Six months after its selection by
the EU as one of its FET Flagships, this project of unprecedented complexity,
co-funded by the EU with an estimated budget of €1.2 billion, has now been set
in motion. With more than 130 research institutions from Europe and around the
world on board and hundreds of scientists in a myriad of fields participating,
the Human Brain Project is the most ambitious neuroscience project ever
launched. Its goal: develop methods that will enable a deep understanding of
how the human brain operates. The knowledge gained will be a key element in
developing new medical and information technologies. The Human Brain Project’s
initial mission is to launch its six research platforms, each composed of
technological tools and methods that ensure that the project’s objectives will
be met. These are: neuroinformatics, brain simulation, high-performance
computing, medical informatics, neuromorphic computing and neurorobotics. Over
the next 30 months, scientists will set up and test the platforms. Then,
starting in 2016, the platforms will be ready to use by Human Brain Project
scientists as well as researchers from around the world. These resources —
simulations, high-performance computing, neuromorphic hardware, databases —
will be available on a competitive basis, in a manner similar to that of other
major research infrastructures, such as the large telescopes used in astronomy.
In the field of neuroscience, the researchers will have to manage an enormous
amount of data — in particular, the data that are published in thousands of
scientific articles every year.
The mission of the
neuroinformatics platform will be to extract the maximum amount of information
possible from these sources and integrate it into a cartography that
encompasses all the brain’s organizational levels, from the individual cell all
the way up to the entire brain. This information will be used to develop the
brain simulation platform. The high-performance computing platform must
ultimately be capable of deploying the necessary computational power to bring
these ambitious developments about. Medical doctors associated with the project
are charged with developing the best possible methods for diagnosing
neurological disease. Being able to detect and identify pathologies very rapidly
will allow patients to benefit from personalized treatment before potentially
irreversible neurological damage occurs. This is the mission of the medical
informatics platform, which will initially concentrate on compiling and
analyzing anonymized clinical data from hundreds of patients in collaboration
with hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. The Human Brain Project includes
an important component whose objective is to create neuro-inspired
technologies. Microchips are being developed that imitate how networks of
neurons function — the idea being to take advantage of the extraordinary
learning ability and resiliency of neuronal circuits in a variety of specific
applications. This is the mission of the neuromorphic computing platform.
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