Plato’s work suggests that every experience triggers change in the brain, a process fundamentally linked to memory – specifically, long-term memory.
Andre fenton, a professor of neural science at new York University, and Abhishek Kumar, assistant professor of cell and regenerative biology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, are currently investigating this phenomenon at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
“My life’s work centers on understanding how minds function, and notably on unraveling the complexities of memory – not just as a record of the past, but as the brain’s prediction of the future,” Fenton explained.
The researchers have considerably advanced their project by utilizing NVIDIA RTX GPUs and HP Z Workstations to visualize vast datasets. They’ve also integrated custom AI tools and syGlass, a virtual-reality (VR) platform designed for scientific exploration.
This research is further supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
A Neural Forest Uncovered
The brain’s hippocampus is responsible for memory formation. This C-shaped structure, often likened to a seahorse, is the primary focus of the MBL research team.
Fenton describes the cells within the hippocampus as a dense forest, where billions of neurons resemble tiny tree trunks and their branching extensions look like leaves.
The team is studying a small fraction of these “leaves” – representing protein markers.This is an incredibly detailed task,as these markers are only about a micrometer in length.Researchers must meticulously search through the complex network of brain cells to locate the specific protein markers, which constitute only around 1% of all protein markers in the hippocampus.
The researchers aimed to streamline the process of studying these proteins and deciphering what their varying structures might reveal about memory encoding.
Gathering and analyzing sufficient 3D volumetric data on protein markers presented a meaningful challenge until NVIDIA and HP technologies were incorporated into their workflow.
“This is a significant computational undertaking, and the HP and NVIDIA technologies have enabled us to accomplish the initial step: capturing, verifying, and storing the 3D image data,” Fenton stated.
Using these technologies, the M
Worth a look