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Summary: Researchers suggest that when in a group, ants behave in a similar fashion to networks of neurons in the brain.

Source: Rockefeller University.

Temperatures are rising, and one colony of ants will soon have to make a collective decision. Each ant feels the rising heat beneath its feet but carries along as usual until, suddenly, the ants reverse course. The whole group rushes out as one—a decision to evacuate has been made. It is almost as if the colony of ants has a greater, collective mind.

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Researchers from MIT

MIT is an acronym for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is a prestigious private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts that was founded in 1861. It is organized into five Schools: architecture and planning; engineering; humanities, arts, and social sciences; management; and science. MIT’s impact includes many scientific breakthroughs and technological advances. Their stated goal is to make a better world through education, research, and innovation.

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I’ve been researching the relationship between brain neurons and nodes in neural networks. Repeatedly it is claimed neurons can do complex information processing that vastly exceeds that of a simple activation function in a neural network.

The resources I’ve read so far suggest nothing fancy is happening with a neuron. The neuron sums the incoming signals from synapses, and then fires when the sum passes a threshold. This is identical to the simple perceptron, the precursor to today’s fancy neural networks. If there is more to a neuron’s operation that this, I am missing it due to lack of familiarity with the neuroscience terminology. I’ve also perused this stack exchange, and haven’t found anything.

If someone could point to a detailed resource that explains the different complex ways a neuron processes the incoming information, in particular what makes a neuron a more sophisticated information processor than a perceptron, I would be grateful.

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