June 07, 2005
IBM To Create Digital 3D Model of the Brain
IBM and The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) are today announcing a major joint research initiative – nicknamed the Blue Brain Project – to take brain research to a new level. 
Over the next two years scientists from both organizations will work together using the huge computational capacity of IBM’s eServer Blue Gene supercomputer to create a detailed model of the circuitry in the neocortex – the largest and most complex part of the human brain. By expanding the project to model other areas of the brain, scientists hope to eventually build an accurate, computer-based model of the entire brain.
EPFL has already generated exciting results through wet lab experiments. Using the huge computational capacity of IBM's eServer Blue Gene, researchers from IBM and EPFL will be able to create a detailed model of the circuitry in the neocortex – the largest and most complex part of the human brain. (images from EPFL).
A Forest of Neurons - A dye is injected into each neuron and then developed in order to reveal the morphology. This image shows a minute fraction of the cells and connections within the microcircuitry of the neocortex.
Many more interesting images at href="http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/pr.nsf/pages/rsc.bluegene_cognitive.html">IBM site