2 THE HUMAN BRAIN

The human nervous system may be viewed as a three-stage system, as depicted in the block diagram of Fig. 1 (Arbib, 1987). Central to the system is the brain, represented by the neural (nerve) net, which continually receives information, perceives it, and makes appropriate decisions. Two sets of arrows are shown in the figure. Those pointing from left to right in-dicate the forward transmission of information-bearing signals through the system. The arrows pointing from right to left (shown in red) signify the presence of feedback in the sys-tem. The receptors convert stimuli from the human body or the external environment into electrical impulses that convey information to the neural net (brain). The effectors convert electrical impulses generated by the neural net into discernible responses as system outputs.

The struggle to understand the brain has been made easier because of the pio-neering work of Ramón y Cajál (1911), who introduced the idea of neurons as struc-tural constituents of the brain. Typically, neurons are five to six orders of magnitude slower than silicon logic gates; events in a silicon chip happen in the nanosecond range, whereas neural events happen in the millisecond range. However, the brain makes up for the relatively slow rate of operation of a neuron by having a truly staggering num-ber of neurons (nerve cells) with massive interconnections between them. It is estimated that there are approximately 10 billion neurons in the human cortex, and 60 trillion synapses or connections (Shepherd and Koch, 1990). The net result is that the brain is an enormously efficient structure. Specifically, the energetic efficiency of the brain is ap-proximately 10^-16joules (J) per operation per second, whereas the corresponding value for the best computers is orders of magnitude larger.

Synapses, or nerve endings, are elementary structural and functional units that me-diate the interactions between neurons. The most common kind of synapse is a chemical synapse, which operates as follows: A presynaptic process liberates a transmitter sub-stance that diffuses across the synaptic junction between neurons and then acts on a post-synaptic process. Thus a synapse converts a prepost-synaptic electrical signal into a chemical

Receptors

Stimulus Neural Response

net Effectors

FIGURE 1 Block diagram representation of nervous system.

signal and then back into a postsynaptic electrical signal (Shepherd and Koch, 1990). In electrical terminology, such an element is said to be a nonreciprocal two-port device. In traditional descriptions of neural organization, it is assumed that a synapse is a simple con-nection that can impose excitation or inhibition, but not both on the receptive neuron.

Earlier we mentioned that plasticity permits the developing nervous system to adapt to its surrounding environment (Eggermont, 1990; Churchland and Sejnowski, 1992). In an adult brain, plasticity may be accounted for by two mechanisms: the creation of new synaptic connections between neurons, and the modification of existing synapses.

Axons, the transmission lines, and dendrites, the receptive zones, constitute two types of cell filaments that are distinguished on morphological grounds; an axon has a smoother surface, fewer branches, and greater length, whereas a dendrite (so called because of its resemblance to a tree) has an irregular surface and more branches (Freeman, 1975).

Neurons come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes in different parts of the brain.

Figure 2 illustrates the shape of a pyramidal cell, which is one of the most common types of cortical neurons. Like many other types of neurons, it receives most of its inputs through dendritic spines; see the segment of dendrite in the insert in Fig. 2 for detail.

The pyramidal cell can receive 10,000 or more synaptic contacts, and it can project onto thousands of target cells.

The majority of neurons encode their outputs as a series of brief voltage pulses.

These pulses, commonly known as action potentials, or spikes,³originate at or close to the cell body of neurons and then propagate across the individual neurons at constant ve-locity and amplitude. The reasons for the use of action potentials for communication among neurons are based on the physics of axons. The axon of a neuron is very long and thin and is characterized by high electrical resistance and very large capacitance. Both of these elements are distributed across the axon. The axon may therefore be modeled as resistance-capacitance (RC) transmission line, hence the common use of “cable equa-tion” as the terminology for describing signal propagation along an axon.Analysis of this propagation mechanism reveals that when a voltage is applied at one end of the axon, it decays exponentially with distance, dropping to an insignificant level by the time it reach-es the other end. The action potentials provide a way to circumvent this transmission problem (Anderson, 1995).

In the brain, there are both small-scale and large-scale anatomical organizations, and different functions take place at lower and higher levels. Figure 3 shows a hierarchy of in-terwoven levels of organization that has emerged from the extensive work done on the analysis of local regions in the brain (Shepherd and Koch, 1990; Churchland and Sejnow-ski, 1992). The synapses represent the most fundamental level, depending on molecules and ions for their action. At the next levels, we have neural microcircuits, dendritic trees, and then neurons. A neural microcircuit refers to an assembly of synapses organized into patterns of connectivity to produce a functional operation of interest. A neural microcir-cuit may be likened to a silicon chip made up of an assembly of transistors.The smallest size of microcircuits is measured in micrometers (m), and their fastest speed of operation is measured in milliseconds. The neural microcircuits are grouped to form dendritic subunits within the dendritic trees of individual neurons.The whole neuron, about 100 m in size,con-tains several dendritic subunits.At the next level of complexity, we have local circuits (about 1 mm in size) made up of neurons with similar or different properties; these neural Section 2 The Human Brain 7

assemblies perform operations characteristic of a localized region in the brain.They are fol-lowed by interregional circuits made up of pathways, columns, and topographic maps, which involve multiple regions located in different parts of the brain.

Topographic maps are organized to respond to incoming sensory information.

These maps are often arranged in sheets, as in the superior colliculus, where the visual,

Dendritic spines

Synaptic inputs

Basal dendrites Cell

body Apical

dendrites

Axon

Synaptic terminals Segment of dendrite

FIGURE 2 The pyramidal cell.

auditory, and somatosensory maps are stacked in adjacent layers in such a way that stimuli from corresponding points in space lie above or below each other. Figure 4 presents a cytoarchitectural map of the cerebral cortex as worked out by Brodmann (Brodal, 1981). This figure shows clearly that different sensory inputs (motor, so-matosensory, visual, auditory, etc.) are mapped onto corresponding areas of the cere-bral cortex in an orderly fashion. At the final level of complexity, the topographic maps and other interregional circuits mediate specific types of behavior in the central nervous system.

It is important to recognize that the structural levels of organization described herein are a unique characteristic of the brain. They are nowhere to be found in a digi-tal computer, and we are nowhere close to re-creating them with artificial neural net-works. Nevertheless, we are inching our way toward a hierarchy of computational levels similar to that described in Fig. 3. The artificial neurons we use to build our neural networks are truly primitive in comparison with those found in the brain. The neural networks we are presently able to design are just as primitive compared with the local circuits and the interregional circuits in the brain. What is really satisfying, however, is the remarkable progress that we have made on so many fronts. With neurobiological analogy as the source of inspiration, and the wealth of theoretical and computational tools that we are bringing together, it is certain that our understanding of artificial neural networks and their applications will continue to grow in depth as well as breadth, year after year.

Section 2 The Human Brain 9

Central nervous system

Interregional circuits

Local circuits

Neurons

Dendritic trees

Neural microcircuits

Synapses

Molecules

FIGURE 3 Structural organization of levels in the brain.