BLUE BRAIN – A REVOLUTION

IN MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY
Presented by,
Nivetha Clementina D
Department of Computer Applications
New Horizon College of Engineering
Karnataka, INDIA
INTRODUCTION
 Around 86 billion neurons in Human Brain are in use.
 At one point there is a chance this brain can malfunction into
many ways leading into many disorders.
 Scientists are researching on how to overcome or cure such
type of disorders and diseases.
 But, can we do this approach without affecting a human?
 Yes, it is possible through reverse engineering.
WHAT IS BLUE BRAIN?
 The Blue Brain System is an attempt to reverse engineer the human brain
and recreate it at the cellular level inside a computer simulation.
 The IBM and EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) is now
developing a virtual brain known as the Blue brain. It would be the world’s
first virtual brain.
 It can think like brain, take decisions based on the past experience, and
respond as a natural brain.
 It is possible by using a super computer, with a huge amount of storage
capacity, processing power and an interface between the human brain and
artificial one.
 So the brain and the knowledge, intelligence of anyone can be kept and
used for ever, even after the death of the person.
NEED FOR VIRTUAL BRAIN
 If we have a virtual brain it is
easy to study the nerve
system, the functions of
brain especially from where
a problem starts and find a
quick solution for the
ailments.
 Another need for virtual
brain will be to preserve the
knowledge and skills of a
person even after they are
dead.
 COMPARISON BETWEEN NATURAL BRAIN &
SIMULATED BRAIN
NATURAL BRAIN
INPUT Message passing in the nervous system
is through neurons
INTERPRETATION The neurons receive the electric impulses
are then Interpreted in the brain which
gives the state of neurons.
OUTPUT Depending on the state of neuron the
electric Impulses showing the responses send the
electric Impulses which are caught by cells of body
to respond which part of body is going to receive
that it depends upon the state of neurons at that
time.
MEMORY Some definite neurons represent permanent states
in brain these are then used to deduce to
memorize past things. we force the neurons to
certain states to remember thing or for any
exciting or serious stuff that is happened
completely
PROCESSING Logical and arithmetic calculations are carried out
in neural circuitry, When we take decisions,
imagine about something or make any calculations.
the states of certain neurons are changed by using
past experience stored and current input received
to give the output
SIMULATED BRAIN
An artificial neuron created by scientist replacing
with the silicon chip, these neurons receive the input
and sends it to super computer for analysis
Here also it symbolizes different states of the brain
where the interpretation of electric impulses
received by artificial neuron is made by a set of
register.
Here based on the state of the registers
the signal is given to the artificial neuron
as output which will be received by the
sensory cell.
It is possible to store states of register
permanently but not the data using
secondary memory. When required this
information can be retrieved and used.
Similarly the decision making is done by
computer using some stored states and
received inputs and performing some
arithmetic and logical calculations.
STEPS IN BUILDING A VIRTUAL BRAIN AND
SOFTWARE USED IN IMPLEMENTING:
I. DATA COLLECTION
 In this process a piece of brain tissue is collected, the shape
and electrical behavior of the individual neuron is fetched with
the help of microscope.
 On the basis of their form, electrical and physiological behavior
of the neurons are collected which are present within the
cerebral cortex.
 These interpretations are translated into algorithms illustrating
the neuron’s process, purpose and their positioning methods.
 This compilation of data will provide information to the
researchers to create a 3D replica of neuron to study it
completely.
Software used for collecting data:
Neuron:
• The primary software
used by the BBP for neural
simulations is a package
called NEURON.
• It is written in C, C++, and
FORTRAN.

NEURON cell builder window

II. DATA SIMULATION
The main aim of data simulation is to create virtual cell
using various algorithms that will describe and define the
real neurons.
The human brain is been simulated depending upon the
age, species, disease stage on the basis of which the
algorithms are adapted.
 Software used for simulating data:
BBP-SDK:
• The BBP-SDK (Blue Brain
Project-Software
Development Kit) is a set of
software classes (APIs) that
allows researchers to utilize
and inspect models and
simulations.
• The SDK is a C++ library
wrapped in Java and Python.

Neuron Cell Builder (BBP-SDK)

III. VISUALISATION
In this section a 3D model of neurons is fashioned such
that this can be used by the researchers to cram the
structure and operation of neuron.
The software used here is “RT NEURON”, which is helpful
to learn the operation of neurons and synapses.
 Software used for Visualizing data:
RTNeuron:
• RTNeuron is the primary
application used by the BBP for
visualization of neural simulations.
• It is written in C++ and OpenGL.
• RTNeuron is ad-hoc software
written specifically for neural
simulations, i.e. it is not generalisable
to other types of simulation.
• RTNeuron takes the output from
Hodgkin-Huxley simulations in
NEURON and render them in 3D.
• The animations can be stopped,
started and zoomed, thus letting
researchers interact with the model.
RT Neuron visualization of a
neuron
COMPUTER HARDWARE /
SUPERCOMPUTERS USED
Blue Gene Supercomputer:
The primary machine used by the Blue Brain Project is a
Blue Gene supercomputer built by IBM. This is where the
name "Blue Brain" originates from.
IBM agreed in June 2005 to supply EPFL with a Blue
Gene/L as a "technology demonstrator".
Blue Gene/P technical
specifications:
i. 4,096 quad-core nodes.
ii. Each core is a PowerPC 450,
850 MHz .
iii. Total: 56 teraflops, 16
terabytes of memory.
iv. 4 racks, one row, wired as a
16x16x16 3D torus.
v. 1 PB of disk space, GPFS
parallel file system.
vi. Operating System: Linux SuSE
SLES 10.

This machine peaked at 99th

fastest supercomputer in the
world in November 2009.
UPLOADING INTO HUMAN BRAIN
The uploading is possible by the use of small robots known as the Nanobots.
 These robots are small enough to travel throughout our circulatory system.
Traveling into the spine and brain, they will be able to monitor the activity
and structure of our central nervous system.
They will be able to provide an interface with computers that is as close as
our mind can be while we still reside in our biological form.
Nanobots could also carefully scan the structure of our brain, providing a
complete readout of the connections.
This information, when entered into a computer, could then continue to
function as us.
Thus the data stored in the entire brain will be uploaded into the
computer.
NANOBOTS
 MERITS
 The blue brain project will enable us
to retain the information without
any effort and decisions can be made
without the presence of a person.
 Even after the death of a man his
intelligence can be used.
 The activity of different animals can
be understood. That means by
interpretation of the electric
impulses from the brain of the
animals, their thinking can be
understood easily.
 It would allow the deaf to hear via
direct nerve stimulation, and also be
helpful for many psychological
diseases.
DEMERITS
 Blue Brain system might probe the
human beings to become
dependent on the machines.
 Technical knowledge may be
misused by hackers.
 Computer viruses will pose an
exponential critical threat.
 The real threat, however, is the fear
that people have on adapting to
the new technologies and that fear
may culminate into a large
resistance by majority of the
people.
 Similar evidence of this fear is
found today with respect to human
cloning.
APPLICATIONS
Gathering and Testing 100 Years of Data
Cracking the Neural Code
Understanding Neocortical Information Processing
A Novel Tool for Drug Discovery for Brain Disorders
A Global Facility
A Foundation for Whole Brain Simulations
Foundation for Molecular Modeling of Brain Function
CHALLENGES
Funding
Power Consumption: The human brain uses power
around 25 watts and there is no such computing system
near this power, even though nanotechnology and ultra-
power technology design offer guarantee.
To state whether one computer processor could emulate
thousands of neurons and that would be accurate
enough.
Scaling
CONCLUSION
To conclude, we will be able to transfer our information, knowledge
and skills into computers at some point.
Most arguments against this outcome are seemingly easy to
circumvent. They are either simple minded, or simply require
further time for technology to increase.
 Blue Brain Project will help us overcome the serious threats raised,
through the combination of biological and digital technologies.
Despite the sheer complexity of such an endeavor, it is predicted
that the project will be capable of this by the year 2024.
While the road ahead is long, our researches have been surpassing
great insights from their model.
Now, Happy to answer your
questions!
THANK YOU!