The scientific case for brain simulations

Abstract

A key element of the European Union's Human Brain Project (HBP) and other large-scale brain research projects is simulation of large-scale model networks of neurons. Here we argue why such simulations will likely be indispensable for bridging the scales between the neuron and system levels in the brain, and a set of brain simulators based on neuron models at different levels of biological detail should thus be developed. To allow for systematic refinement of candidate network models by comparison with experiments, the simulations should be multimodal in the sense that they should not only predict action potentials, but also electric, magnetic, and optical signals measured at the population and system levels.

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Cited by in corpus (7)

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• Routing brain traffic through the von Neumann bottleneck: Efficient cache usage in spiking neural network simulation code on general purpose computers
• Routing brain traffic through the von Neumann bottleneck: Parallel sorting and refactoring
• A Modular Workflow for Performance Benchmarking of Neuronal Network Simulations
• The human biological advantage over AI
• Usage and Scaling of an Open-Source Spiking Multi-Area Model of Monkey Cortex
• Simulation-based Inference of Developmental EEG Maturation with the Spectral Graph Model