Blue Brain Project

The Blue Brain Project was a Swiss brain research effort that aimed to create a digital model of the mouse brain. It began in May 2005 at the Brain Mind Institute of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland and finished in December 2024. The project used detailed digital models and simulations to learn about how brains are built and work.

The project was led by its founder Henry Markram, who also started the European Human Brain Project. Other leaders included Felix Schürmann, Adriana Salvatore, and Sean Hill. They used a powerful Blue Gene supercomputer with special software called NEURON to create realistic models of brain cells, known as neurons, and how they connect, called a connectome.

The project worked with many partners, such as the Cajal Blue Brain, which was managed by the Supercomputing and Visualization Center of Madrid (CeSViMa), as well as other universities and research labs.

History

The Blue Brain Project started in 2005 at a school in Switzerland. Its goal was to build a digital model of a mouse brain. In 2006, it created its first simple model of a tiny part of brain tissue. By 2007, it had made a model of a rat’s tiny brain part, which was an important step.

Over the years, the project made many discoveries. In 2015, it simulated part of a rat brain with many cells. In 2017, researchers found that brain cells connect in very complex ways, like in many dimensions. In 2018, they released a detailed map of brain cells. By 2022, they developed new ways to create many different brain cells from just a few examples, which helps scientists study brain diseases better. The project ended in December 2024.

Software

The Blue Brain Project created several tools to help study and simulate the mouse brain. All of these tools are free for everyone to use and can be found on GitHub.

Blue Brain Nexus is a platform that helps users search, store, and organize data using a special knowledge graph. It follows FAIR data principles to make data management easier.

BluePyOpt helps scientists build models of single neurons by using special methods to match real experimental data. CoreNEURON works with another tool called NEURON to make large simulations faster and use less memory. NeuroMorphoVis is a tool for showing the shapes of neurons. SONATA is a project together with the Allen Institute for Brain Science to create a standard way to share data, making it easier to work across different platforms.

Funding

The Blue Brain Project was supported mainly by the Swiss government and a special grant called the Future and Emerging Technologies Flagship from the European Commission. Additional money came from private donors. The school where the project happened, EPFL, got a special computer called Blue Gene at a lower price because it was still new, and the company IBM wanted to see how it would work for different tasks. The project helped show that the Blue Gene computer was a good idea.

Related projects

Cajal Blue Brain

The Cajal Blue Brain Project works with the Technical University of Madrid and uses a powerful computer called Magerit at the Supercomputing and Visualization Center of Madrid. Researchers there study the brain using experiments and computer programs. They also use special tools, like a new microscope, to look at very tiny parts of the brain.

Documentary

A filmmaker named Noah Hutton made a movie called In Silico over ten years. The movie came out in April 2021 and talks about the Blue Brain Project and its changing goals.