Human Brain Project Moves Toward Human Cortex Model

Spiegel
Henry Markram's Human Brain Project in Lausanne, is competing for funding from the FET Flagship Initiative, to the tune of 1 billion Euros, disbursed over a ten year period. Markram's goals are extremely ambitious, and unprecedented. He aims to model the human cerebral cortex to an exquisite degree of precision. Markram expects that his model of the human brain will be so exact, that he will be able to study inaccessible brain diseases and devise impossible brain cures by using his model. He may be right. But in only ten years?

Scientists are paying particular attention to the cerebral cortex. This layer on the outside of brain, only a few millimeters thick, is the most important condition of it evolution. It is the starting point for efforts to understand what makes us tick -- and for endeavors to find solutions when things go wrong. Our brain builds its version of the universe in the cerebral cortex. The vast majority of what we see doesn't enter the brain through the eye. It is instead is based on the impressions, experiences and decisions in our brain.

Markham already completed important preparatory work for the computer modeling of the brain with his Blue Brain Project, an attempt to understand and model the molecular makeup of the mammalian brain. He modeled a tiny part of a rat brain, a so-called neocortical column, at the cell level. To understand what one of these columns does, it's helpful to imagine the cerebral cortex as a giant piano. There are millions of neocortical columns on the surface, and each of them produces a tone, in a manner of speaking. When they are simulated, the columns produce a symphony together. Understanding the design of these neocortical columns is a holy grail of sorts for neuroscientists.

It is important to understand the rules of communication among the nerve cells. The individual cells do not communicate at random, but instead seek specifically targeted communication partners. The axes of nerve cells intersect at millions of different points, where they can form a synapse. This makes communication between individual neurons possible. In a recent article in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Markram writes that such connections are also developed entirely without external influence. This could indicate a sort of innate knowledge that all people have in common. Markram refers to it as the "Lego blocks" of the brain, noting that each person assembles his own world on the basis of this innate knowledge. _Spiegel

The object of study for the Human Brain Project may be the most complex dynamic system in the universe. The attempt would be impossible without the most sophisticated computing hardware and software available. And one must have more than a mere fistful of Euros to acquire such advanced goodies.

Modeling all of this in a computer is extremely complex. Markram's current model encompasses tens of thousands of neurons. But this isn't nearly enough to come within striking range of the secret of our brain. To do that, scientists will have to assemble countless other partial models, which are to be combined to create a functioning total simulation by 2023.

The supercomputers at the Jülich Research Center near Cologne are expected to play an important role in this process. The brain simulation will require an enormous volume of data, or what scientist Markram calls a "tsunami of data." One of the challenges for scientists working under Thomas Lippert, head of the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, is to figure out how to make the computer process only a certain part of the data at a given time, but without completely losing sight of the rest. They also have to develop an imaging method, such as large, three-dimensional holograms, to depict the massive amounts of data.

All it takes is a look at the work of Jülich neuroscientist Katrin Amunts to understand the sheer volume of information at hand. The team she heads is compiling a detailed atlas of the human brain. To do so, they cut a brain into 8,000 slices and digitized them with a high-performance scanner. The brain model generated in this way consists of cuboids, each measuring 10 by 10 by 20 micrometers, and the size of the data set is three terabytes. Brain atlases with higher resolutions, says Amunts, would probably consist of more than 700 terabytes _Spiegel

The answer to the question posed above is: No, this goal cannot be met within a time frame of ten years. Because the challenge is not merely quantitative -- a matter of compiling the precise assembly of terabytes to create a brain atlas. The goal is to create a dynamic, interactive model of incredible plasticity -- a model which changes itself moment to moment. The "700 terabyte" requirement mentioned above is just the starting point -- the bare beginning -- in the assembly of such a dynamic and ever-changing model.

But the problem is even harder -- much, much harder. The quantitative complexity -- even in dynamic flow -- is nothing when compared to the qualitative complexity, which is nowhere near to being solved by Markram's team.

The project as described in brief above is an excellent starting point. Much can be learned from such an approach. But starting points do not necessarily point directly toward the end that one seeks. Rather, they point somewhere "out there." It is for the questers to continuously adjust their headings -- and often they are forced to adjust their goals.

Good luck to Henry and his team -- with the funding and with the ongoing project. It is an ambitious goal worthy of any scientist.