You don't need to know the details of a brain cell to get the analogy. If I say "transistor" to my mom, she wouldn't be able to tell me what it is. If I say "It's like the brain cells for the computer", she would probably understand that "Ah, so a computer has many transistors that helps it think", which seems good enough for an article with a broad audience.
> I would bet that more people know what a transistor is than what a brain cell is
I'm happy to take you up on that bet, but it depends on what bubble you ask. In San Francisco/Silicon Valley, that's probably true, but outside any high-tech bubbles, more people know that we have brain cells in our heads, than we have transistors in our computers, I'm fairly sure.
I would take that bet, too. If you say “transistor” to non-technical people over 50 or so, they more likely would think of small portable radios (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_radio). To them, and many others, computers don’t have transistors, they have chips.
They _might_ know the transistor replaced vacuum tubes, but I doubt many would be able to tell what function either had, or be able to point out the transistors inside such a radio.
Is that a USA/North America thing, based on calling radio sets "transistor radios"?
Here in the UK we had "the wireless", and I'm confident that my parents - late 70s - who were the generation of first domestic computer ownership in the UK would associate "transistor" primarily with computers.
> I would bet that more people know what a transistor is than what a brain cell is
I'm happy to take you up on that bet, but it depends on what bubble you ask. In San Francisco/Silicon Valley, that's probably true, but outside any high-tech bubbles, more people know that we have brain cells in our heads, than we have transistors in our computers, I'm fairly sure.