Questions about the Blue Brain Project

The Blue Brain Project looks amazing. They say in 10 years they will be able to make an artificial brain. I have a few questions though I do not understand. How are they going to make the brain, is it made from silicon? I am just not familiar with what’s happening. Is it a brain that’s identical to the human brain they are creating? Is it different?

If anyone can answer these questions for me it will be great


bluebrain.epfl.ch...

en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on 2-4-2010 by Maddogkull]

Mod Edit: Fixed Link.

[edit on 2/4/2010 by Mirthful Me]

Got any links to this project?

I never heard of it, but I will do a search.

Yeah, I just added some links to different sites.

Ok, Thanks, interesting find.

Here is a link I found on the web site of the project that kind of explains it.

Apparently this will be a computer simulation of a brain. The site doesn't go into a great deal of info on what they are physically planning to do.

bluebrain.epfl.ch...

I guess this will lead to mankind tiptoeing towards artificial intelligence.

Here is a link to the computation process, in a block diagram of the tool chain as it is described.

bluebrain.epfl.ch...

Here is something interesting they state on the benefits page.

bluebrain.epfl.ch...

With current and envisageable future computer technology it seems unlikely that a mammalian brain can be simulated with full cellular and synaptic complexity (above the molecular level). An accurate replica of an NCC is therefore required in order to generate reduced models that retain critical functions and computational capabilities, which can be duplicated and interconnected to form neocortical brain regions. Knowledge of the NCC architecture can be transferred to facilitate reconstruction of subcortical brain regions.

Clearly they are only aiming at a computer simulation of a part of a mammalian brain.

It is amazing how complex our brain is.

The whole synapse providing electrical isolation for each independent circuit that is a neuron is beyond amazing. How could such a thing evolve from seawater mineral charges?

O...so they are not planning on making a "whole" artificial brain then? Just a computer simulation? There title is misleading

Thanks for the links

reply to post by Maddogkull

They say in 10 years they will be able to make an artificial brain.

They won't actually have the full brain in 10 years. What they'll have emulated is the entire human neo-cortex. They won't have the visual, auditory, motor, etc cortex... nor will they have the hippocampus or hypothalimus, etc. So far as I understand, they're only emulating the portions of the brain which are uniquely human.

Now, this doesn't mean that they won't emulate the entire brain eventually... but that's the 10 year goal. They might still end up producing consciousness, of a sort, because it's the Neocortex which is responsible for your sensory perception, social reasoning, forward planning, spatial reasoning, language, awareness, etc.

So, for language, it might be fully capable of constructing sentences for communication - but it wouldn't have the ability to memorize words (hippocampus) or associate those symbols/frequencies with concepts. The problem is, the brain functions as a whole - and the conscious perception of the function of our brain we tend to take for being "whole" or "intrinsic" - because it feels that way. Actually, a perception like sight that feels very whole and functional is the result of a hierarchical processing flow from the back of the brain through the V1 to the V4 regions along what's called the dorsal and ventral stream. Both the dorsal and ventral streams are highly interconnected, allowing processes in one stream to modify the processes in the other. The dorsal stream typically deals with object definition, spatial reconstruction, motion, etc - while the ventral stream deals with recognition, association, and representation.

So while the emulated brain they boot up may be functionally conscious, I'm not sure it will be recognizably conscious while missing or crippling many of it's critical components.

How are they going to make the brain, is it made from silicon?

The same way you make a "Sega Genesis" or "Nintendo 64" out of your PC. Emulation. The brain exists within a program which sets the mathematical rules for it's operation. When executed, that operation mimics the function of each individual neuron and it's synapses just as a real brain does.

Is it a brain that’s identical to the human brain they are creating?

Part of the brain, yes. There's other teams working on various other regions. For example, Los Alamos National Labratory is working on emulating the human visual cortex.

On Saturday, Los Alamos researchers used PetaVision to model more than a billion visual neurons surpassing the scale of 1 quadrillion computations a second (a petaflop/s). On Monday scientists used PetaVision to reach a new computing performance record of 1.144 petaflop/s. The achievement throws open the door to eventually achieving human-like cognitive performance in electronic computers.

Eventually, yes, full and complete human brain emulation will be possible. Perhaps by the middle of this century if things go well. I think this brings up a poignant ethical consideration here... that once a human brain can be fully emulated in a computer, should human ethical concerns be extended to that simulated brain? I'd say, resoundingly, YES. For all intents and purposes, that brain WILL be human.

However, it may not APPEAR human. We are more than just the synapse and neurons of our brains... we are the unique and individual configuration of neurons that make us who we are. The configuration process we call life experience. We can only memorize and recall information because our brains have the plasticity to change and rewire itself to record new information. Much of this occurred when your brain was still forming, still growing. You don't even remember it, much like you don't really remember having to try to learn to speak.

Building a fully adult human brain from scratch would not produce the necessary configuration needed for social interaction, language, emotional management, etc. We don't know how to program this stuff in. Yet we know that, by studying feral children, that abandonment and extreme isolation from human contact during the formative years will produce adults which behave in ways which are more feral - completely inhuman by our standards. And this processes is irreversible to a large extent. Feral Children typically cannot learn to speak a language well, have concept of social boundaries and rules of interaction, and they're typically stuck with the mental capacity of a five to ten year old.

If we want to go that route of full human brain emulation, I think the easiest method of doing so would be to start with the genetic code. After all, our brains are really very simple. The genes which code for brain development are only a fraction of the 1.5% of our genome that actually codes for proteins.. and it self-arranges. So we can start off with a handful of Neurons fully emulated down to the molecular level in a fully comprehensive 3D environment to interact with, while using minimal computing power. As the brain "grows", we can interact with it and raise it like we would any other child. By the time it has grown to full adulthood, we will have all the necessary computing power to fully sustain it - as well as having an optimal "human" configuration of the synapses. By being able to monitor and track the history of each individual neuron, we can learn a great deal about how the brain functions and interacts.

Part of the Blue Brain project which hasn't been getting as much attention is the molecular emulation (which models the brain right down to each and every molecule) being preformed to help figure out gene expression translates into brain functionality. A key step we need to figure out if we're going to follow through with the above scenario.

reply to post by Lasheic


Thanks for the info, it has been helpful, if i could star more I would

This is a project to emulate a part of the brain. It won't think or have consciousness or anything like that. This is just a refinement of other software such as NEURON. You could find and download that program.