project.

Leonard thought so too at the time.

However, after his child had an accident, Leonard abandoned his past thoughts and understandings: Maybe there is a better way.

Complete removal and replacement is not required.

As long as it can extend some functions, that's fine.

It can replace part of the functions of the human body and make the human body more powerful. This is fine.

That's right, Leonard's crazy thoughts want to do exactly this.

——Artificial nerve.

Yes, artificial nervous system.

To this end, Leonard even found Intel, Microsoft, Apple and Orange...

Because they are developing a system that uses supercomputers to simulate the human brain.

In Leonard's view, this seems to be of reference significance.

This plan was proposed by Catherine.

As far as Catherine knows, in the 21st century, IBM had conducted such research and it was successful.

——IBM invented the world's largest human brain simulation project "Pass". They used the world's second-ranked supercomputer sequoia-blue-gene at the time.

q and a new low-power computer architecture have finally simulated 530 billion neurons and 137 trillion synapses equivalent to the human brain, taking an important step towards a true "artificial brain".

The human brain may be the most complex existence in the universe, but it is also very energy-efficient. The human brain can collect thousands of sensory signals at the same time, judge and analyze them, and transform concrete perceptions into abstract concepts.

Learn, plan and create along the way.

Even with the technological level of the 21st century, building a computer with the same complexity as the human brain would require an energy supply of nearly 100 megawatts.

The human brain only needs 20 watts of power to carry out all these activities.

Such a huge energy consumption is obviously unrealistic.

To solve this problem, Fang Zhouzhou Group needs a new set of ideas.

Catherine unscrupulously "used doctrine".

"Cognitive computing". This new field embodies research results from the fields of neuroscience, nanotechnology and supercomputers. In the 21st century, IBM used such a computing model, and Catherine simply

"Learned" from it.

Neuroscientists have discovered that the reason why the human brain is so energy-efficient is that it is "event-driven."

Simply put, neurons, synapses and axons are only activated when receiving sensory signals or signals from other neurons, and they do not consume energy at other times. Compared with them. Today's computers

Wasted a lot of energy

Inspired by this principle, engineers at Fang Zhouzhou Group developed a novel computing architecture and theory, and used it to simulate a number of neurons and synapses equivalent to the human brain.

In terms of biological meaning or functionality, this achievement is not an accurate simulation of the brain. Although this system is not yet able to perform any traditional activities such as perception, thinking, and concept formation, it is moving towards this goal.

A crucial step forward.

It is used to expand the brain structure of the human body, which is not very needed.

Maybe...a small chip will do.

And Leonard knew that there happened to be such a chip in the laboratory.

——Experimental processing system made of carbon nanotubes.

This kind of system is countless times more powerful than today's supercomputers, but its energy consumption is extremely low. This is also the product they obtained after having repair proteins.

If such a system is combined with a protruding network similar to the human body, why not?

But...the problem arises at this time: the research initially started with monkeys.

Although the Honeycomb Laboratory is very good. It finally obtained a set of usable data and established the theory of "artificial brain" on this basis, but... after all, it is a structure similar to the monkey brain.

If this kind of thing is to be installed in your child's body, this is absolutely unacceptable!

At this time, Leonard could only contact the Hive Laboratory on his own - he wanted a few death row prisoners or other people to use for human experiments.

Of course, Hive Lab couldn't decide this matter, so Catherine knew about the whole thing.

“It seems so interesting!!”

This was the first reaction of Catherine in China after hearing the news.

"Is he crazy?"

This was Catherine's second reaction...well, this should be a normal reaction.

Catherine also knew about the artificial brain plan.

This artificial brain system is composed of two main components: neurons and synapses.

Neurons are computational centers. Each neuron can receive signals from up to ten thousand neighboring neurons, which it then processes and outputs another signal. About 80% of neurons are excitatory. When

When they send out a signal, surrounding neurons are also activated. The remaining 20% ​​of neurons are inhibitory, and when they send out a signal, the neighboring neurons that receive the signal are inhibited.

The function of synapses is to connect different neurons. Memory and learning also occur with the formation of synapses. Each synapse has a "weight value". This weight value is determined by the signal passing through a certain synapse.

Determined by quantity. When a large number of signals pass through a certain synapse, the weight value of this synapse will increase, and this is how this virtual brain performs "associative learning".

The system's algorithm periodically checks to see if a neuron is sending a signal. If it is, the weights of the synapses around the neuron are adjusted, and they are then matched to each other based on this new state.

The key advantage of this algorithm is that it does not waste time and energy on a large number of synapses, but only spends limited computing power on a small number of synapses that need to be activated.

——Just like a real brain, this computing architecture is distributed, event-driven, and very energy-efficient. At the same time, it can also bypass many of the limitations inherent in traditional computing architectures.

However, Catherine's original intention in developing it was not to create an artificial brain.

This is for the cyber body.

From the very beginning of the research on neural computers, Catherine’s consideration was to use them in cyberbodies.

But... Leonard's request gave Catherine new inspiration.

Maybe... this kind of system can have other uses?

Might neural computers be able to produce some wonderful effects?

"Electronic brain", a concept originating from "Ghost in the Shell", appeared in Catherine's mind again.

Therefore, Catherine's reply to Leonard was only one sentence: "Do it well".

As for human trials and stuff...

This is a little problematic, but definitely not a big problem.

Catherine directly took out two courses of "Code A" medicine, and directly reached an agreement with the California government. They agreed to Catherine's use of death row prisoners for experiments...

After receiving the reply, Leonard was shocked!

Of course, he didn't say that he was planning to install this system on his children, but this did not affect Catherine's interest in the whole plan.

After that, Leonard began to cooperate with Intel and develop a new "synaptic core".

This is a specially designed chip that can fully unleash the potential of the new computing architecture. Similarly, this chip can also be implanted into the human brain and linked with the human brain.

In the "synaptic core", each core is composed of "neurons", "synapses" and "axons". Although they are so named, these components are not actually designed to imitate the structure of the biological brain.

However, the mutual composition of these cores forms a computing network similar to the human brain.

This design allows the chip to have extremely high parallelism, which makes it very suitable for processing calculations that require large amounts of data input. This is not much different from a standard neural computing network, but the processing performance and energy utilization efficiency of the new system are.

A big improvement.

At the same time, this is also very "compatible" with the human brain. In other words, if Leonard's children install this system, they will be like installing a super micro machine in their brains.

Like computers, this kind of microcomputer can help them do many things that ordinary people cannot do - for example, giving them more powerful computing and learning capabilities.

In Leonard's view, if such research could be carried out, synesthesia would not be a problem.

It's like "synesthesia"

Three points determine a line, which means that three points can determine a straight line.

The same is true for synesthesia.

Humans have vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.

In Leonard's view, if one has synesthesia, people can understand the world with the help of other senses.

This is similar to what Jenny told Catherine.

However, Leonard's idea is even crazier...

…

{PiaoTian Literature www.PiaoTian.com thanks all book friends for their support, your support is our biggest motivation}