Learning with the Fang

I once heard a suggestion that a single human brain can store more information than there are atoms in the universe. I tucked it away in the ’sounds to interesting to be true’ and ‘there is something funky about neural networks, the social web and stigmergy’ corner of my brian. Then I heard something very similar in a podcast and would like your help to do some fact checking on this ‘mind-blowing’ assertion

Crank up this video of v s ramachandran talking at educause08 and skip to slide #21/64 .

- 100 billiion neurons in adult human nervous system

- each neuron can connect 1,000 – 10,000 synapses with adjacent neurons

- this enables more ‘brain states’ in a single human than there are elementary particles in the universe!

So, who is this v s ramachandran ?

• Director of a brain institute at a US university
• With lots of stuff written about him!
• And a Ted talk (downloading as we speak)
• AH, the ‘mirror neuron’ man (an important part of my wife’s life as a therapist)
• More videos
• A book
• Illusions

What have others had to say about this claim?

UPDATE:

Over the holiday break I read “The BRAIN That CHANGES ITSELF” Doidge – an interesting meander around the idea of neuro plasticity. V S Ramachandran gets a mention, as does A Universe Of Consciousness How Matter Becomes Imagination (Paperback) by Gerald Edelman, Giulio Tononi. On p38 of Edelman’s book you will find something along the lines of “If we considered the number of possible neural circuits, we would be dealing with hyper-astronomical numbers: 10 followed by at least a million zeros. (There are 10 followed by  79 zeros, give or take a few, of particles in the known universe).

What do you think?

Fang – Mike Seyfang