Neurobiology: Intel’s New Arc A770 Gaming GPU, Neuromorphic Chip and Mental Health
Intel’s CEO, Pat Gelsinger announced in a tweet that a new batch of A770 cards would be ready for retail. He didn’t share details on dates and locations, but the announcement signaled Intel’s further dive into gaming GPUs, amid recent global chip shortages.
Intel Labs also recently announced the effectiveness of its neuromorphic chip, Loihi, to help robots learn on the go, or in an interactive environment using neural network-based object learning. Loihi operates on the spiking neural network architecture holding promise for new applications using dynamic binary spiking inputs, with respect to time, in contrast to static processing of artificial neural networks.
Intel, in recent years, has faced intense competition from NVIDIA, AMD, TSMC, Qualcomm and others. The corporation continues to seek new directions for products to edge others.
Intel has an opportunity with mental health, where developing a dedicated product would become a massive solution and growth magnet, since the understanding of mental health problems is generally subjective, where there are constant stories saying one thing affects mental health, but that is not true for everyone all the time.
A recent article in the guardian, I’m a psychologist — and I believe we’ve been told devastating lies about mental health, said social, political and economic problems affect mental health. Another one, From doing laundry to washing the dishes: unpaid work is bad for our mental health.
There is a recent article in the NYTimes, Mental Health Is Political, stating that political problems are responsible. Another one, How Do We Turn Symptoms Into Words? Described how some people with mental health problems could not describe what they were experiencing internally. Another one, We Have Reached Peak ‘Mental Health’, discussed how the ambiguity over the phrase mental health may not be helpful in finding solutions. An interactive, Who Is Going to Therapy in America? Expressed why some people needed it and how it went.
There is a lot in the mental health, illness and disorder bracket. There is still no test for mental health and ill-health. There are questionnaires and surveys for assessment, but no way to diagnose. Situations are not the problem of the mind. The mind works in a way that makes it vulnerable to affect by situations. There could be people in the same situation but have different affect. There could be others in different situations but have the same affect. What determines affect for the mind that is constant across brains? Cells, sequences, impulses, molecules and synapses.
Yes, however, they don’t tell enough stories — by the measurements available—for deeper understanding of how exactly situations become problematic. Neuroimaging, neurotechnology and several advanced techniques are revealing, but there is disconnect from what can be understood from those, parallel to broad experiences. This opens up the importance of seeking out other constants in the brain that can be useful to understanding the mind, where extrapolation is possible, for the decision-making of mental health.
Thought and Memory
There is no mental health or ill-health case without thought and memory. Thought is its own category of turbulence or not for the mind. The thoughts that cause cool or sad are checked around what is known [or memory]. The memory precedes what to feel, then how to react. These stages are constant in how all external situations affect the mind.
Memory locations determine additional properties of thought, making some intrusive, repetitive, heavy, traumatic, depressing, delightful, distressing and so on.
There are destinations traveling thoughts could touch or bounce at, to make those occur. This leads to differences in affect for people, where for some it touches delight, for others something else and so on. There could be groups of people for whom touches are similar, but for everyone all the time, it is never the case.
So, working the rules of thought transport and functional basis of memory is a structure to care for mental health, outside subjective pointers.
Neurobiology
All sensory inputs in the brain are processed or integrated in the thalamus, except for smell processed at the olfactory bulb. It is after sensory processing — at these hubs — that they get relayed to the cerebral cortex for interpretation.
Architecture
It is postulated that sensory processing or sensory integration is into a uniform unit, identity, construct, representation, version, equivalent or quantity which is thought or a form of thought. It is what becomes of senses to the brain. Thoughts of things are because things are thoughts. There is no further conversion because they are all in the same form as thought converted from senses, useful for dreams, imaginations, predictions, subvocalization, inner voice and so on.
It is thought that proceeds to the memory. Interpretation is theorized to be knowing, feeling and reaction. Knowing is memory. Memory stores thoughts, doing so in small and large bundles. Small bundles contain the least most unique information on things, while large bundles collect similarity or commonness between small bundles.
There are several types of similar things known, each one — with something unique about it, is stored in a small bundle, while whatever it shares with others, is collected in large bundles. Small bundles are always transporting to large bundles, in sequences to pick things up, to remember, understand, feel-like, and so on, bearing experiences. Small bundles can be prioritized or pre-prioritized, though interchanges between both are fast and numerous. Large bundles have a principal spot where just one goes to dominate and bring the most affect.
Small bundles have some resident [with unique information], and others transient [going directly to large stores, from inputs]. There are splits of small bundles with some going before, for what to expect, hold in mind, for what next to do, say and so on.
There are also sequences, of transport of small bundles to large ones, with some old, and some new. Large bundles have all experiences, cravings, depression, anxiety, fear, delight, hate, love, calm, disturbed and so on, picked up from experiences, to give what it feels-like even when the feeling is not present.
If a small bundle bounces to some of these large stores, regardless of the situation, the experience becomes that.
It is what happens, with sequences, stores and bundles of memory that decide the actual feelings that follow, then reaction.
Intel’s Mental Health Product
If Intel could digitally display these as rules of thought and function of memory across the brain, it would give clarity to constants of the mind, across conditions, from theoretical neuroscience, exceeding current knowledge.