Scientists Digitize the Brain

The researchers wrote, that the slow synchronous waves of neuronal activity, which have been found in the brain during sleep, were “triggered” during the simulations, suggesting that neural circuits may have the unique ability to able to switch into different “modes” that could explain critical behaviours.

Scientists have used a supercomputer to digitally recreate a sandgrain-sized chunk of rat brain. The work reconstructs a section of rat’s brain and demonstrates around 31,000 brain cells connected by a few 40 million synapses in 3D shape. But other neuroscientists have argued that it will reveal no more about the brain’s workings than do simpler, more abstract simulations of neural circuitry-while sucking up a great deal of computing power and resources.

Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project, said in a statement that this is the very first draft reconstruction of a piece of neocortex. In addition, the simulated level of biological accuracy is far beyond anything so far.

It represents 20 years’ worth of biological experiments, and ten years’ worth of calculations and algorithm development, through which the program required to digitally reconstruct the tissue was written.

An ambitious project led by researchers in Switzerland to digitally map the brain released its first results, showing a complex view of how the brain is wired. But Markram said that the recent paper may finally do the project justice.

Though the results reflect only a small portion of the brain’s functionality, researchers are still confident and carry on in their effort to map the human brain that contains over 82 billion brain cells.

While this is in no way proof that the Human Brain Project will be successful, it’s an exciting step forward to scientists that could be big dividends down the line – and it’s certainly a major milestone for the project, and one that signals it could possibly work. However, he says, the present accomplishment could lead to various possibilities including perhaps reconstruction of the human brain itself. According to reports by EurekAlert, the Blue Brain Project researchers plan to continue exploring the state-dependent computational theory while improving the model they’ve built. To be more precision, the project aims to create a biologically detailed computer simulation of the human brain – a goal which the group hopes to achieve through the application of experimental data which defines the three-dimensional shape, electrical properties, ion channels and other proteins generally produced by various types of cells. The letter also slammed the dissolution of the project’s Cognitive Architectures branch; Mainen said, “It’s the departure of the entire cognitive neuroscience aspect of the H.B.P. It’s not clear why they would throw that out”.

The reconstruction is of the necortex, one part of the brain that scientists already know a large amount about.