The animation in the header of my website simulates how neurons communicate in a biological neural network. It's a simplified representation of neural activity!
Try clicking anywhere on the neural network visualization! This will activate the nearest neuron and you'll see how neural signals propagate through the network, similar to how real neurons communicate in your brain.
The visualization models several key aspects of real neural networks:
These are the blue neurons. When they fire, they get other neurons excited and increase the overall activity in the network. About 80% of the neurons in our brain are excitatory, so they're pretty important!
These are the dark blue neurons. They do the opposite of excitatory neurons; they help to calm things down and suppress the activity of other neurons. They make up the other 20% of neurons in the brain and are key for regulating everything.
When a neuron fires, it turns red and sends a signal to other neurons it's connected to. This is called an action potential, and it allows neurons to communicate with each other.
In real neural networks, neurons communicate through electrochemical signals called action potentials. When a neuron receives enough excitatory input, it fires an action potential that travels down its axon to synapses, where it can influence other neurons.
The visualization simulates several realistic aspects of neural activity: