Mouse brain simulated on computer

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 4,096 processors, each one of which used 256MB of memory.

Using this machine the researchers created half a virtual mouse brain that had 8,000,000 neurons that had up to 6,300 synapses.

This article describes some of the work being done to simulate brain function.  I'm adding it here because it is a different way to learn about biology and the new methods being used in it.

Link

Tags: supercomputer, IBM, mouse brain

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IBM's BlueGene L supercomputer simulates half a mouse brain

Efforts to model the human brain (on IBM's Blue Gene, ironically) haven't reached the point of finality just yet, but it looks like the supercomputer has already tackled a smaller, albeit similar task at the University of Nevada. The research team, which collaborated with gurus from the IBM Almaden Research Lab, have ran a "cortical simulator that was as big and as complex as half of a mouse's brain on the BlueGene L," and considering that it took about 8,000 neurons and 6,3000 synapses into consideration without totally crashing, it remains a fairly impressive achievement. Notably, the process was so intensive that it was only ran for ten seconds at a speed "ten times slower than real-time," and while the team is already looking forward to speeding things up and taking the whole mind into account, it was noted that the simulation (expectedly) "lacked some structures seen in an actual brain." Now, if only these guys could figure out how to mimic the brain and offer up external storage to aid our failing memories.

The Singularity is nearer it seems. 

Tags: Blue Gene, mouse brain, supercomputer

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Deepak Chopra

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Deepak Chopra clearly states what I have believed for many years. Death is the loose of personal consciousness. Good cannot exist without bad. Sin is its own punishment.

Tags: Deepak Chopra, Organized Religion, Consciousness

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Time Team 2001 episode 1

Norman Liconshire

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The New Biology - Where Mind and Matter Meet 1of2

Bruce H. Lipton. Ph.D., cellular biologist, author, and former Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin's School of Medicine. His pioneering research on cloned human cells at Wisconsin and Stanford University's School of Medicine presaged the revolutionary field of epigenetics, the new science of how environment and perception control genes.

A New Blog Begins

For many months, I have enjoyed following stem cell research on http://stemcellreport.blogspot.com/ . I kept finding general biology information that I wanted to report on that was outside of the scope of stem cell work. The result is the creation of this blog which will be wider in scope and will cover those interests