Thursday, December 8, 2011

Bee swarms behave just like neurons in the human brain

Bee swarms behave just like neurons in the human brain: "It appears that the stop signals in bee swarms serve the same purpose as the inhibitory connections in the brains of monkeys deciding how to move their eyes in response to visual input. In one case we have bees and in the other we have neurons that suppress the activity levels of units – dancing bees or nerve centers – that are representing different alternatives. Bee behavior can shed some light on general issues of decision making..."

This phenomenon, known as cross inhibition, serves precisely the same function with bees that it does in nervous systems. It's a way of avoiding decision-making deadlock when presented with a set of equally viable alternatives.

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