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International Journal of Machine Consciousness: Vol. 04, No. 01
Print ISSN: 1793-8430
Online ISSN: 1793-8473

 
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ELECTRON IMAGING TECHNOLOGY FOR WHOLE BRAIN NEURAL CIRCUIT MAPPING

KENNETH J. HAYWORTH

Center for Brain Science, Harvard University, 52 Oxford St. Northwest Bldg. 347.20, Cambridge MA 02138, USA

The goal of uploading a human mind into a computer is far beyond today's technology. But exactly how far? Here I review our best cognitive and neuroscience model of the mind and show that it is well suited to provide a framework to answer this question. The model suggests that our unique "software" is mainly digital in nature and is stored redundantly in the brain's synaptic connectivity matrix (i.e., our Connectome) in a way that should allow a copy to be successfully simulated. I review the resolution necessary for extracting this Connectome and conclude that today's FIBSEM technique already meets this requirement. I then sketch out a process capable of reducing a chemically-fixed, plastic-embedded brain into a set of tapes containing 20 × 20 micron tissue pillars optimally sized for automated FIBSEM imaging, and show how these tapes could be distributed among a large number of imaging machines to accomplish the task of extracting a Connectome. The scale of such an endeavor makes it impractical, but a version of this scheme utilizing a reduced number of imaging machines would allow for the creation of a "Connectome Observatory" — an important tool for neuroscience and a key milestone for mind uploading.

Keywords: Connectome; mind uploading; FIBSEM
Cited by (5):
. (2016) Mind-upload. The ultimate challenge to the embodied mind theory. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. Online publication date: 29-Mar-2016. [CrossRef]
. (2015) Uploading and Branching Identity. Minds and Machines 25:1, 17-36. Online publication date: 1-Feb-2015. [CrossRef]
, . (2015) Responses to catastrophic AGI risk: a survey. Physica Scripta 90:1, 018001. Online publication date: 1-Jan-2015. [CrossRef]
, , , , , . (2014) Input clustering and the microscale structure of local circuits. Frontiers in Neural Circuits 8. Online publication date: 12-Sep-2014. [CrossRef]
, . (2014) Exploring the third dimension: Volume electron microscopy comes of age. Micron 61, 9-19. Online publication date: 1-Jun-2014. [CrossRef]