Nervat

Nervat is a term that appears primarily in speculative contexts to describe a modular, nerve-like unit within a distributed nervous system, whether biological or artificial. The word is not part of established biological nomenclature and has no formal definition in mainstream neuroscience. In fiction and thought experiments, nervats serve as the basic building blocks of cognition, capable of sensing inputs, performing local processing, and transmitting outputs to neighboring nervats.

A nervat typically consists of an input interface, a processing core with local learning rules, and one or more output channels. Connected nervats form networks that can operate without a central brain, relying on local interactions and plasticity to adapt to new tasks. The architecture emphasizes modularity, scalability, and fault tolerance, with network behavior emerging from simple rules rather than centralized control.

In speculative biology, nervats are imagined as nerve-like aggregates that can regenerate and reconfigure through growth or plastic changes. In neuromorphic computing and AI research, nervat-like units are used as a conceptual model for distributed processors that mimic aspects of neural tissue, such as parallel processing and spike-like signaling.

Because nervat is not a standardized term, usage varies by author. It is often contrasted with neurons, nerve fiber bundles, and neural networks to highlight modularity and distributed autonomy. See also nerve cell, neural network, neuromorphic engineering, and distributed cognition.