Communications of the ACM
How the Brain Prepares to Think
Said University of Texas professor Jose Rizo-Rey, "This country was very successful because of basic research. Translation is important, but if you don't have the basic science, you have nothing to translate."
Credit: Jose Rizo-Rey, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center's Jose Rizo-Rey and colleagues used the Texas Advanced Computing Center's Frontera supercomputer to probe the physics of thought activation in the brain.
The researchers have generated all-atom molecular dynamics simulations to explore the nature of the primed state of synaptic vesicles, indicating specialized proteins are "spring-loaded" and awaiting calcium ions to induce fusion.
The models only simulate the first few microseconds of the fusion process, but Rizo-Rey posits that fusion should occur in that time.
Rizo-Rey said, "If I see how it's starting, the lipids starting to mix, then I'll ask for 5 million hours [the maximum time available] on Frontera" to record the spring-loaded proteins' trigger and the fusion/transmission process.
From Texas Advanced Computing Center
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