The human brain is one of the most complex systems known, and many of its most basic functions are still not fully understood. There is an urgent need to gain deeper insights into the complexity of the brain in order to target mental and neurological diseases. This requires the integration of insights from multiple scales both on the spatial and temporal level. To address this challenge, the HBP has built the digital research infrastructure EBRAINS in a co-design approach between neuroscientists, developers, engineers and informaticians.
The authors highlight the increasing need for digital tools and describe how HBP scientists employ highly advanced methods from computing, neuroinformatics, simulation and artificial intelligence to carry out cutting-edge brain research. “The HBP is the first large-scale project that systematically connects brain research, medicine and information technologies,” says Viktor Jirsa, Director at the Institut de Neurosciences des Systèmes of Inserm and Aix-Marseille University and last author of the eNeuro article. “The HBP has challenged us to think beyond the boundaries of our own laboratories and domains and has enabled us to go much further than we could have ever gone by ourselves.”
The development of neuro-inspired technologies hugely benefits form the growing body of insights into perception, plasticity and learning. In this way, brain research is becoming a key driver of technological advances in computing, artificial neuronal networks, cognitive computing and neurorobotics. “Basic neuroscience research is the rocket fuel for advances in medicine and IT,” says Jirsa.
Together with the broader neuroscience community, the authors are now drafting a position paper outlining their scientific vision for the next decade of digital brain research. Researchers across Europe are invited to contribute to the living paper that has recently been published. “We will continue to make neuroscience more open, cooperative and participatory,” says Amunts.
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Reblogged this on BionicOldGuy and commented:
This is really cool. Researchers around the world are collaborating on using large scale computation to understand the brain at verious levels. This requires a multidisciplinary approach. This article focuses on the European effort, the Human Brain project.
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