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A supercomputer that recreates the human brain could help treat diseases
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
Scientists are planning to recreate the human brain using the world's most powerful computer. "The scientists are thinking of gathering together all the information about the brain's mysterious structure that is currently available and reproducing it on the screen in minute detail, at the level of individual cells and molecular compounds," explains journalist Tamara Cohen. This model will likely help to understand the root causes of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, and to understand how a person thinks and makes decisions.
The project is being carried out by scientists from various European countries under the leadership of Henry Markrem, who lives in Switzerland. The scientists hope to complete the work in 12 years, the article says.
The "brain" will be thousands of three-dimensional images that will be placed around a semi-circular "airplane cockpit." Researchers will be able to literally "fly" over different parts of the brain and monitor how they interact with each other. The goal is to display all the results of neurobiologists from all over the world on one platform. About 60 thousand articles are published in this field every year.
According to the journalist, this brain model can be used to test the latest pharmaceuticals and will also help increase the artificial intelligence of robots and computers.
"This is one of the three big challenges facing the human race: understanding the Earth, space and the brain. We're going to have to understand what makes us human," said Markrem. Over the past 15 years, his lab has made a computer model of the cortical nerve bundle, the building blocks of the mammalian brain.
When reproducing the human brain, one of the main difficulties is the energy supply: the computer requires the energy of an entire nuclear power plant, the author of the article notes.