A ppt about IBM's Bluebrain project. It emphasizes the basic ideas of the project.

1. BLUE BRAIN
Sheetal Kadam
Mounika Kasaram
Subiya Nadar

2. Contents
I. Introduction
II. What is blue brain
III. Building virtual brain
IV. Brain Simulation
V. Gathering information
VI. Success
VII.Motivation

3. INTRODUCTION
In 2009, neuroscientist Henry Markram
publicly announced that he seeks to reverse-
engineer a human brain with digital
simulations of all the physical properties of
every neuron, powered by IBM Blue Gene
supercomputers, by 2020.

4. WHAT IS BLUE BRAIN?
• First virtual brain
• Human brain as computer simulation
• Think, response, take decision, and keep
anything in memory

5. Building virtual brain
1. Data acquisition
2. Simulation
3. Visualization of results

6. DATA ACQUISITION
• Measurement of shapes and electrical activity of
neurons
• Translation into mathematical algorithms
• Generation of biologically-realistic virtual
neurons

7. SIMULATION
• NEURON
• Written in C, C++, and FORTRAN

8. SIMULATION
• Synthesizing virtual cells
• Simulation if every single protein
• Building network skeleton

9. VIRTUALIZATION
• RTNeuron
• Written in C++ and OpenGL
• Takes the output simulations in NEURON and
renders them in 3D

10. Brain Simulation
Natural Brain Simulated Brain
Input Through the natural
neurons
Through the silicon
chip or artificial
neurons
Interpretation By different states of
the neurons in the
brain
By a set of bits in the
set of register

11. Brain Simulation
Natural Brain Simulated
Brain
Output Through the natural
neurons.
Through the silicon
chip .
Processing Through arithmetic
and logical
calculations
Through arithmetic
and logical
calculation and
artificial intelligence
Memory Through permanent
states of neurons
Through Secondary
memory

12. How to gather
information?
• Nanobots
• Monitoring activity & structure of CNS

13. Success
• Successful simulation of rat cortical
column
• Generation of brain’s building blocks
• 100 cortical columns made by Aug 2012

14. Motivation
• Brain disease treatments
• Curiosity about consciousness
• Integration of all neuroscientific research
• Artificial intelligence

15. THANK YOU