Blue Brain
Encyclopedia
The Blue Brain Project is an attempt to create a synthetic brain by reverse-engineering
the mammalian brain down to the molecular level.
The aim of the project, founded in May 2005 by the Brain and Mind Institute of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
(Switzerland) is to study the brain's architectural and functional principles. The project is headed by the Institute's director, Henry Markram
. Using a Blue Gene
supercomputer
running Michael Hines's NEURON software
, the simulation does not consist simply of an artificial neural network
, but involves a biologically realistic model of neuron
s. It is hoped that it will eventually shed light on the nature of consciousness
.
There are a number of sub-projects, including the Cajal Blue Brain, coordinated by the Supercomputing and Visualization Center of Madrid
(CeSViMa), and others run by universities and independent laboratories in the UK, US, and Israel.
, which can be considered the smallest functional unit of the neocortex
(the part of the brain thought to be responsible for higher functions such as conscious thought). Such a column is about 2 mm tall, has a diameter of 0.5 mm and contains about 60,000 neuron
s in humans; rat
neocortical columns are very similar in structure but contain only 10,000 neurons (and 108 synapse
s). Between 1995 and 2005, Markram mapped the types of neurons and their connections in such a column.
in Oxford. In a BBC World Service interview he said: "If we build it correctly it should speak and have an intelligence and behave very much as a human does."
By 2005 the first single cellular model was completed. The first artificial cellular neocortical column of 10,000 cells was built by 2008. By July 2011 a cellular mesocircuit of 100 neocortical columns with a million cells in total was built. A cellular rat brain is planned for 2014 with 100 mesocircuits totalling a hundred million cells. Finally a cellular human brain is predicted possible by 2023 equivalent to 1000 rat brains with a total of a hundred billion cells.
Now that the column is finished, the project is currently busying itself with the publishing of initial results in scientific literature, and pursuing two separate goals:
bought the Blue Gene computer at a reduced cost because at that stage it was still a prototype and IBM was interested in exploring how different applications would perform on the machine. BBP was a kind of beta tester.
The project is a candidate for a Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) research grant from the European Commission
. The grant would bring in €1 billion over 10 years. The final decision on the grant is expected in the second half of 2012. If the grant is awarded, the project will be renamed the Human Brain Project.
The Cajal Blue Brain is coordinated by the Technical University of Madrid
and uses the facilities of the Supercomputing and Visualization Center of Madrid
and its supercomputer Magerit
. The Cajal Institute
also participates in this collaboration. The main lines of research currently being pursued at Cajal Blue Brain include neurological experimentation and computer simulations. Nanotechnology, in the form of a newly designed brain microscope, plays an important role in its research plans.
Reverse engineering
Reverse engineering is the process of discovering the technological principles of a device, object, or system through analysis of its structure, function, and operation...
the mammalian brain down to the molecular level.
The aim of the project, founded in May 2005 by the Brain and Mind Institute of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
The École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology and is located in Lausanne, Switzerland.The school was founded by the Swiss Federal Government with the stated mission to:...
(Switzerland) is to study the brain's architectural and functional principles. The project is headed by the Institute's director, Henry Markram
Henry Markram
Henry Markram is Director of the Blue Brain Project at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne .He obtained his B.Sc. from Cape Town University, South Africa under the supervision of Rodney Douglas and his Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, under the supervision of Menahem...
. Using a Blue Gene
Blue Gene
Blue Gene is a computer architecture project to produce several supercomputers, designed to reach operating speeds in the PFLOPS range, and currently reaching sustained speeds of nearly 500 TFLOPS . It is a cooperative project among IBM Blue Gene is a computer architecture project to produce...
supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
running Michael Hines's NEURON software
Neuron (software)
NEURON is a simulation environment for modeling individual neurons and networks of neurons.It was primarily developed by Michael Hines, John W. Moore, and Ted Carnevale at Yale and Duke....
, the simulation does not consist simply of an artificial neural network
Artificial neural network
An artificial neural network , usually called neural network , is a mathematical model or computational model that is inspired by the structure and/or functional aspects of biological neural networks. A neural network consists of an interconnected group of artificial neurons, and it processes...
, but involves a biologically realistic model of neuron
Neuron
A neuron is an electrically excitable cell that processes and transmits information by electrical and chemical signaling. Chemical signaling occurs via synapses, specialized connections with other cells. Neurons connect to each other to form networks. Neurons are the core components of the nervous...
s. It is hoped that it will eventually shed light on the nature of consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
.
There are a number of sub-projects, including the Cajal Blue Brain, coordinated by the Supercomputing and Visualization Center of Madrid
Supercomputing and Visualization Center of Madrid
The Supercomputing and Visualization Center of Madrid also called Madrid Supercomputing and Visualization Center depends on the Computer Science Faculty of the Technical University of Madrid. This center houses Magerit, one of the most powerful supercomputers in Spain...
(CeSViMa), and others run by universities and independent laboratories in the UK, US, and Israel.
Neocortical column modelling
The initial goal of the project, completed in December 2006, was the simulation of a rat neocortical columnCortical column
A cortical column, also called hypercolumn or sometimes cortical module, is a group of neurons in the brain cortex which can be successively penetrated by a probe inserted perpendicularly to the cortical surface, and which have nearly identical receptive fields...
, which can be considered the smallest functional unit of the neocortex
Neocortex
The neocortex , also called the neopallium and isocortex , is a part of the brain of mammals. It is the outer layer of the cerebral hemispheres, and made up of six layers, labelled I to VI...
(the part of the brain thought to be responsible for higher functions such as conscious thought). Such a column is about 2 mm tall, has a diameter of 0.5 mm and contains about 60,000 neuron
Neuron
A neuron is an electrically excitable cell that processes and transmits information by electrical and chemical signaling. Chemical signaling occurs via synapses, specialized connections with other cells. Neurons connect to each other to form networks. Neurons are the core components of the nervous...
s in humans; rat
Brown Rat
The brown rat, common rat, sewer rat, Hanover rat, Norway rat, Brown Norway rat, Norwegian rat, or wharf rat is one of the best known and most common rats....
neocortical columns are very similar in structure but contain only 10,000 neurons (and 108 synapse
Synapse
In the nervous system, a synapse is a structure that permits a neuron to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another cell...
s). Between 1995 and 2005, Markram mapped the types of neurons and their connections in such a column.
Whole brain simulation
A longer term goal is to build a detailed, functional simulation of the physiological processes in the human brain: "It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in 10 years," Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project said in 2009 at the TED conferenceTED (conference)
TED is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading"....
in Oxford. In a BBC World Service interview he said: "If we build it correctly it should speak and have an intelligence and behave very much as a human does."
Progress
In November 2007, the project reported the end of the first phase, delivering a data-driven process for creating, validating, and researching the neocortical column.By 2005 the first single cellular model was completed. The first artificial cellular neocortical column of 10,000 cells was built by 2008. By July 2011 a cellular mesocircuit of 100 neocortical columns with a million cells in total was built. A cellular rat brain is planned for 2014 with 100 mesocircuits totalling a hundred million cells. Finally a cellular human brain is predicted possible by 2023 equivalent to 1000 rat brains with a total of a hundred billion cells.
Now that the column is finished, the project is currently busying itself with the publishing of initial results in scientific literature, and pursuing two separate goals:
- construction of a simulation on the molecular level, which is desirable since it allows studying the effects of gene expressionGene expressionGene expression is the process by which information from a gene is used in the synthesis of a functional gene product. These products are often proteins, but in non-protein coding genes such as ribosomal RNA , transfer RNA or small nuclear RNA genes, the product is a functional RNA...
; - simplification of the column simulation to allow for parallel simulation of large numbers of connected columns, with the ultimate goal of simulating a whole neocortex (which in humans consists of about 1 million cortical columns).
Funding
The project is funded primarily by the Swiss government and secondarily by grants and some donations from private individuals. The EPFLÉcole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
The École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology and is located in Lausanne, Switzerland.The school was founded by the Swiss Federal Government with the stated mission to:...
bought the Blue Gene computer at a reduced cost because at that stage it was still a prototype and IBM was interested in exploring how different applications would perform on the machine. BBP was a kind of beta tester.
The project is a candidate for a Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) research grant from the European Commission
European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....
. The grant would bring in €1 billion over 10 years. The final decision on the grant is expected in the second half of 2012. If the grant is awarded, the project will be renamed the Human Brain Project.
Cajal Blue Brain (Spain)
Technical University of Madrid
The Technical University of Madrid or sometimes called Polytechnic University of Madrid is a Spanish University, located in Madrid. It was founded in 1971 as the result of merging different Technical Schools of Engineering and Architecture, originated mainly in the 18th century...
and uses the facilities of the Supercomputing and Visualization Center of Madrid
Supercomputing and Visualization Center of Madrid
The Supercomputing and Visualization Center of Madrid also called Madrid Supercomputing and Visualization Center depends on the Computer Science Faculty of the Technical University of Madrid. This center houses Magerit, one of the most powerful supercomputers in Spain...
and its supercomputer Magerit
Magerit
Magerit is the name of the one of the most powerful supercomputers of Spain. It also reached the second best Spanish position in the TOP500 list of supercomputers.This computer is installed in CeSViMa, a research center of the Technical University of Madrid....
. The Cajal Institute
Cajal Institute
The Cajal Institute in Madrid is the largest neuroscience research center in Spain.The histologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal founded the Laboratorio de Investigaciones Biológicas in 1902 which later became the Instituto Cajal upon his retirement in 1922.The scientific activities of the institute...
also participates in this collaboration. The main lines of research currently being pursued at Cajal Blue Brain include neurological experimentation and computer simulations. Nanotechnology, in the form of a newly designed brain microscope, plays an important role in its research plans.
See also
- Artificial brainArtificial brainArtificial brain is a term commonly used in the media to describe research that aims to develop software and hardware with cognitive abilities similar to the animal or human brain...
- Artificial intelligenceArtificial intelligenceArtificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
- Artificial neural networkArtificial neural networkAn artificial neural network , usually called neural network , is a mathematical model or computational model that is inspired by the structure and/or functional aspects of biological neural networks. A neural network consists of an interconnected group of artificial neurons, and it processes...
- Cognitive scienceCognitive scienceCognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
- Neural networkNeural networkThe term neural network was traditionally used to refer to a network or circuit of biological neurons. The modern usage of the term often refers to artificial neural networks, which are composed of artificial neurons or nodes...
- NeuroinformaticsNeuroinformaticsNeuroinformatics is a research field concerned with the organization of neuroscience data by the application of computational models and analytical tools. These areas of research are important for the integration and analysis of increasingly large-volume, high-dimensional, and fine-grain...
- Social simulationSocial simulationSocial simulation is a research field that applies computational methods to study issues in the social sciences. The issues explored include problems in sociology, political science, economics, anthropology, geography, archaeology and linguistics ....
- Whole brain emulation