Neuroscience and Computer Science: Combining Knowledge to Improve Humans Lives

01/12/2023 at 04:12:23

Neuroscience and Computer Science: Combining Knowledge to Improve Humans Lives

Most people think that neuroscience is a restricted and isolated field that only studies brain functions and some pathologies that affects the central and peripheral system. However, it is important to notice that, neuroscience is a multidisciplinary area that study biology, histology, anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, neurotoxicology, neuropharmacology, and much more scientific areas to understand how the brain works. In addition, fields like mathematics, computer science, engineering, programming and artificial intelligence are required in order to better understand brain networks, connections and how the nervous system processes information. Those combinations improve medical knowledge and assistive technologies to restore neurological impairment.

Computer Science has contributed significantly to the understanding of the neural connection and the processing of information that comes in and out of the human brain. Through algorithms it is possible to translate biological codes, emitted by neurons through action potentials, into binary codes, which are digital commands capable of being understood by machines. Thus, computer science associated with neuroscience brings a series of advances to the medical field, enabling the creation of technologies that can improve and transform the quality of life of human beings. As an example it is widely used in brain machine interface technology to decode the brain waves recorded from the EEG, NIRS or invasive electrodes arrays into machine language.

Technological applications such as the Brain Machine Interface and the Brain to Brain Interface are only possible thanks to the association of these two fields of knowledge. Thus, applications from neuroscience combined with computer science bring innovations, such as: artificial limbs, cancer cell detection systems through image tracking, face tracking to diagnose neurological pathologies, neuro rehabilitation technologies, artificial intelligent system to investigate potential diseases in neuroimages, also the usage of virtual environments to treat phobias, neurological disorder and understand human behavior.

References:

[1] How AI and neuroscience drive each other forwards, Nature, 2019.

[2] Mark Anastas. David Cox Explains How Neuroscience and Computer Science are Merging.