The Brain is an extremely complex organ, I read somewhere if it were simple to understand the brain, we’d be too simple to understand it.
Is everyone’s brain different? Or we are given the same ingredients to build whatever brain we want and our environment, genetics and choices do the building for us? I feel this is it. On the foundation, we have the same brains but every day we make choices that alter that slightly.
When I was an adolescent, I had a school teacher who told me our brains stopped growing when we reached 21 and it made me panic. I felt I had only till 21 to learn anything and after that, I’d be stuck. Imagine how scary that was for me. It gave me an urge to consume and learn as much as I could.
Growing up, I learned about neuroplasticity, what is neuroplasticity you might ask? To put it in simple words, the neurons in your brain can change and adapt.
Neurons are the powerhouse of the brain. They are what makes the brain a brain. I started to put my neuroplasticity to the test and at some point started challenging myself to see what abstract concept I could learn. And let me tell you, there is no limit. Well if you eat right, exercise, and get enough rest, you too could have a super brain like mine.
Where Does Machine Learning Come in?
Okay, so Computers are like brains right? Well yes and no. They can compute accurately but when it comes to complex things they are “mid” or even “simple”.
Imagine you could combine the two? The accurate computing power of a Computer and the ability to deal with the complexities of a brain?? Let’s take it a bit further, Imagine you could train this brain with knowledge from the computer? So you have Machine Learning Algorithms which you give to the brain to learn and make decisions from. Just Imagine that?
It doesn’t seem so far-fetched especially because neurons communicate via electrical Impulses and guess what? These can be converted to code and from code.
This is the point where we start talking about Neuralinks and GPUs. Everyone’s trying to save costs on GPUs especially when running Machine Learning Algorithms. What if we use the brain instead? Okay, not a literal brain but an Organoid?
Organoids and Machine Learning
Okay so now we understand that neurons are in the brain and they help the brain carry out its function. We also understand that neurons can learn and generate new neurons based on that knowledge. We also know that brains and Computer algorithms can communicate through electrical impulses.
We also know that we can not get literal living brains from thin air and no one will donate their brains to science for research (Although we all wish people could do this because we know someone that doesn’t use their brain for shit)
Anyways, enter Organoids. What are Organoids you might ask, very good question. An Organoid is an artificially grown organ from a mass of cells. So imagine you get liver cells (which are called hepatocytes) and these cells are grown to form a whole liver and carry out the activities of a liver. Is it a liver? Technically yes also technically No. Anyways that’s what an Organoid is.
An Organoid Brain is a Brain that is artificially grown in the lab from brain cells so that way we can carry out research on them without putting anyone at risk. We all know a movie about bad research in the laboratory gone wrong. Inserts gigantic side-eye.
Purpose??
All these knowledge but how does it affect our daily lives? How does increase the quality of life we have? As a Doctor, the first thing that comes to my mind whenever someone mentions the human body and machine learning is precision medicine. Imagine getting a treatment and management plan based on you specifically, Like scans are made of your brain and these scans tell your brain makeup and what management plan it’ll most likely respond to so no general or blanket treatment?
This Post is already long enough, let's make it the end for now.