Human Brain Project

The Human Brain Project (HBP) is a large ten-year scientific research project,
Human Brain Project
based on exascale supercomputers, that aims to build a collaborative ICT-based
scientific research infrastructure to allow researchers across Europe to advance Type of Scientific Research
knowledge in the fields of neuroscience, computing, and brain-related medicine.[1] project
The Project, which started on 1 October 2013, is aEuropean CommissionFuture and Location Europe
Emerging Technologies Flagship. The HBP is coordinated by the École Owner European Union
Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and is largely funded by the European
Founder Henry Markram
Union.[2] The project coordination office is in Geneva, Switzerland.[3]
Country Switzerland
Key people Katrin Amunts,
Scientific Research
Contents Director
Strategic goals and organisation Established 2013
Funding
Website www
Obstacles .humanbrainproject
Implications .eu
Criticism
See also
References
External links

Strategic goals and organisation

Fundamental to the HBP approach is to investigate the brain on different spatial and
temporal scales (i.e. from the molecular to the large networks underlying higher
cognitive processes, and from milliseconds to years). To achieve this goal, the HBP
relies on the collaboration of scientists from diverse disciplines, including
neuroscience, philosophy and computer science, to take advantage of the loop of
experimental data, modelling theories and simulations. The idea is that empirical
results are used to develop theories, which then foster modelling and simulations
[4]
which result in predictions that are in turn verified by empirical results.
The 2013 HBP Summit–the
The primary objective of the HBP is to create an ICT-based research infrastructure inauguration of the Project–took
for brain research, cognitive neuroscience and brain-inspired computing, which can place in the EPFL Learning Centre in
October 2013. It brought together
be used by researchers world-wide.
scientists from over 100 Partner
The Project is divided into 12 Subprojects. Six of these develop ICT-based platforms Institutions.

(Subprojects 5-10), which consist of prototype hardware, software, databases, and

programming interfaces. These tools are available to researchers worldwide via the
HBP Collaboratory. Three Subprojects gather data on empirical neuroscience and establish theoretical foundations (Subprojects 1-4)
and one is responsible for ethics and society (Subproject 12). Subproject11coordinates the project.

SP1 Mouse Brain Organisation: Understanding the structure of the mouse brain, and its electrical and chemical
functions
 SP2 Human Brain Organisation: Understanding the structure of the human brain, and its electrical and chemical
functions
SP3 Systems and Cognitive Neuroscience: Understanding how the brain performs its systems-level and cognitive
functional activities
SP4 Theoretical Neuroscience: Deriving high-level mathematical models to synthesize conclusions from research
data
SP5 Neuroinformatics Platform: Gathering, organising and making available brain data
SP6 Brain Simulation Platform: Developing data-driven reconstructions of brain tissue and simulation capabilities to
explore these reconstructions
SP7 High-performance Analytics and ComputingPlatform: Providing the ICT capability to map the brain in
unprecedented detail, construct complex models, run large simulations, and analyse large volumes of data
SP8 Medical Informatics Platform: Developing the infrastructure to share hospital and medical research data for the
purpose of understanding disease clusters and their respective disease signatures
SP9 Neuromorphic ComputingPlatform: Developing and applying brain-inspired computing technology
SP10 Neurorobotics Platform: Developing virtual and real robots and environments for testing brain simulations
SP11 Management and Coordination: General coordination of the project
SP12 Ethics and Society: Exploring the ethical and societal impact of HBP’
s work
The HBP is coordinated by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and involves researchers from over171 partner institutions
in 19 countries across Europe.[1] Notable Partner Institutions include the University of Heidelberg, Forschungszentrum Jülich, and
the University Hospital of Lausanne.

The scientific direction is provided by representatives from each of the HBP's Subprojects, which form the Science and Infrastructure
Board (SIB). Katrin Amunts from Forschungszentrum Jülich is the Chair of the SIB. Alois Knoll from TU Munich is Vice Chair of
the SIB for software. The Directorate steers the daily work of the HBP – it is led by Andreas Mortensen from EPFL.

Funding
The HBP is funded by the European Commission Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG
CONNECT) under the Horizon 2020 framework, an EU Research and Innovation funding programme. It was one of the two initial
Future Emerging Technologies (FET) Flagship projects.

The project is split into five phases, each supplied with separate funding. The call for funding for the Project's initial two-and-a-half-
year 'Ramp-Up Phase' of EUR 54 million closed in November 2013 and the results were announced in March 2014. Twenty-two
projects from thirty-two organisations were selected for the initial funding of EUR 8.3 million.[5] The Ramp-Up Phase ended on 31
March 2016. Funding is reassessed every two years using Specific Grant Agreements (SGA); the first of which began in April 2016
(ending in April 2018), and the second with a total EU funding of 88 Million Euro starting in April 2018 (ending in March 2020).
The HBP's total costs are estimated at EUR 1.019 billion, of which EUR 500 million will be provided by the European Commission,
EUR 500 million by national, public and private or [1]
ganisations, and EUR 19 million by the Core Project Ramp-Up Phase Partners.

Obstacles
One of the Project's primary hurdles is the unsystematic nature of the information collected from previous brain research.
Neurological research data varies by biological organisation schemes, species studied, and by developmental stages, making it
difficult to collectively use the data to replicate the brain in a model that acts as a single system.[6]

Other obstacles include engineering problems involving power consumption, memory, and storage.[7] For example, detailed neuron
representations are very computationally expensive,[8] and whole brain simulation is at the leading edge of our computational
capability.

Implications
Technologies generated by the HBP and other similar projects offer several
possibilities to other fields of research. For instance, a brain model can be used to
investigate signatures of disease in the brain and the impact of certain drugs,
enabling the development of better diagnosis and treatment methods. Ultimately,
these technologies will likely lead to more advanced medical options available to
patients at a lower cost.[6]

In addition, detailed brain simulation requires significant computing power, leading

to developments in supercomputing and energy-efficient, brain-inspired computing The Human Brain Project moved to
techniques. Computational developments can be extended into areas such as data Campus Biotech in 2014.[9]
[6]
mining, telecommunications, appliances, and other industrial uses.

The long-term ethical consequences of the Project are also considered. The Project follows a policy of Responsible Research and
Innovation, and its Ethics Advisory Board is responsible for monitoring the use of human volunteers, animal subjects, and the data
collected. Implications on European society, industry, and economy are investigated by the HBP Ethics and Society Programme's
Foresight Lab.[10]

Criticism
An open letter was sent on 7 July 2014 to the European Commission by 154 European researchers (750 signatures as of 3 September
2014)[11] complaining of the HBP's overly narrow approach, and threatening to boycott the Project.[12] Central to this controversy
was an internal dispute about funding for cognitive scientists who study high level brain functions, such as thought and behaviour.
However, the HBP stated that there is “no question that cognition and behaviour are vital to the HBP”, explaining that cognitive
neuroscience research was repositioned in the Project to allow the Core Project to focus on building the Platforms. In addition, The
Open Letter called on the EC to “reallocate the funding currently allocated to the HBP core and partnering projects to broad
neuroscience-directed funding to meet the original goals of the HBP—understanding brain function and its effect on society”. In its
response, the HBP said that “while [neuroscience research] generates a vast amount of valuable data, there is currently no technology
for sharing, organising, analysing or integrating this information, beyond papers and even databases. The HBP will provide the
critical missing layer to move towards a multi-level reconstruction and simulation of the brain”. It added that “cognitive and
behavioural neuroscience will become the most significant component of neuroscience in HBP over the course of the Project.
[13]
However, for this to happen the Platforms have to be in place first”.

Peter Dayan, director of computational neuroscience atUniversity College London, argued that the goal of a large-scale simulation of
the brain is radically premature,[14] and Geoffrey Hinton said that "[t]he real problem with that project is they have no clue how to
get a large system like that to learn".[15] Similar concerns as to the project's methodology were raised byRobert Epstein.[16]

The HBP has said that its members share the uncertainty surrounding large-scale simulation, but that “reconstructing and simulating
the human brain is a vision, a target; the benefits will come from the technology needed to get there. That technology, developed by
the HBP, will benefit all of neuroscience as well as related fields”.[13]

In 2015 the project underwent a review process and the three-member executive committee, led by Markram, was dissolved[17] and
replaced by a 22-member governing board.[18]

See also
Blue Brain Project
BRAIN Initiative
Brain/MINDS
China Brain Project
Decade of the Brain
Decade of the Mind
Human Connectome Project
 SpiNNaker

References
1. Human Brain Project, Framework Partnership Agreement
https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/documents/10180/538356/FPA++Annex+1+Part+B/41c4da2e-0e69-4295-8e98-
3484677d661f
2. http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/h2020-section/fet-flagships
3. "Human Brain Project relocates to Geneva"(http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/science_technology/Human_Brain_Project
_relocates_to_Geneva.html?cid=37219978). SwissInfo. 29 October 2013. Retrieved 29 October 2013.
4. Amunts, Katrin; Ebell, Christoph; Muller, Jeff; Telefont, Martin; Knoll, Alois; Lippert, Thomas (2016). "The Human
Brain Project: Creating a European Research Infrastructure to Decode the Human Brain". Neuron. 92 (3): 574–581.
doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2016.10.046(https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.neuron.2016.10.046) . PMID 27809997 (https://www.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27809997).
5. "The Human Brain Project just got bigger"(https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/documents/10180/538356/HBP+Comp
etitive+Calls+Programme+-+Press+Release/e98a279e-6e08-4ad5-bd07-b125c9d63cd3?version=1.1) . Retrieved
2014-07-07.
6. "A Report to the European Commission"(http://tierra.aslab.upm.es/documents/projects/HBP_flagship_report_for_Eu
rope.pdf) The Human Brain Project.
7. https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/discover/the-project/overview
8. Forrest, Michael D (2015). "Simulation of alcohol action upon a detailed Purkinje neuron model and a simpler
surrogate model that runs >400 times faster".BMC Neuroscience. 16. doi:10.1186/s12868-015-0162-6(https://doi.or
g/10.1186%2Fs12868-015-0162-6).
9. "Human Brain Project relocates to Geneva - SWI swissinfo.ch"(http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/sci-tech/surprise-move_
human-brain-project-relocates-to-geneva/37219978)
. SWI swissinfo.ch. Retrieved 2016-03-11.
10. Human Brain Project-Ethics and Society(https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/ethics-and-society) Archived (https://we
b.archive.org/web/20130829141728/http://www .humanbrainproject.eu/ethics-and-society)29 August 2013 at the
Wayback Machine..
11. Frégnac, Yves; Laurent, Gilles (2014). "Neuroscience: Where is the brain in the Human Brain Project?".Nature. 513
(7516): 27–9. Bibcode:2014Natur.513...27F (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014Natur .513...27F).
doi:10.1038/513027a (https://doi.org/10.1038%2F513027a). PMID 25186884 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
25186884).
12. "Open message to the European Commission concerning the Human Brain Project"
(http://www.neurofuture.eu/).
Retrieved 2014-07-07.
13. "The Vital Role of Neuroscience in the Human Brain Project" (https://web.archive.org/web/20140823003843/https://w
ww.humanbrainproject.eu/documents/10180/17646/HBP-Statement.090614.pdf)(PDF). Archived from the original (h
ttps://www.humanbrainproject.eu/documents/10180/17646/HBP-Statement.090614.pdf)(PDF) on 23 August 2014.
Retrieved 11 March 2016.
14. "Scientists threaten to boycott €1.2bn Human Brain Project"(https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jul/07/huma
n-brain-project-researchers-threaten-boycott). The Guardian. 7 July 2014. Retrieved 2014-07-07.
15. Brean, Joseph (2014-07-08)."A billion-dollar European effort to model the brain in a supercomputer is in danger of
collapsing" (http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com/2014/07/08/a-billion-dollar-europ
ean-effort-to-model-the-human-brain-in-a-supercomputer-is-in-danger-of-collapsing). National Post.
16. "Your brain does not process information andit is not a computer – Robert Epstein | Aeon Essays"(https://aeon.co/e
ssays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer)
. Aeon. Retrieved 2016-05-23.
17. Theil, Stefan (2015). "Trouble in Mind". Scientific American. 313 (4): 36–42. Bibcode:2015SciAm.313d..36T (http://ad
sabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015SciAm.313d..36T). doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1015-36(https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fsci
entificamerican1015-36).
18. http://sciencebusiness.net/news/77294/%E2%82%AC1B-Human-Brain-Project-back-on-track-after-Commission-
signs-new-contract

External links
 Human Brain Project website

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