Mouse brain simulated on Super Computer
Posted: April, 28 2007
US researchers have simulated half a virtual mouse brain on a supercomputer.
The scientists ran a “cortical simulator” that was as big and as complex as half of a mouse brain on the BlueGene L supercomputer. In other smaller simulations the researchers say they have seen characteristics of thought patterns observed in real mouse brains.
Now the team is tuning the simulation to make it run faster and to make it more like a real mouse brain.
Life signs
Brain tissue presents a huge problem for simulation because of its complexity and the sheer number of potential interactions between the elements involved. The three researchers, James Frye, Rajagopal Ananthanarayanan, and Dharmendra S. Modha, laid out how they went about it in a very short research note entitled “Towards Real-Time, Mouse-Scale Cortical Simulations”.
8 Million Neurons
Half a real mouse brain is thought to have about eight million neurons each one of which can have up to 8,000 synapses, or connections, with other nerve fibres. Modelling such a system, the trio wrote, puts “tremendous constraints on computation, communication and memory capacity of any computing platform”.
The team, from the IBM Almaden Research Lab and the University of Nevada, ran the simulation on a BlueGene L supercomputer that had 4096 processors, each one of which used 256MB of memory. Using this machine the researchers created half a virtual mouse brain that had 8,000 neurons that had up to 6,300 synapses.
The vast complexity of the simulation meant that it was only run for ten seconds at a speed ten times slower than real life - the equivalent of one second in a real mouse brain. On other smaller simulations the researchers said they had seen “biologically consistent dynamical properties” emerge as nerve impulses flowed through the virtual cortex.
In these other tests the team saw the groups of neurons form spontaneously into groups. They also saw nerves in the simulated synapses firing in a ways similar to the staggered, co-ordinated patterns seen in nature.
The researchers say that although the simulation shared some similarities with a mouse’s mental make-up in terms of nerves and connections it lacked the structures seen in real mice brains. Imposing such structures and getting the simulation to do useful work might be a much more difficult task than simply setting up the plumbing.
Future Tests
For future tests the team aims to speed up the simulation, make it more neurobiologically faithful, add structures seen in real mouse brains and make the responses of neurons and synapses more detailed.
Source: BBC News
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Great article, the advancement of modern technology is really quite astounding.
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This type of article makes me think of what we will be looking back at in years to come, the first of it’s kind so to speak.
I wonder how many years it will be before they have a digital human brain.
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Crazy stuff, it will be Judgement day before we know it! :O
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I deny this reality and substitute another. If it is currently impossible to model the brain of an ant, how can we believe the modeling of a mouse brain has current potential?
First we need to determine the actual circuitry of the brain–only then can we make an actual model. In short, see the first sentence.
Too often, even in so-called “Hard Science”, the researchers own beliefs are too cleanly and too easily “proven”. Look for total proof, not some insubstantive documentation turned out to validate a science team. Sometimes science cannot prove a thing… so they simply make it up.
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we should stop this madness before it is too late! within a few years these ten-times-slower-than-half-a-mouse-brain machines will turn against us and take over the world. warn your friends! destroy the computer!
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If we didn’t do research like this then we would have never advanced to where we are today.
The problem comes when we have the power we don’t know how best to use it, the old quote of: “With great power comes great responsibility” seems quite appropriate.
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The team, from the IBM Almaden Research Lab and the University of Nevada, ran the simulation on a BlueGene L supercomputer that had 4096 processors, each one of which used 256MB of memory.
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Maybe a small matter to remind yourself, the human brain is far more complex then a mouse brain, but the basic “brain” is just as complex. I wonder how the computer will look like when we actually achieve such a function.
A factor taking in with this is the randomness of neurel networking. Every brain is unique, so every computer with such a network, system, program must be a unique “Persona”. So I wonder…. How big must this Computer be.
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The Matrix is coming…I’m so excited!
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