Hessameddin Akhlaghpour outlines how RNA may implement universal computation

Paul Middlebrooks speaks with Hessameddin Akhlaghpour, a neuroscientist and postdoctoral researcher in the Maimon Lab at Rockefeller University, about his journey from computer engineering to neuroscience and how it shaped his ideas about computation in the brain. Inspired by C. Randy Gallistel’s book “Memory and the Computational Brain: Why Cognitive Science Will Transform Neuroscience,” Akhlaghpour developed the hypothesis that RNA, a molecule with capabilities that are often overshadowed by its well-known role in genetics, may hold the key to universal computation, outstripping the computational abilities of natural and artificial neural networks.

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