Neuroscience
Spintronics is a new paradigm of electronics based on the spin degree of freedom of the electron. Either adding the spin degree of freedom to conventional charge-based electronic devices or using the spin alone has the potential advantages of nonvolatility, increased data processing speed, decreased electric power consumption, and increased integration densities compared with conventional semiconductor devices.
All spintronic devices act according to the simple scheme: (1) information is stored (written) into spins as a particular spin orientation (up or down), (2) the spins, being attached to mobile electrons, carry the information along a wire, and (3) the information is read at a terminal. Spin orientation of conduction electrons survives for a relatively long time (nanoseconds, compared to tens of femtoseconds during which electron momentum decays), which makes spintronic devices particularly attractive for memory storage and magnetic sensors applications, and, potentially for quantum computing where electron spin would represent a bit (called qubit) of information.
Given the incredible intricacies of the brain's ultrastructure and the billions of years it has had to evolve, it is conceivable that the brain may utilize spintronics. Of course, any talk of quantum mechanical effects in the brain is often greeted with scepticism, thanks to the shameless shenanigans of Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff involving Bose-Einstein condensates and microtubules. However, there may be a role for quantum mechanical effects in neural computation yet. The 'brain as spintronic device' idea is speculative, but perhaps worth further consideration, bearing in mind that one potential problem with spintronics is whether spin states are stable long enough to be used in neural computation.
- Interview With Steven Hackworth
Steven Hackworth is a Ph.D candidate at the University of Pittsburgh who worked on the DBS-RF (a wireless deep brain stimulator) as well as the Radio Frequency-powered Neural Stimulator (RFNS) vagus nerve stimulator system. He's now doing research...
- Are You Thinking What I Say You're Thinking?
The idea that your brain contains information that ‘you’ cannot access is, of course, not new – Freud wrote about that years ago; and neither is it an unfamiliar phenomenon in our everyday lives – how often do we struggle to find a word that we...
- Fda Public Meeting On Computerized Cognitive Assessment
Public Workshop - Neurodiagnostics and Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation Medical Devices Workshop, November 19-20, 2015 Meeting homepage with links to agenda, background papers, and webcast streams from the meeting. [snip] "The Food and Drug Administration...
- Memory And Quantum Entanglement
From The Guardian's ScienceBlog, 27 August 2009: Is quantum mechanics messing with your memory? For all we know we may live in a world in which windows un-break and cold cups of coffee spontaneously heat up, we just don't remember. The explanation...
- Brains Don't Have To Be Computers (a Purple Peril)
A common response to the claim that we are not information processors is that this simply cannot be true, because it is self-evidently the case that brains are transforming and processing information - they are performing computations. Greg Hickok throws...
Neuroscience
Is the Brain a Spintronic Device?
Spintronics is a new paradigm of electronics based on the spin degree of freedom of the electron. Either adding the spin degree of freedom to conventional charge-based electronic devices or using the spin alone has the potential advantages of nonvolatility, increased data processing speed, decreased electric power consumption, and increased integration densities compared with conventional semiconductor devices.
All spintronic devices act according to the simple scheme: (1) information is stored (written) into spins as a particular spin orientation (up or down), (2) the spins, being attached to mobile electrons, carry the information along a wire, and (3) the information is read at a terminal. Spin orientation of conduction electrons survives for a relatively long time (nanoseconds, compared to tens of femtoseconds during which electron momentum decays), which makes spintronic devices particularly attractive for memory storage and magnetic sensors applications, and, potentially for quantum computing where electron spin would represent a bit (called qubit) of information.
Given the incredible intricacies of the brain's ultrastructure and the billions of years it has had to evolve, it is conceivable that the brain may utilize spintronics. Of course, any talk of quantum mechanical effects in the brain is often greeted with scepticism, thanks to the shameless shenanigans of Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff involving Bose-Einstein condensates and microtubules. However, there may be a role for quantum mechanical effects in neural computation yet. The 'brain as spintronic device' idea is speculative, but perhaps worth further consideration, bearing in mind that one potential problem with spintronics is whether spin states are stable long enough to be used in neural computation.
- Interview With Steven Hackworth
Steven Hackworth is a Ph.D candidate at the University of Pittsburgh who worked on the DBS-RF (a wireless deep brain stimulator) as well as the Radio Frequency-powered Neural Stimulator (RFNS) vagus nerve stimulator system. He's now doing research...
- Are You Thinking What I Say You're Thinking?
The idea that your brain contains information that ‘you’ cannot access is, of course, not new – Freud wrote about that years ago; and neither is it an unfamiliar phenomenon in our everyday lives – how often do we struggle to find a word that we...
- Fda Public Meeting On Computerized Cognitive Assessment
Public Workshop - Neurodiagnostics and Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation Medical Devices Workshop, November 19-20, 2015 Meeting homepage with links to agenda, background papers, and webcast streams from the meeting. [snip] "The Food and Drug Administration...
- Memory And Quantum Entanglement
From The Guardian's ScienceBlog, 27 August 2009: Is quantum mechanics messing with your memory? For all we know we may live in a world in which windows un-break and cold cups of coffee spontaneously heat up, we just don't remember. The explanation...
- Brains Don't Have To Be Computers (a Purple Peril)
A common response to the claim that we are not information processors is that this simply cannot be true, because it is self-evidently the case that brains are transforming and processing information - they are performing computations. Greg Hickok throws...