neuroguy

This is a great service!

The combination of the style of Udacity and content of coursera would be an ideal combination. The idea of having tutors help through the tough material on the subjects as a source of revenue is great.

Interesting point, but the idea of learning excel is to learn computational thinking from an early age.

Any reason to think they are not going to do both? Before coursera exploded I had thought of doing something similar, and the eventual plan had been to provide the software to universities (for pay), but that was mainly to support the idea of great education for all.

Maybe try to explain what you are doing??

I used to use VNC viewer with ssh tunneling, I wonder if there is a way to do that with this extension... Switched to NX, but didn't set up the web viewer yet, so this would be an easy way to work on the road if could do ssh tunnel.

If there are horrible limitations, email Dr. Mike Hines or write some code that will fix it. It is open source.

Terribly old - But is being updated constantly, they are adding in the capabilities to explicitly (in hoc or python) add in chemical reaction schemes. Some interesting research is being worked on in that regard at the moment.

It would be worthwhile to get some more CS guys in the field. Agreed. Please join us :)

I don't think there is much debate about it. I think it is fairly obvious that this project will advance neuroscience quite a bit, even if it would be a smarter choice to start with the C. Elgans. A project like this, putting together what we currently know from experimentation is the necessary next step. Will it bring the massive game changing understanding of the brain that it is hoped, who knows.

It is for exactly this reason that the people of http://www.neuroml.org/ are doing their work. Good catch! To combine and place everything in one overarching language that can be used in any of the many Brain Simulators. There are many each with their own advantages, which is why there are so many different languages.

Indeed it does. If you want to see open source models of the brain check out: http://senselab.med.yale.edu/modeldb/ListByModelName.asp?c=1...

That is part of what we are trying to find out. We know a lot, but it isn't organized. Lets put together all that we have, and see what is still missing.

The argument is partially like that, but the more complete version is: 1) We know a lot about brain cognition through psychology, AI etc 2) We know a lot about how people process from all the years of expermentation. 3) The big things we don't know, is exactly what the role of the cell is, or how it processes. For example, is it they synchronous firing of cells that allows us to experience? What is actually going on in all those billions of cells etc. 4) We know a lot about the electrical activity in the brain, some about the molecular and chemical processes etc, but what we don't have is an overarching way of putting all this together, so we know what we are looking at. 5) We don't know what C. Elgans think about or what causes them to do things, so we will have a harder time understanding what exactly makes them tick.

I apologize if there is repetition, unclear lines, or bad reasoning, I am in the middle of running some brain simulations, and had a minute while it ran.

From the website: http://www.humanbrainproject.eu/ict_platform.html Neuroinformatics Platform, Brain Simulation Platform, Medical Informatics Platform

Extremely useful platforms that should be open. In addition to which I agree with you that they should allow access to their papers.

From the FAQ - Why not begin with simple organisms like C.elegans?

There are two problems here. The first is feasibility; the second is the relevance of our results. Feasibility. Neuroscientists have mapped all of C.elegans’ 300 or so neurons. However, enormous amounts of key data needed are still missing. For instance we do not have enough data on the physiology and pharmacology of C. Elegans neurons and synapses. And we still have limited data on the distribution of ion channels, receptors and other proteins on neurons, synapses and glia. Without this data we cannot build unifying models. A second problem is how easy it is to obtain the data. The crucial requirement for unifying models is the ability to access the data needed. Obtaining a deep understanding of the molecular machinery of a single neuron or a single synapse is just as difficult in C. Elegans as in human beings. And many datasets – particularly data on cognition - are actually easier to acquire in rodents, or even in humans. So we can’t just say: “let’s do this quickly in worms and do complex brains later”: we have to solve the same basic challenges, whatever brain we model. What we are actually doing is building a generic strategy we can use to reconstruct any brain.

Relevance: Studying the “simple” nervous systems of organisms like C.elegans or drosophila, is obviously very important, particularly for molecular and genetic studies. However the organization, electrophysiology and function of the mammalian brain are quite different. One of the HBP’s most important goals is to contribute to the development of new treatments for brain disease. But pharmaceutical companies already have great difficulties in translating results from mouse to human beings; with simpler organisms these problems become much worse. If we want to make a real contribution to clinical research, it is probably unwise to invest heavily in simple systems, so distant from the human brain.

That's great news. Means people are interested. Can't wait to see the idea when it is back up.

Application Error

Not dumb. I only discovered Linkedin Python groups yesterday. I didn't mean to come off as condescending.

True. A search for python tutorial returns the official python tutorial. But, I hear your point. It should be added, or a least a link to the very beginner material should be provided.

Where are you looking? There is a massive community of python developers on linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=25827

Find programming projects that you want to work on, and just start programming. Sometimes you will need to look up how to do X every line and sometimes every 5 lines, but the way to learn to program is by getting started and getting used to structures and control.

Super Beginner stuff is on the standard python tutorial. That normally doesn't need to be on every website.