Deciphering the Reliability Scheme of the Neurons – One Ion Channel at a Time

A revived interest on consecutive systems due to novel nano-architectures (where reliability estimates are of high interest) as well as particular nanoscale communications (where the reliability of transmission needs to be assessed) is to be expected. The reason is that certain nano-technologies, like, e.g., molecular ones (but also nano-fluidic, nano-magnetic and even FinFETs) could be mapped onto consecutive systems. This paper will start by reviewing bounds for such systems and will then use these bounds to show how one could perform very accurate simulations of large consecutive systems (e.g., arrays of ion channels used for axonal communications), arguing that bounds could be extremely useful in the exploratory phases for getting a quick and reasonably good understanding of the reliability of such nano-architectures (including molecular, nano-fluidic, nano-magnetic, and FinFETs).