ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the digital computer technology. It focuses on large-scale computer applications to brain science. As modern neurology, neurophysiology, and many other theoretical and clinical investigators gathered more and more knowledge about brain activity, it became clear that mental activity is the result of brain activity or, in some more subtle manner, is brain activity. The modern electronic digital computer represents one of the most influential technological developments in human history. The basic concept defining the organization of a parallel processing computer and of the brain match much better now than with any previous technology. Computers and the brain share another basic similarity that makes the parallel processing computer nearly the ideal tool for studying the brain. The foundation concept that the cognitive functions of the brain are embodied in a parallel processing network predated the availability or understanding of parallel processing computers and indeed of computers in general.
