[JoshTriplett]

> I'd assume that if inter-neuron communication speed is anywhere on the same order as the time-between-individual-neuron-loss, then that would alleviate the effect somewhat, no? My understanding was there was a lot of redundancy up there, so it would make sense that the brain would resilver itself in certain scenarios.

The brain is remarkably resilient and adaptive; people manage to recover at least partial function even after major strokes. And, quite frankly, I'd take "functioning like a stroke victim" over "dead" any day.