Can we build an artificial brain?

Films like Ex Machina, AI, and Transcendence revolve around artificial intelligence, and recreating the human brain in electronic form. The question is - can we do such a thing?

We look at the electrical circuits that are active in the brain, take a look at the electrical activity generated by a lone neuron in lab, look at networks of neurons, and finally examine the differences between biological and electronic circuits.

To film this video I was incredibly lucky to visit the neuroscience lab at UCL, and work with Dr Ali Jennings, who has just started an exciting new project to communicate research called Collab Lab - see   / thecollab_lab  .

If you'd like to learn more I highly recommend the wiki on action potentials and neurons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_...

Note: the +ve ions should be going the opposite way around the circuit to the -ve ions and electrons!

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I am Simon, a fourth year PhD candidate at the University of Exeter. I upload videos on bits of science which are relevant to what I do, and sometimes just because they're really cool.

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Thanks to Vlogbrothers for their sponsorship of this video. Money from the Foundation to Decrease Worldsuck contributed to equipment used in this video.