Image provided by bbc.co.uk
Scientists in Switzerland believe they are on the cusp of creating the first, fully functional, artificial human brain. The Blue Brain Project was launched in 2005 by a group of scientists in Switzerland who hope to “reverse engineer” the human brain.
So far the Blue Brain Project has already successfully simulated the elements of a rat brain, however Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project, is confident that his team should now focus all their attention on the human brain, as opposed to recreating the brains of other animals. “It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in 10 years,” exclaimed Markram.
Markram and other scientists have focused on the neocortex of the brain. The neocortex is made up of thousands of neurons which contribute to the higher functions of the brain, such as communication, sensory perception, reasoning, and motor skills.
The project now has a software model of “tens of thousands” of neurons – each one of which is different – which has allowed them to digitally construct an artificial neocortical column. Although each neuron is unique, the team has found the patterns of circuitry in different brains have common patterns.
“Even though your brain may be smaller, bigger, may have different morphologies of neurons – we do actually share the same fabric,” [Markram] said. “And we think this is species specific, which could explain why we can’t communicate across species.”
To recreate the human brain model, Markram and his team use the IBM Blue Gene Machine, which has 10,000 processors (one processors for each neuron of the brain).