A functional artificial human brain will be possible in the next 10 years, according to neuro-scientist Henry Markram, who made the announcement at TED Global 2009 at Oxford.
Dr Markram is the director of Blue Brain Project, a supercomputing project that can model components of the mammalian brain to precise cellular detail and simulate their activity in 3D. He has already created parts of a fully functioning rat brain.
The project, which was started in 2005, aims to recreate neurons, which are used by human brain to process information by sending electrical signals from neuron to neuron. In the cerebral cortex, neurons are organised into basic functional units, like microcircuits in a computer. This microcircuit, known as the neocortical coloumn( NCC ), is repeated millions of times across the cortex.
The Blue Brain project aims to re-create this fundamental microcircuit, down to the level of biologically accurate individual neurons and this can then be used in simulations. The difference between the brain of a mouse and the brain of a human is basically just volume – humans have many more neocortical coloumns and thus more neurons than mice.
“It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in 10 years. And if we do succeed, we will send a hologram to TED to talk,” said Dr Markram at the conference. The artificial brain would help understand the mysteries of human brain and help find treatments for mental disorders, which afflict about two million people in the world.