Comments on Next Big Future: Blue Brain status and the future of whole brain si...

Hi BrianDo you think the brain simulation will nee...

2008-03-15T20:52:00.000-07:00

Hi Brian

Do you think the brain simulation will need to be so detailed? The information needed to emulate the brain has a lot of wildly varying estimates and I often wonder how fine-grain an emulation needs to be.

Sure, there's roughly 30 billion neocortical neurones in an adult male, and about 25 billion in a female, and they can have up to 10,000 synaptic connections to other neurones, but we know so little about how information is actually represented in the brain - could be a bit per synaptic connection or per neurone.

Then there's all the neuroglial cells wrapping around each neurone, all with their own slow-paced signalling systems - I wonder how they're being emulated?

Definitely a fascinating project to watch unfold. I think in vivo real-time brain-cell monitoring is perhaps not too far off if the MRI technology using ambient magnetic fields can be adapted to the skull. Any word in that direction?

brain has at least 100 trilions sinapses. They can...

2008-03-07T01:44:00.000-08:00

brain has at least 100 trilions sinapses. They can't personalize worm or mouse, but suspect to personalize human...
I read that Bluebrain project is IBM advertisement.

I believe funding is mostly from IBM and the Swiss...

2008-03-05T14:11:00.000-08:00

I believe funding is mostly from IBM and the Swiss government.

EPFL gets funding from a variety of sources including Nestle. Your chocolate habit, helping to fund the Singularity.

Nestle gives 25 million swiss francs to the brain and mind institute

I read the article (a bit quickly) but unless I mi...

2008-03-05T14:06:00.000-08:00

I read the article (a bit quickly) but unless I missed it, it doesn't answer an important question: Who is financing this project? Anyone know?

Correct that non-destructive scanning would be nee...

2008-03-05T14:03:00.000-08:00

Correct that non-destructive scanning would be needed.

Neuroimaging now

There has been precise monitoring of animal brain function via 2 photon microscopy. They used a clear window into living brains. If the functional end of the microscopes could be a lot smaller and placed under the skull then that would gather a lot more of info needed for personalizing the scans.

There is also detection of chemical reactions in living human cells

Other advances in faster and more sensitive cell viewing

MIT group working on making brain cell activity monitoring

An optical microscope has better than 10nm resolution

There will be some difficulty in "personalizing" t...

2008-03-05T13:49:00.000-08:00

There will be some difficulty in "personalizing" this technology, as the analysis is done by making thin slices of the brain, which pretty much will kill you if you are not already dead. That is a major difference from genome analysis, I would say. Granted, some new technology might emerge to enable in vitro brain scanning, but that is highly speculative.