The Blue Brain Project

The Blue Brain Project

The Blue Brain project is the first comprehensive attempt to reverse-engineer the mammalian brain, in order to understand brain function and dysfunction through detailed simulations.

In July 2005, EPFL and IBM announced an exciting new research initiative – a project to create a biologically accurate, functional model of the brain using IBM’s Blue Gene supercomputer. Analogous in scope to the Genome Project, the Blue Brain will provide a huge leap in our understanding of brain function and dysfunction and help us explore solutions to intractable problems in mental health and neurological disease.

At the end of 2006, the Blue Brain project had created a model of the basic functional unit of the brain, the neocortical column. At the push of a button, the model could reconstruct biologically accurate neurons based on detailed experimental data, and automatically connect them in a biological manner, a task that involves positioning around 30 million synapses in precise 3D locations.

In November, 2007, the Blue Brain project reached an important milestone and the conclusion of its first Phase, with the announcement of an entirely new data-driven process for creating, validating, and researching the neocortical column.

Milestones:

* 2002 – Henry Markram founds the Brain Mind Institute at EPFL
* June 6, 2005 – signature of agreement between EPFL and IBM, birth of the Blue Brain Project.
* April 2006, Barcelona: Cajal Centenary Conference, first public appearance & keynote at Neuroscience Conference.
* July 2006, Vienna: Forum of European Neuroscience (FENS), public presentation of toolchain (21 posters).
* Summer 2006 – 10,000 neuron NCC of the rat successfully built with simplified neurons.
* December 2006 – Completion of 10,000 neuron NCC with automatically generated, biologically accurate neurons.
* January 2007 – presentation of BBP at World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland .
* November 26, 2007 – announcement of the completion of Phase I of the Blue Brain Project, in Lausanne, Switzerland.

~ by jamesshrugged on March 9, 2008.