merkle@parc.xerox.com (01/12/91)
The concept of "reverse engineering" the brain has been around for a while. I wrote a paper on the subject a few years ago. The basic idea is simple: transmission electron microscopy provides good enough resolution that the recovery of neural structure is feasible. If you have lots of electron microscopes..... It seems likely that the basic technology for the analysis will be available in 20 years, using simple and very conservative extrapolations of present technical capabilities. The estimated price is about one billion dollars. This is the same price range as other major scientific projects, e.g., the human genome project, putting a man on the moon, etc. The critical pacing technology will be image analysis software capable of dealing with electron micrographs of neural tissue. The paper is 27 pages long and has over 100 references. For a copy, mail a letter to: Xerox PARC Attn: CSL receptionist 3333 Coyote Hill Road Palo Alto, CA 94304 and request the CSL Blue and White: "Large Scale Analysis of Neural Structures" by Ralph C. Merkle CSL-89-10 November 1989 [P89-00173]