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October / November 1976
From the book “Pharmacology and the Brain”: Since ancient times, medicines have been used to improve mental health or explore the mind. Homer’s doctor, Polydama, is said to have offered Menelaus and Helen “a medicine for grief and anger, a medicine for relief from despair” on their return to Troy. The number of mind-blowing drugs available today is countless. Some have changed the course of medical practice; others have changed the fabric of our society. Many have more action features and fewer side effects than ever before. The development of such drugs has paralleled our growing knowledge of how drugs work to change behavior at the molecular level. In this regard, one of the most fruitful research approaches has explored how nerve cells communicate with other cells in the body and how various drugs can alter this communication.
May / June 1987
From “Designing Computers That Think Like Us”: Neuroscientists have realized that the architecture of the brain is central to its function. Individual neurons are not intelligent on their own, but become highly intelligent when connected to each other. The problem is, no one knows how they do it. It’s not that neurons are fast: they’re 100,000 times slower than a typical computer switch in sending their electrochemical messages to other neurons. But what our brain lacks in speed, they make up in “wetware,” as it is sometimes called. The brain contains 10 billion to one trillion neurons, each of which can be connected to anywhere from 1,000 to 100,000. If this vast network of interconnected neurons makes up the great collective conspiracy we call our minds, perhaps a vast network of interconnected mechanical switches could make a thinking machine.
July / August 2014
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