Редактирование: Whole brain emulation (раздел)

=== Spinal Cord ===

* While traditionally the vertebrate spinal cord is often regarded as little more than a bundle of 
motor and sensor axons together with a central column of stereotypical reflex circuits and 
pattern generators, there is evidence that the processing may be more complex (Berg, 
Alaburda et al., 2007) and that learning processes occur among spinal neurons (Crown, 
Ferguson et al., 2002). The networks responsible for standing and stepping are extremely 
flexible and unlikely to be hardwired (Cai, Courtine et al., 2006).  
 
 
* This means that emulating just the brain part of the central nervous system will lose much 
body control that has been learned and resides in the non‐scanned cord. On the other hand, it 
is possible that a generic spinal cord network would, when attached to the emulated brain, 
adapt (requiring only scanning and emulating one spinal cord, as well as finding a way of 
attaching the spinal emulation to the brain emulation). But even if this is true, the time taken 
may correspond to rehabilitation timescales of (subjective) months, during which time the 
simulated body would be essentially paralysed. This might not be a major problem for 
personal identity in mind emulations (since people suffering spinal injuries do not lose 
personal identity), but it would be a major limitation to their usefulness and might limit 
development of animal models for brain emulation.  
 
* A similar concern could exist for other peripheral systems such as the retina and autonomic 
nervous system ganglia.  
 
* The human spinal cord weighs 2.5% of the brain and contains around 10‐4 of the number of 
neurons in the brain (13.5 million neurons). Hence adding the spinal cord to an emulation 
would add a negligible extra scan and simulation load.