Maybe, just maybe. Ok I'll stop there, add your comment

[tay]

Canadian scientists create a functioning, virtual brain

Chris Eliasmith has spent years contemplating how to build a brain.

He is about to publish a book with instructions, which describes the grey matter’s architecture and how the different components interact.

“Then I thought the only way people are going to believe me is if I demonstrate it,” says the University of Waterloo neuroscientist.

So Eliasmith’s team built Spaun, which was billed Thursday as “the world’s largest simulation of a functioning brain.”

Spaun can recognize numbers, remember lists and write them down. It even passes some basic aspects of an IQ test, the team reports in the journal Science.

Several labs are working on large models of the brain– including the multi-million-dollar Blue Brain Project in Europe – but these can’t see, remember or control limbs, says Eliasmith.

Canadian scientists create a functioning, virtual brain

 

[SLM]

That's interesting. Particularly these (potential) applications

He says such brain simulations might one day be used to better understand and model neurological disorders and diseases and to improve “machine intelligence.”

Dealing with two individuals within the family, one with Alzheimers and the other with MS, I find it hopeful I suppose that one day we might better be able to understand the brain, it's functions and how we might be able to intervene when diseases attack and impair those functions.

Of course, on the 'machine intelligence' aspect, and this part I just couldn't resist, one can't help but wonder if we're talking about "I Robot" or "Terminator", lol.