Swiss University to Model Brain Circuit Using IBM Sup

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Swiss University to Model Brain Circuit Using IBM Supercomputer
2005-06-05 19:11 (New York)


By Rudy Ruitenberg
     June 6 (Bloomberg) -- A Swiss university and International
Business Machines Corp. will build a three-dimensional computer
model of a brain circuit to understand how the mind works and what
causes disorders such as autism.
     Switzerland's Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne will
use an IBM Blue Gene supercomputer to model the circuit, said
Henry Markram, director of the university's Brain and Mind
Institute. The neocortex, the largest part of the human brain,
contains as many as 1 million tiny columns that act as circuits.
     Supercomputers are used for tasks requiring trillions of
calculations per second, such as weather forecasting. The Lausanne
computer, with a top speed of 22.8 trillion calculations per
second, will be used to simulate one column in the neocortex,
called a neocortical circuit and the size of a pinhead.
     ``The whole supercomputer is going to act as a single
neocortical circuit,'' Markram said in a telephone interview on
Friday. ``We won't have enough computing power in the next 10
years to simulate the whole brain.''
     In the project, nicknamed Blue Brain, scientists from the
Lausanne university and IBM, the world's largest maker of
supercomputers, will work together in the next two to three years
to model the circuitry in the neocortex.

                            Rat Brains

     ``This is first and foremost a research agreement,'' said
Jonathan Batty, a spokesman for IBM, who declined to give the cost
of the computer except to say it's ``not representative'' of the
commercial price. ``The financial agreement is not typical for a
Blue Gene supercomputer. That's part of the research
collaboration,'' Batty said.
     The data for the computer model was collected over 10 years,
mostly from rat brains, according to Markram. The supercomputer,
which will take the floor space of about four refrigerators and
contain 8,000 processors, is scheduled to go online July 1, the
scientist said.
     The neocortex accounts for about 85 percent of human gray
matter, and is the part of the brain that separates mammals from
reptiles. It's thought to account for cognitive functions
including language, learning, memory and complex thought.
     Scientists will model the neocortical column of a rat, which
contains about 10,000 neurons, the basic cells in the brain that
send and receive signals, Markram said. Using this foundation, it
will be easy to upgrade to a model of a column in the human
neocortex, which contains about 50,000 neurons, he said.

                           Mouse to Man

     ``The neocortical microcircuit is very similar from mouse to
man,'' Markram said. ``It's a project that could explain how the
human cognitive process works. We'd be able to witness in detail
how information is processed, how it is stored and retrieved. And
it's going to save an immense amount of animal research.''
     The electronic model may also explain disorders such as
autism and schizophrenia and diseases such as Alzheimer's, and
could result in insights on new ways to build electronic circuits,
the scientist said.
     The computer-based simulations of the brain will be on a
cellular level, and may shed light on internal processes such as
thought, perception and memory, IBM said. The next step will be a
model on a molecular level, which will require more computing
power, according to Markram.
     Some of the supercomputer's time will be allotted to other
projects, including research by the university into the use of
plasmas as a method for energy production and a study of the
folding of proteins and their role in diseases, IBM said.
     The world's fastest supercomputer is an IBM Blue Gene machine
built for the U.S. Department of Energy, which can perform 70.72
billion calculations per second, according to a list maintained by
the University of Mannheim in Germany and the University of
Tennessee.

--Editor: Sondag

Story illustration: To graph IBM's sales and profit development,
see {IBM FP <Equity> DES5 <GO>}. For the Web site of the Ecole
Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne's Brain and Mind Institute,
see http://sv.epfl.ch/sv_LNMC.html

To contact the reporter on this story:
Rudy Ruitenberg in Paris at (33) (1) 5365 5039 or
rruitenberg () bloomberg net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Lars Klemming at (46) (8) 610-0728 or lklemming () bloomberg net;
Zimri Smith at (44) (20) 7330-7114 or zsmith () bloomberg net




-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/