Herself’s Artificial Intelligence

The blue brain, named after the deep blue IBM computer used to model it on, has made significant progress modeling brains. Right now they have a working neocortical column that mimics that of a two week old rat.

In a laboratory in Switzerland, a group of neuroscientists is developing a mammalian brain - in silicon. The researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), in collaboration with IBM, have just completed the first phase of an ambitious project to reproduce a fully functioning brain on a supercomputer. By strange coincidence, their lab happens to lie on the same shores of Lake Geneva where Mary Shelley dreamt up her creation, Dr Frankenstein. . . .

Markram was not dissuaded by the negative reaction to his announcement. Two years on, he has already developed a computer simulation of the neocortical column - the basic building block of the neocortex, the higher functioning part of our brains - of a two-week-old rat, and it behaves exactly like its biological counterpart. It’s something quite beautiful when you watch it pulse on the giant 3D screens the researchers have constructed. . . .

[ read more Lab comes one step closer to building artificial human brain]

Not to be outdone Harvard scientists are attempting to map an entire human brain:

Harvard scientists have embarked upon an ambitious program to create a circuit diagram of the human brain, with the help of new machines that automatically turn brain tissue into high-resolution neural maps.

By mapping every synapse in the brain, researchers hope to create a “connectome” — a diagram that would elucidate the brain’s activity at a level of detail far outstripping today’s most advanced brain-monitoring tools like fMRI. [ read more Mapping the most complex structure in the universe: your brain ]

More information:
Blue Brain Project
The blue brain project (pdf)
The blue brain project: building the neocortical column
The blue brain project: calibrating the neocortical column (pdf)