The Human Brain Project has begun with the participation of the UB

The Human Brain Project began on Monday 7 October.
The Human Brain Project began on Monday 7 October.
Research
(08/10/2013)

With more than 130 research institutions —the University of Barcelona is one of them— from Europe and around the world on board and hundreds of scientists in a myriad of fields participating, the Human Brain Project (HBP) is the most ambitious neuroscience project ever launched. Its goal is to 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 began on Monday 7 October.
The Human Brain Project began on Monday 7 October.
Research
08/10/2013

With more than 130 research institutions —the University of Barcelona is one of them— from Europe and around the world on board and hundreds of scientists in a myriad of fields participating, the Human Brain Project (HBP) is the most ambitious neuroscience project ever launched. Its goal is to 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.

On Monday 7 October, project partners met at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the coordinating institution. Over the course of a week, neuroscientists, doctors, computer scientists and roboticists will fine-tune the projectʼs details. Six months after its selection by the EU as one of its FET Flagships, this project of unprecedented complexity, with an estimated budget of €1.2 billion, has now been set in motion.

 

UB participation

In the HBP Professor Mel Slater, ICREA researcher at the Faculty of Psychology of the UB and director of Event Lab will be working with Professor Olaf Blanke of EPFL during this first 'ramp up' phase. The goal is to investigate how the brain represents the body, so that eventually the brain simulation can incorporate highly specific details of brain-body interaction. Slaterʼs research team will be exploiting immersive virtual reality and carrying out brain imaging studies, in order to collect data on how virtual body representation, and changes to the body appearance or its actions are reflected in brain activity.

A research group led by Eduardo Soriano, professor at the Faculty of Biology of the UB, collaborates in HBP too. The group is focused on developmental neurobiology and neuronal regeneration. To be exact, the group will study how synapses change when learning by analyzing the connectome, in other words, brainʼs key connections to store received information. To get it, they will use techniques of electron microscopy that enable to observe neurons in experimental animals.

 

Neuroscience, medicine and technology

The Human Brain Projectʼs initial mission is to launch its six research platforms, each composed of technological tools and methods that ensure that the projectʼs objectives will be met. These platforms are: neuroinformatics, brain simulation, high-performance computing, medical informatics, neuromorphic computing and neurorobotics. 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 brainʼs 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. This is the mission of the medical informatics platform. Finally, 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. This is the mission of the neuromorphic computing platform.

The success of the Human Brain Project depends in large part on the dynamics of exchange that will occur between its six platforms. The scientists involved in the Human Brain Project now have two and a half years to finalize the research platforms. Once these are established, researchers will have at their disposal the infrastructures, tools and methods they need in order to meet their objectives.

 

Further information