Hardware realisable models of neural processing

An identity recently proposed by Gorse and Taylor (1988) between a certain class of neural model introduced by Taylor (1972) and a piece of electronic hardware, the `probabilistic random access memory´ (pRAM) holds out the possibility of mimicking physiological nets in hardware in just this way. The model has recently been extended by Gorse and Taylor to operate at time scales of the order of the lifetime of a quantum of neurotransmitter in the synaptic cleft, allowing for a greater degree of neurobiological realism, with the opportunity to incorporate details of the firing response and of cell spatial geometry. Computer simulations of a single noisy neuron/pRAM and of a two-pRAM net have so far been performed, with encouraging results. A two-pRAM network has very recently been constructed at King´s College by Clarkson, and is described