![]() ![]() Understandably, this is only done in patients already undergoing brain surgery, and is a slow and expensive process. At the moment, this is done using deep brain techniques, a highly invasive process that involves opening up the skull to implant electrodes onto individual cells to read and record their outputs. This process would first be done on much smaller models, such as a fruit fly and a mouse, before working up to the complexities of a human brain version.īRAIN proposes to create this model by measuring the activity of every single neuron in a circuit. At the moment, we have small snap-shots into some of these circuits, exposing the function of different brain areas and how these cells communicate, but on only a fraction of the scale of the entire brain. This would enable scientists to create both a "static" and "active" model of the brain, mapping the physical location and connections of these neurons, as well as how they work and fire together between and within different regions. Similarly, the United States' recently renamed Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies, or BRAIN (previously the Brain Activity Map Project, or BAM), is an initiative that will be organized through the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and carried out in a number of universities and research institutes throughout the U.S.īRAIN will attempt to create a functional model of the brain - a "connectome" - mapping its billions of neuronal connections and firing patterns. Neurologic and psychiatric disorders collectively "affect 100 million Americans and cost us $500 billion each year in terms of health-care costs." They then hope to integrate the biological actions of these neurons to create theoretical maps of different subsystems, and eventually, through the magic of computer simulation, a working model of the entire brain. ![]() This would mean compiling information about the activity of individual neurons and neuronal circuits throughout the brain in a massive database. Together with collaborators from 86 other European institutions, they aim to simulate the workings of the human brain using a giant super computer. The first, the Human Brain Project, is being spearheaded by Professor Henry Markram of École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. ![]() Both projects are geared towards creating a working model of the brain, mapping its 100 billion neurons. Then, yesterday, Barack Obama officially announced an initiative to advance neuroscience, funding a large-scale research project aimed at unlocking the secrets of the brain that involves over $100 million in federal spending in the first year alone, as well as investments from private organizations. In January, the European Commission pledged 500 million euros to work towards creating a functional model of the human brain. ![]()
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