Numbers on the mind: how maths can help explain the workings of our brain

Given that advanced mathematical training is critical for helping to solve some of the most challenging questions about the brain works, why are there so few mathematical neuroscientists?

I hated biology when I was a kid. It was too messy, too shallow, too unprincipled for my taste, and I gave up studying it at school almost as fast as I could.

Instead, I wanted to understand the general principles of how everything works. I wanted to be a theoretical physicist. A joint degree in maths and physics gave me a great education in the mathematical tools needed for modelling complicated phenomena.

But I also learned that physics had already been explored by too many great minds for the likes of me to make much of a contribution, so I looked for a new direction. Little did I realise this would take me back to biology.

more…

Hello Holidayers. We have etten sausages in white bread and some mini tomatoes. Not a very exciting meal tonight. I’m planning a veggie overload over the weekend with risotto and fettucine variations.

We have a new vehicle in the shed:

Long thinks it looks like a Pug version of a car. Tomorrow it will get a wash and a polish. Apparently I am needed to remove the oil filter because my hand is small enough to get in there.

buffy said:

Hello Holidayers. We have etten sausages in white bread and some mini tomatoes. Not a very exciting meal tonight. I’m planning a veggie overload over the weekend with risotto and fettucine variations.

We have a new vehicle in the shed:

Long thinks it looks like a Pug version of a car. Tomorrow it will get a wash and a polish. Apparently I am needed to remove the oil filter because my hand is small enough to get in there.

I had several serves of very tasty pea & onion soup.

That vehicle does look remarkably like the puggopotamus.

Sorry about all that, Crazy :)

It’s an interesting article and certainly very important work. Artificial consciousness is very unlikely to be feasible until we have a much better mathematical understanding of brain functioning.

Getting back to the number one.

We all die alone.

The door is only wide enough for one.

Bubblecar said:

buffy said:

Hello Holidayers. We have etten sausages in white bread and some mini tomatoes. Not a very exciting meal tonight. I’m planning a veggie overload over the weekend with risotto and fettucine variations.

We have a new vehicle in the shed:

Long thinks it looks like a Pug version of a car. Tomorrow it will get a wash and a polish. Apparently I am needed to remove the oil filter because my hand is small enough to get in there.

I had several serves of very tasty pea & onion soup.

That vehicle does look remarkably like the puggopotamus.

the car does look a bit pugsly? pugish? puggy, pugged pugging

CrazyNeutrino said:

Bubblecar said:

buffy said:

Hello Holidayers. We have etten sausages in white bread and some mini tomatoes. Not a very exciting meal tonight. I’m planning a veggie overload over the weekend with risotto and fettucine variations.

We have a new vehicle in the shed:

Long thinks it looks like a Pug version of a car. Tomorrow it will get a wash and a polish. Apparently I am needed to remove the oil filter because my hand is small enough to get in there.

I had several serves of very tasty pea & onion soup.

That vehicle does look remarkably like the puggopotamus.

the car does look a bit pugsly? pugish? puggy, pugged pugging

It’s all pugwash.

roughbarked said:

CrazyNeutrino said:

Bubblecar said:

I had several serves of very tasty pea & onion soup.

That vehicle does look remarkably like the puggopotamus.

the car does look a bit pugsly? pugish? puggy, pugged pugging

It’s all pugwash.

In cars pugs are Peugeots.

> why are there so few mathematical neuroscientists?

TIC. Because it’s applied maths?

I know a mathematician who has calculated the blood flow within the blood vessel network of the brain. That’s relatively easy because the network is known from medical imaging. The neural network of the brain is not known, so mathematicians have simplified it – too much IMHO.

/* Remarkably, the mathematical principles involved are related to the algorithms companies such as Google and Facebook now use to mine data from the internet. */

‘e means “unsurprisingly, …”

/* At the same time the big questions still loom large: How is information represented in the brain? How do we learn new information? How do we manage to remember any of it? */

Do they, I thought they were answered already.