MIT model reveals role of inhibitory neurons in the brain

Recent digital tech advancements have produced prototype artificial neurons and light-based neural networks, but we're still discovering ways our brain actually works. Researchers at MIT have built a computational model that could illustrate how inhibitory neurons work efficiently to block others from firing. The team's model, as described in their paper, uses theoretical computer science applied to a "winner-take-all" operation. It starts with a number of input neurons and finding an efficient configuration of inhibitory ones that will produce a signal from a single output neuron. Abstracting real neural networks in this way could help the field of computational analysis assist neuroscience.