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.

[Thanks, Richard L.]

[CT A @ Apr 29th 2007 12:13PM]

Brain: Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?
Pinky: Uh, I think so, Brain, but we'll never get a monkey to use dental floss.
Brain: No Pinky, with this chip, we will rule Intel and AMD!!

[Joe Smith @ Apr 29th 2007 12:15PM]

I, for one, welcome our computerized human brain overlords that take up the space of a whole room.

[Maff @ Apr 30th 2007 4:45PM]

shouldn't that be 'computerised slow mouse brain' overlords?

[Chuckles McGee @ Apr 29th 2007 12:24PM]

I thought the Blue Gene platform was eventually aiming towards simulating a whole human brain in realtime? I know it's not fully operational, but it would need at least 20 times the processing power just to do a full mouse brain in real-time on this code- can the current Blue Gene architecture be made to even accomodate that?

[Kurtis @ Apr 29th 2007 2:15PM]

@Chuckles McGee:

Seriously, man, use your common sense. You can't "just make" a replica of the human brain, or even the mouse brain for that matter. Did the Wright brothers build a Boeing 747 the first time? No, of course not, and how could you expect them to? And yet the 747 has the same basic architecture as the Wright brothers' first plane... imagine that.

[Paul @ Apr 29th 2007 12:27PM]

let the invasion of the computers begin!

[a ham sandwich @ Apr 29th 2007 12:48PM]

loving the picture :)

[Big @ Apr 29th 2007 1:01PM]

Forget computers that think like mice -

Develop machines that can use the brains of living organisms as a CPU.

[LukeA @ Apr 29th 2007 1:12PM]

The bioethical implications of that would be astronomical.

[Dan @ Apr 29th 2007 1:24PM]

Let the astronomical bioethical implications begin!

[Esat @ Apr 29th 2007 1:17PM]

Narf!

[Dave @ Apr 29th 2007 1:39PM]

Why is it "ironic" that a supercomputer is being used what is was designed for?

[Liam @ Apr 29th 2007 1:42PM]

Has Chuckles McGee even heard of Moore's law??

[eliot1785 @ Apr 29th 2007 1:42PM]

Engadget, please keep your facts straight. This computer did NOT simulate 8 million neurons. Half a mouse brain has 8 million neurons, but this computer only simulated 8,000 neurons. The claims are incredibly misleading. Please read this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6600965.stm

[Stephen @ Apr 29th 2007 1:56PM]

Update: I withdraw my previous comment as Engadget corrected the figures.

The reason I cared enough to mention this is that, if you consider that the complexity increases exponentially with the number of neurons, an 8,000,000 neuron system is probably many millions (or billions?) of times more complex than an 8,000 neuron system, at least if you throw out all of the simplifying assumptions you could make to compartmentalize neuron interactions. In principle they were probably able to simulate the broad patterns the same way. But a full half mouse brain is probably very far away still, so people shouldn't get their hopes/fears up about the huge implications of such a development just yet...

[eliot1785 @ Apr 29th 2007 2:01PM]

oops, eliot1785 == Stephen

[Will @ Apr 29th 2007 3:32PM]

The BBC article is wrong, the original research paper, available here:
http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/people/dmodha/rj10404.pdf
States:
"we were able to represent 8 x 10^6 neurons"

[Mickey Jones @ Apr 29th 2007 1:55PM]

Awwww, isn't that cute? L'il Baby SkyNet.

[Mike @ Apr 29th 2007 5:45PM]

Sooner than you think, thanks to Moores Law and other factors, computers could be exceeding human intelligence by the 2030s. Remember the ability to simulate a brain is not a measure if intelligence, emulation is always much harder - i.e a a computer can have the intelligence of a mouse by making best use of its silicon hardware, using much less processing power than having to emulate a biological brain.

[Joe @ Apr 29th 2007 1:56PM]

Could someone please tell me how many neurons is "6,3000"?

[akijikan @ Apr 29th 2007 2:05PM]

That picture of pinky and the brain brings to mind a very important question of which half of which mouse was it? Was it the best half of an ace maze-runner? Or was it the worse half of a retarded drug-mouse?

[BEETROOT @ Apr 29th 2007 2:46PM]

6,3000 synapses

this just blew my mind

[ico @ Apr 29th 2007 3:19PM]

lol

[ck @ Apr 29th 2007 3:32PM]

If they downgrade its intelligence a bit they'll be able to sign it up on some of the Joystiq fanboy sites.

[John Doe @ Apr 30th 2007 1:38AM]

Or they could become article writers for Engadget. :-P ;-)

[Randomness @ Apr 29th 2007 11:14PM]

So if I interfaced my brain with this machine, could I make torrents go faster?

[spacegravity4me @ Apr 29th 2007 5:57PM]

so after thousands of years of technological advancement we can finally simulate a retarded mouse! :P

[Meltz; @ Apr 29th 2007 6:40PM]

External storage would sure be nice for finals this week!

[Johnny @ Apr 29th 2007 7:06PM]

I think it's cooler when a mouse becomes a computer peripheral.

http://www.quixoticals.com/2007/04/creating-mouse-out-of-mouse.html

[ferny @ Apr 30th 2007 1:31AM]

"Now, if only these guys could figure out how to mimic the brain and offer up external storage to aid our failing memories."

Brain RAID?

[Alex` @ Apr 30th 2007 3:25AM]

What's the point in having 8,000 neurons but only 6,300 synapses? An isolated neuron is completely pointless! If anything there should be more synapses than neurons!

[Revels @ Apr 30th 2007 11:39AM]

Did it display

NEED CHEESE

on it's monitor?

[Tim @ May 1st 2007 12:22AM]

@Revels

The message was obviously:

++?????++ Out of Cheese Error. Redo From Start.

[Revels @ May 1st 2007 3:40AM]

I love the thought of a supercomputer needing cheese :) I feel a screenplay coming on...

[Mike @ Apr 30th 2007 5:10PM]

Alex -- The IBM Almaden PDF (abstract) cited earlier in this thread says they modeled 8 million neurons (8x10**6) and 6,300 synapses PER NEURON.

[murray @ Apr 30th 2007 6:56PM]

Hey, just a few more neurons and they can enlist it in the Marines.