So it begins. As reported today by the BBC, researchers at IBM’s Almaden labs have created a supercomputer simulation that attempts to replicate a mouse’s brain. Doesn’t sound too impressive at first, but when you consider that the average mouse brain has over 8 million neurons, each capable of up to 8,000 synaptic linkages, you begin to see how daunting a task it really is. Even using the most powerful supercomputer on the planet, the IBM BlueGene L, they are only able to simulate half of a mouse’s brain, and only for 10 seconds at 1/10th real-time. Running it longer risks some sort of meltdown. What exactly do they mean by simulate, anyway?

On other smaller simulations the researchers said they had seen “biologically consistent dynamical properties” emerge as nerve impulses flowed through the virtual cortex.

In these other tests the team saw the groups of neurons form spontaneously into groups. They also saw nerves in the simulated synapses firing in a ways similar to the staggered, co-ordinated patterns seen in nature.

Hmmm. When this line of research eventually converges with the work in computer programming, neural nets and “AI” logic, it’s only a matter of time until we get humanoid butler units running amuck in our Orgasmitrons.

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BBC NEWS | Technology | Mouse brain simulated on computer