Imagine 10,000 microscopic masses, flailing their tentacles about, shooting electrical impulses to each other in an attempt to communicate 22.8 trillion conversations. This is what goes on in a tiny sliver of the human brain. Now imagine this portion of the brain throbbing mechanically in a dark room in a university in Switzerland. This is the Blue Brain.
The Blue Brain Project is attempting to create a functioning mechanical replica of the mammalian brain.
Écoles Polytechniques fédérales (EPFL), a university in Switzerland, and IBM have collaborated on this project to create the world's first biologically accurate super computer brain.
The Blue Brain is filled with 2,000 IBM microchips and is able to process 22.8 trillion operations per second. Each of these microchips are modeled after a real neuron in the brain. Neurons have a variety of complex shapes and structures that influence its electrical properties and chemical connectivity with other neurons.
Ten thousand of these neurons have been precisely replicated in the Blue Brain. There are several models of the basic structure and larger functions of the human brain that have been constructed, but one that emulates chemical signaling and actually functions as a real brain is a first.
With previous basic structures, along with physical details, scientists have been able to unveil countless molecules, chemical pathways, enzymes and genes that turn the gears of the brain. These breakthroughs have enabled scientists in understanding what the brain does, but not how it does it.
"This is the first model of the brain that has been built from the bottom-up," says Henry Markram, a neuroscientist at EPFL and the director of the Blue Brain project. "There are lots of models out there, but this is the only one that is totally, biologically accurate. We began with the most basic facts about the brain and just worked from there." Markram, along with Felix Schürmann, the project manager of Blue Brain, share the project with about 20 scientists from 14 different countries.
Neurons are cells that control the flow of chemical channels and act as chemical conductors. Each of the one hundred billion neurons in the brain has on average 7,000 synaptic connections to other neurons. Neurons, along with many parts of the brain, are still an enigma.
You may wonder if we don't fully understand the brain, how is it possible to create an exact living replica of it?
"I wanted to model the brain because we didn't understand it," Markram said. "The best way to figure out how something works is to try to build it from scratch." The basis of his supercomputer is modeled after the neocortical column of a two-week-old rat, which is a minimal portion of the brain housing about 10,000 neurons, connected by 30 million synapses. These columns, by the thousands, are the foundation of the cortex, which is only 2 millimeters long and 0.5 millimeters wide, and specialize in tasks such as recognizing colors. It has taken about three years to collect enough data on the neurological processes of the brain to create a design.
After building the neurocortical column, the team subjected the model to electrical impulses, like those that the brain of a rat would normally experience. The Blue Brain reacted to these jolts with a natural response: the neurons sent out impulses of their own, the hair-like dendrites prepared to receive the message and the cells fit together following implanted genetic instructions.
"This all happened on its own," Markram said. "It was entirely spontaneous."
Although the entirety of the brain has yet to be modeled, the fact that this small part works exactly and as naturally as the brain holds limitless possibilities for the study of the mind.
Markram goes as far as to suggest that as he develops the brain, it may develop a self-consciousness of it's own. "Consciousness is just a massive amount of information being exchanged by trillions of brain cells. If you can precisely model that information, then I don't know why you wouldn't be able to generate a conscious mind," he said.
Aside from actually completing the model by adding the rest of the brain to the supercomputer, one obstacle it faces is the lag in technology. Markram says a computer the size of many football fields would be needed to sustain a model of such capabilities and would require $3 billion to power per year.
By 2030, it is speculated that this brain will be fully functional and will simulate every portion of the human brain. Hopefully, this robot brain will not bring our worst fantastic fears to life and only contribute to the betterment of science.
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