These messages are crucial to the normal functioning of the central nervous system. Neurons are electrically excitable cells that transmit messages to each other across the synapses. The level of detail decreases as the level rises towards the whole organ.Īt the microscopic level and below, the signalling between neurons is the focus. Simulation takes place at several separate organisational levels in the brain, ranging from the molecular though the subcellular to cellular and up to the whole organ. Current computer power is insufficient to model a entire human brain at this level of interconnectedness.Ī simpler approach has thus been adopted to produce results that are increasingly close approximations to experimental data.

However, the challenge is a complex one, as the human brain contains 86 billion brain cells (known as neurons) each with an average of 7,000 connections to other neurons (known as synapses). In addition, the computing environment used for simulation offers the possibility of studying disease processes electronically. Simulation also aims to replicate work on animal models, such as the mouse.

The Platform is available to researchers worldwide, so that they can compare their experimental results with model predictions and conduct investigations that are not possible experimentally. Can you imagine a brain and its workings being replicated on a computer? That is what the EBRAINS Cellular Level Simulation Platform aims to do.

Human brain mapping wikipedia