Word: neuronal
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Spinning Rabbits. The neuron's basic function is to transmit "nerve impulses" by high-speed electrochemical reactions. Hyden's team devised an ingenious way to find out what happens to nerve cells when they receive a stimulus. The scientists spun rabbits on a centrifuge, just fast enough to make them dizzy and cause the cells in the acoustic nerve and the vestibular apparatus of the inner ear (a center of balance) to stimulate the brain with a sense of distress. Then they painlessly killed the animals and analyzed the nerve cells...
...next step is machines that can do more than answer just yes or no; they would, in effect, reason by considering alternatives, reach "under the circumstances" conclusions. Bell has already reconstructed a neuron, the basic element of the human brain, electronically, will ..try linking several together in a "neural net" duplicating nerve tissue. Eventually they hope to devise a computer able to freely associate ideas. IBM and others are trying to control molecules to work as a new kind of transistor, make a computer whose components will "feel" each other's information, come to qualitative decisions...