Blue Brain Project
IBM/EPFL Blue Brain Project is an ambitious plan to map out human brain in 10 years.
Yorktown Heights, NY and Lausanne, Switzerland, June 6, 2005 – IBM and The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) are today announcing a major joint research initiative – nicknamed the Blue Brain Project – to take brain research to a new level. Over the next two years scientists from both organizations will work together using the huge computational capacity of IBM’s eServer Blue Gene supercomputer to create a detailed model of the circuitry in the neocortex – the largest and most complex part of the human brain. By expanding the project to model other areas of the brain, scientists hope to eventually build an accurate, computer-based model of the entire brain.
And here is a view of the brain — at the level of simulation.
Three Golden Columns - The neocortex is organised into thousands of columns of neurons. Each column has a diameter of 0.5mm and contains 10,000 neurons. The neocortex is also organised into 6 layers and the golden neurons shown are the large output pyramidal neurons in the fifth layer. In the background are other neurons making up the neocortical column.
They sure have supercomputers and pretty pictures. But cognition from the group up? They need some philosophors on the team.