doshay at ursa.arc.nasa.gov (David Doshay) writes:
: Because M.D. Ross was the first reference in the posting, and I work in her
: lab at NASA Ames, I feel some need to post also. Dr. Ross is a neuroanatomist
: and we study nerves in the vestibular macula at the ultrastructural level.
:: First, I have never heard her refer to a DANN in the manner the post does, and in
: the post she is referenced right after this acronym.
:: Second, with respect to Ulf's posting, we do use both artificial neural net
: models as well as electrophysiological models here in the Biocomputation
: Center. There are some questions that are best answered with one of those models
: because they are too hard to answer with the other type. We have far more time
: in the 'real' models than the artificial, but some networking questions are
: still best posed in the context of an artificial neural net just because of
: the huge computational requirements for networks of more realistic nerves. We
: are, however, scaling up our 'real' models to ask such questions. In those cases
: we plan to burn several hundred hours of CRAY YMP time. Thank goodness (and the
: US taxpayers) that NASA has the supercomputers.
I just wanted to counter the view that Artificial Neural
Networks (ANN) are suitable to explain everything in the brain.
Further more, the posting I answered to referred to small
neural systems in simple organisms, and here, I don't see a
field for the application of ANN. I think of the stomatogastric
ganglion of the crab or the flight generator of the locust
when talking about small neural systems.
I'm aware that some work has been done with ANNs to simulate
large networks as in the human cortex.
But I didn't mind to present a view which was perhaps a little
one-sided, because I wanted to see the reactions, esp. of AI people.
But somehow, there was not much response, at least I saw
no other replies in bionet.neuroscience.
:: These statements are mine, and not those of the Biocomputation Center
:: David doshay at soma.arc.nasa.gov:: The thought police insist I tell you:
: my thoughts, not NASA's
--
Ulf R. Andrick andrick at rhrk.uni-kl.de
FB Biologie - Tierphysiologie
Universitaet Was du nicht selber weiszt,
D-W 6750 Kaiserslautern das muszt du dir erklaeren (Tegtmeier)
