Scientists simulate part of rat brain
Researchers using a computer have recreated part of a rat brain.
The announcement comes from scientists working on the Blue Brain Project, a precursor to the Human Brain Project (HBP), which is part-funded by Horizon 2020, and which also supported the new research. The Blue Brain Project aims to reconstruct the rat brain and, in time, the human brain, in a computer.
The scientists utilised data from some of the rat brain cells in order investigate how the part of the rat brain studied would function. They then replicated some brain activity and discovered the simulation acted similar to living tissue. Data used for the simulation will be available for other scientists.
Professor Henry Markram of the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, co-director of the HBP and who leads the Blue Brian Project, commented that his team had realised the first draft of a functioning map of 30,000 brain cells.
He added that it was also possible to reconstruct the human brain, and that a first step had been achieved. The human brain contains at least 85 billion neurons.
The full report is published in the journal Cell.
