This is the Sutton Grammar School Biology website for all pupils to be enthused and inspired in all matters biological. Look around, post and answer questions, browse through past ‘Life’ magazine articles and write your own. If you have any ideas for SGS Biology, let me know!
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Well, our brain does contain a lot of information; the typical vocabulary in a brain is 50,000–250,000 words. Plus we can process over 100 trillion instructions every second! But, to answer your question, John Hopfield showed that memories could be stored by modifying the strength of synapses (between neurons) in a particular way. Furthermore, as there are about 50 million neurons in a cubic centimetre of cortex, there is plenty of room for information. However, a study by a university student showed that this doesn’t directly relate to how MANY memories we can store. He said the number of memories is not proportional to the number of neurons, it’s proportional to the number of connections per neurons, which is at most about 10,000.
Hopefully that answers your question.
Well, our brain does contain a lot of information; the typical vocabulary in a brain is 50,000–250,000 words. Plus we can process over 100 trillion instructions every second! But, to answer your question, John Hopfield showed that memories could be stored by modifying the strength of synapses (between neurons) in a particular way. Furthermore, as there are about 50 million neurons in a cubic centimetre of cortex, there is plenty of room for information. However, a study by a university student showed that this doesn’t directly relate to how MANY memories we can store. He said the number of memories is not proportional to the number of neurons, it’s proportional to the number of connections per neurons, which is at most about 10,000.
Hopefully that answers your question.