New Study Finds a Single Neuron Is a Surprisingly Complex Little Computer

Comparing brains to computers is a long and dearly held analogy in both neuroscience and computer science. It's not hard to see why. Our brains can perform many of the tasks we want computers to handle with an easy, mysterious grace. So, it goes, understanding the inner workings of our minds can help us build better computers; and those computers can help us better understand our own minds. Also, if brains are like computers, knowing how much computation it takes them to do what they do can help us predict when machines will match minds.