The Blue Brain Project is a brain research program based in Switzerland that attempts to produce a computerized model of the mouse brain. The Brain and Mind Institute of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland began the project in May 2005. 

Its goal is to identify the fundamental principles of brain anatomy and function using biologically detailed digital reconstructions and simulations of the mammalian brain.

About Blue Brain technology

The Blue Brain Project at EPFL is a Swiss brain research initiative run by Professor Henry Markram, its founder and director.

Image source: EPFL

Blue Brain aims to make simulation neuroscience as crucial as experimental, theoretical, and clinical neuroscience in understanding the brain. Blue Brain's simulations and reconstructions are with the help of supercomputers. It offers an entirely new way to understand how the brain works on many different levels.

Other collaborations include the Cajal Blue Brain by the Supercomputing and Visualization Center of Madrid (CeSViMa) and others run by institutions and independent institutes.

Why an artificial brain?

The artificial brain's primary goal is to connect the human brain and an artificial brain. So that a machine can work like a human brain, and essential information about a person, especially their knowledge, feelings, and memories, can be downloaded to an artificial brain using high-level computational algorithms and supercomputers with a lot of storage space.

Every person has a limited amount of time on earth. When a person dies, all their knowledge and intelligence will be gone. However, before a person dies, all the information in their brain is preserved using an artificial brain forever. We can also use the artificial brain to study how to treat diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

How is it done?

Small robots called "nanobots" send information from the brain to supercomputers. They are too small to get into the spine and nerves in the brain. Then, when the nanobots get into the brain, they start scanning and watching the structure of neurons.

Nanobots are the only way to connect two computers. The software used is called "BBP-SDK," a software development kit written in C++ and wrapped in Java and Python. The BBP-SDK collects data from nanobots, and "RT Neuron," a data visualization program written in C++ for 3D visualization of neuron simulation, is used to show what that data means.

The final data will be stored in databases and used to make more models of how the brain works. If this experiment works, it will be possible to keep and look at information about the brain. 

Blue Brain's Scientific Milestones

As the researchers work toward digitally rebuilding the entire mouse brain, Blue Brain follows a rolling four-year roadmap with specified scientific goals to attain during that time.

• 2007: Milestone One - The automatic re-creation by a computer of the electrical behaviour of any neuron in the brain.
• 2015: Milestone Two - An algorithm for recreating the connectome of a neuronal microcircuit.
• 2015: Milestone Three - Neocortical Microcircuitry Reconstruction and Simulation.
• 2015: Milestone Four - In milestone three, the microcircuit's emergent dynamics are validated and explored.

Image source: EPFL

• 2019: Milestone Five - Blue Brain has solved a ten-year-old difficulty of mathematically growing the form of neurons (their morphology).
• 2020: Milestone Six - Blue Brain confirmed that we could apply the microcircuit-building approaches to construct an entire brain area with a curved shape and changes in cellular composition and synaptic properties. (Pending)
• 2019: Milestone Seven - An algorithm connecting the mouse neocortex's 11 million neurons.
• 2019: Milestone Eight - The eighth goal was to apply their algorithmic reconstruction approach to structures with direct neocortical relevance.
• 2019: Milestone Nine - The ninth milestone was to demonstrate that their algorithmic reconstruction approach works outside the neocortex, which the researchers did by rebuilding the hippocampus with the help of outside groups.
• 2018: Milestone Ten - The tenth goal was to create a comprehensive cell atlas of every neuron and glial cell in the mouse brain. In 2018, the researchers published and made available this atlas to the public.
• 2021: Milestone Eleven - The Neuro-Glia-Vascular Architecture is the first digital reconstruction of the brain's power source.

Conclusion

The primary objective of the blue brain project is to extract and virtually store information from the human brain. Hence, the knowledge is in the form of a virtual brain, even after the death of humans. In addition, we can preserve the knowledge and recollections of important figures eternally in the form of a virtual brain and investigate treatments for various brain illnesses. Furthermore, the primary disadvantage of the blue brain is that the information saved is susceptible to manipulation or misuse by hackers.

The Blue Brain Project is open-source and available on GitHub.