Of toasters and molecular ticker tapes.

Of toasters and molecular ticker tapes.

Blog Article

Experiments in systems neuroscience can be seen as consisting of three steps: (1) selecting the signals we are interested in, (2) probing the Piggy Banks system with carefully chosen stimuli, and (3) getting data out of the brain.Here I discuss how emerging techniques in molecular biology are starting to improve these three steps.To estimate its future impact on experimental neuroscience, I will stress the analogy of ongoing progress with that of microprocessor production techniques.These techniques have allowed computers to simplify countless problems; because they are easier to use than mechanical timers, they are even built into toasters.

Molecular biology may advance even faster than computer speeds and has made immense progress Push + Pull in understanding and designing molecules.These advancements may in turn produce impressive improvements to each of the three steps, ultimately shifting the bottleneck from obtaining data to interpreting it.