Talk:Synaptic noise

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[edit] Noise, or oversimplification of neurons in current models?

It strikes me that most of the current models grossly oversimplify the neuron for the purposes of simulation of networks of neurons.

This notion seems vaguely similar to modeling the internet by means of studying the blinking lights on routers. Sure, extremely limited success with this model is possible, just as corresponding blinks between a terminal and a website often would often trigger blinks from associated image or advertisement hosting, assuming it was hosted on another machine, but it does very little to model the actual functioning of the internet or its intended purpose, since the only thing such a model would tend to predict is how it is connected to itself.

When one considers the ease with which a lone cell can act in a deliberate fashion to walk up a chemical gradient, while still being required to do all the other things necessary to remain a living cell and eventually reproduce, it seems silly to suppose that cells dedicated to the purpose of information processing that were not at least several orders of magnitude more complex in their internal functioning would have evolved at all. To reduce a neuron to handful of equations, even complicated ones, describing its input and output shows a lack of appreciation for the levels of functional complexity that should be expected to exist inside of a neuron. The biological machinery operating inside of a neuron should first be modeled, with attention paid to its functioning.