Thursday, November 11, 2010

Wiring diagram of the brain

This sounds like something every stroke researcher should be doing after the protocols they are testing, mainly to figure out where the changes are occurring. The other thing to work on would be to find those survivors that have completely recovered and scan their brains with this to find out where neuroplasticity has moved the dead functions. If only I could figure out a way to get this type of question in front of those stroke researchers. If anyone has a clue please email me. I will stick my neck out to anyone including the stroke associations.
A Wiring Diagram of the Brain
New technologies that allow scientists to trace the fine wiring of the brain more accurately than ever before could soon generate a complete wiring diagram--including every tiny fiber and miniscule connection--of a piece of brain. Dubbed connectomics, these maps could uncover how neural networks perform their precise functions in the brain, and they could shed light on disorders thought to originate from faulty wiring, such as autism and schizophrenia.
The brain is essentially a computer that wires itself up during development and can rewire itself," says Sebastian Seung, a computational neuroscientist at MIT. "If we have a wiring diagram of the brain, that could help us understand how it works." For example, scientists previously identified the part of the songbird's brain that is important in the birds' ability to generate songs. Seung would ultimately like to develop a wiring diagram of this structure in order to elucidate the features underlying its unique capability.
I know this is probably decades away but if we(survivors) don't start putting future goals out there like President Kennedy did for the moon landing we won't ever get there. Stay tuned, I'll figure out some way to get a set of goals started.
I  sent an email to Mr. Seung thanking him for his work on this and pointing out the usefulness of using this for stroke rehabilitation research. We have to get stroke  rehab research in front of everyone possible so if you see an opportunity to suggest something that may help  stroke research please point it out to the persons involved. The squeaky wheel does get oiled and I plan on screeching like Red River oxcarts.

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