Human Brain Project researchers collaborate with Intel to bring AI closer to the energy efficiency of the brain.

Researchers of the Human Brain Project (HBP) found that in Parkinson’s disease the volumes of certain brain regions decrease over time in a specific pattern that is associated with clinical symptoms and largely coincides with the pattern described in Braak’s famous staging theory. The new study published in Cortex provides a detailed description of the structural changes over a long period of time and with an unprecedented spatial detail.

A new study by researchers from the University of Bern, Switzerland suggests that dreams -- especially those that simultaneously appear realistic, but, upon a closer look, bizarre - help our brain learn and extract generic concepts from previous experiences. The study, carried out within the Human Brain Project and published in eLife, offers a new theory on the significance of dreams using machine learning inspired methodology and brain simulation.

Human Brain Project researchers have used whole-brain virtual models to simulate what happens when neurostimulation is applied to aging human brains. These models provide new insight into how the dynamics of a healthy brain change as it grows old, and crucially, could help identify new targets and strategies for therapeutic neurostimulation. 

A novel, high-resolution, personalised model of Deep Brain Stimulation for patients suffering from depression has been developed by scientists of the Human Brain Project (HBP) and colleagues. The models aim to improve the treatment of depression by allowing clinicians to preview in a virtual environment how patients might respond to brain stimulation.

New research by brain and computer scientists from Korea University and Human Brain Project Partner University of Liège shows that artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to quantify changes in consciousness during sleep, dreaming, anaesthesia, and coma. Their results were recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

In a new article published in eNeuro, fifteen leading scientists of the European Human Brain Project (HBP) outline how a new culture of collaboration and an era of digitalization has transformed neuroscience research over the last decade.

A system developed by Grégoire Courtine and Jocelyne Bloch at HBP partners EPFL and CHUV now enables patients with a complete spinal cord injury to stand, walk and even perform recreational activities like swimming, cycling and canoeing. An important element for the success is a digital atlas of the human spinal cord. It contains computational models of the neural circuitry in the spinal cord that were created by the team around Courtine within the Human Brain Project. The atlas has now been presented as part of a larger article about the approach in the latest edition of Nature Medicine.

Researchers at Human Brain Project partner University of Granada in Spain have designed a new artificial neural network that mimics the structure of the cerebellum, one of the evolutionarily older parts of the brain, which plays an important role in motor coordination.

In the latest issue of Science, Katrin Amunts and Thomas Lippert explain how advances in neuroscience demand high-performance computing technology and will ultimately need exascale computing power.