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deepobedience8 karma

Electrophysiologist (and bad computation modeler) here. Something I've never gotten about large scale non-biophysical (i.e. not hodgkin-huxley) brain models, is what is the point? I can see the point of one built to be as biologically realistic as possible, i.e. once we think we know all of the cellular properties of the brain, if we put together a biologically accurate model, if it doesn't recapitulate brain function, then we plainly don't know everything.

However, with your simple spiking cells, put together in a minimalistic fashion.. well, if it doesn't work, you just just fiddle with some connection weightings, or numbers or spiking properties, and kinda hope that it works. That is to say: your properties are weakly constrained.

If you are simply saying, "Oh we're only minimally interested in answering fundamental neuroscience questions, and are more interested in new ways of solving problems computationally" then I get you. But if that is not the case, what are you trying to learn about the brain by doing this?