Neural Redundancy
Neural redundancy demonstrates graceful degradation - performance declines gradually with damage rather than failing abruptly.
The nervous system exhibits redundancy through distributed representations - encoding information across populations of neurons rather than single cells. When you view an object, populations of neurons respond, each tuned to different features. This provides graceful degradation: damage to individual neurons degrades representation quality gradually rather than catastrophically. Multiple descending motor pathways (corticospinal, rubrospinal, reticulospinal tracts) provide backup - stroke patients often recover substantial motor function as other pathways compensate.
Business Application of Neural Redundancy
Neural redundancy demonstrates graceful degradation - performance declines gradually with damage rather than failing abruptly. Organizations can design systems where component failures reduce capacity proportionally rather than causing complete system failure.
Discovery
James Chen case study (2019)
Stroke patient recovered arm function through redundant neural pathways after primary motor cortex damage