Criticism, ethics and philosophy behind the HBP

With great innovation comes great criticism.

Although the Human Brain Project has many supporters, it also has to cope with numerous critics. Many do not believe that it is possible just yet to build a specific simulation of the human brain because neuroscience is actually still at its launch. The coordinator of the HBP mentioned in 2009 that he plans establishing his ideas within 10 years. This time frame seems to be overwhelmingly optimistic for many people. Moreover, some argue that in stating this, it aids them to receive more funding. In addition, there are many people who are unsure about an emulated brain's value as it will not perform any cognitive functions.

Opposed to that it is also often argued by scientists that, even if simulating a single cortical column of a rat is a result nowhere near a human brain, it is still a significant start. Knowledge about the brain's functions is growing exponentially and at some point, although maybe not in ten years, the success of a simulation will become a powerful tool. Many believe that most likely, the first model will be a failure. However, any resulting failure in this model will bring neuroscientists closer to a better model.


With great Innovation comes great responsibility.

Bringing new technologies, such as artificial brains or new scanning devices for the nervous system, into our world naturally creates certain risks. There is always the possibility of abuse of knowledge, be it deliberately or involuntarily. There are a great number of other ethical questions, such as: it is ethically acceptable to treat patients with cognitive problems. But is it also acceptable to enhance cognition in healthy people to make them smarter?


With great innovation come great ontological questions.

• How does the mind work?
• Where does our mind come from?
• What is consciousness?
• Is there a relationship between the mind and our biological brain?

CAJ abstract

The study of neuroscience is advancing in a remarkable speed, in particular concerning development of innovative technologies. This Current Affairs Journal discusses, in the greatest part, how far neuroscience has developed to this point in time and what the estimated prospects for the future are. Supercomputing technology, brain scanning in order to locate mental illnesses, or memory implants are rapidly approaching a level where establishing them becomes a possibility. As these aspects are becoming ever more concrete, there is a wide variety of information resources, ranging from newspaper articles, documentaries, scientific papers, and videos. For this CAJ mainly articles, videos and information from the concerning institution were used. As a consequence of this wide variety of information, there is also often misleading material to be found. Considering all material found, it can be assessed that neuroscience, although it is making considerable progress, has still many obstacles to overcome.

HBP's attempt to build an artificial brain

In my last post I mentioned the Human Brain Project briefly and wrote that its major aim is to construct an emulation of the human brain. In this post, I am going to discuss in a little more detail how this project is going to do this and who stands behind it.

The HBP is funded by The European Union which contributed about 1 billion Euros and is coordinated by neuroscientist Henry Markram. The project is managed from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Henry Markram

In a nutshell, the initiative's major goals are to identify how the human brain operates and, based on this, build a digital model. On this it would ne possible to conduct experiments as conductiing experiments on animals and humans is limited. According to Markram, the researchers are trying to bring together a fundamental understanding of the brain which turns out to be a big challenge as all the knowledge on neuroscience is extremly fragmented. Data, that was published in neuroscience, needs first gathering before it can be applied to a computer.

Another challenge is to translate this gathered data into a computer model. The actual challenge here is to not only consider individual neurons but ro regard the whole picture, including all the connections between synapses. In other words, the first step is to harvest all the technological mysteries of the brain (how it transmits, processes and stores information) in order to, in the second step, construct a supercomputer.

In 2006, HBP developed a computer simulation of the neocortical column of a rat and it behaves precisely like its biological example. Although this column is only about 2 mm long, it contains about 10,000 neurons and 30 million synapses. This emulation is the most advanced supercomputer and is, compared to the neocortex, a huge construct.

The IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer

Of course, the human brain contains many more neurons and synapses and its simulation would take up even more space. Not to mention the huge electricity bill.

Althoug this project is facing enormous obstacles, the actual outcome will be one of the most significant results in the study of neuroscience and medicine. By being able to conduct experiments in an innovative way and therefore understanding the brain's functions, it would also be possible for the future human kind to understand its malfunctions.

In a previous post, I summerised a few neurologic disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease. One cane notice that there is no treatment for any of the diseases mentioned. If HBP succeeds, early diagnosis, personalized medicine and advanced medical research would be an advantageous consequence of the knowledge obtained from exact emulation of a human brain.


Sources:
https://www.humanbrainproject.eu
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-incredible-challenge-of-digitizing-the-human-brain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0ZPFffdmXg

How neuroscience helps

The human brain still holds many mysteries concerning its functions and dysfunctions. Recently, initiatives in the U.S. and in Europe have been started to observe, analyse and finally solve them.

One of these initiatives is B.R.A.I.N. (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies). This is a collaborative project in the U.S. to accelerate development of new technologies for understanding the human brain's structure, functions and more importantly malfunctions. The aim is to cease the increasing number of mortality and burden of disease due to neurological disorders.

President Obama announced the initiative in April. Government and private organizations both contributed a high sum to it to get the project going. Critics say that there is not enough money to accomplish the goals, however, the leaders claim that the first funding is only figurative and the timetable and all costs are being throughly discussed just now.

The Human Brain Project (HBP) is the European pendant to B.R.A.I.N. and they have a very similar aim: to construct new technologies in order to facilitate neuroscientific research. One major goal is to reconstruct the human brain in a computer-based simulation. In addition, in order to identify and cure neurological diseases, it is crucial for this project to develop innovative computing and scanning.

sources:
http://www.nih.gov/science/brain/
https://www.humanbrainproject.eu
http://actu.epfl.ch/news/the-human-brain-project-wins-top-european-science-/

Neuropsychiatric Diseases

As mentioned in my introductory post, neuroscience is connected with many other studies. Medicine is a widely researched study which includes the study of psychiatric and neurologic disorders. Neuropsychiatric disorders are, for instance, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, or multiple sclerosis. So neuropsychiatry is concerned with mental disorders due to diseases of the nervous system.

Alzheimer's disease
is the most common form of dementia. It is a progressive disease, which means that the symptoms worsen over time starting with difficulty remembering newly learned information. leading to difficulty speaking, walking and swallowing and eventually death. The cause for Alzheimer's is still, for the greatest part, unknown. Also, what exactly happens to the brain is not entirely explored. It is only known that some sort of loss of neurons in the cerebral cortex is responsible for the disease. There is no treatment to completely stop it yet, however, there is treatment to slow down the worsening symptoms.

Epilepsy
Characteristic for this disease are repeated, spontaneous epileptic seizures. It all takes place in the brain: normally, electrical signals are not synchronic but when the brain's neurons start transmitting signals in an unusual, synchronized way, the patient experiences a seizure. Although epilepsy is not 100% treatable, there are many ways to prevent seizures and there are medication possibilities.

Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
is a disease where the immune system within the central nervous system attacks myelin sheath, which protects the axon of a neuron. Therefore, signals traveling to or from the brain are interrupted. Just as with Alzheimer's, there is no known cure for MS only medication or therapies which soothe the symptoms. There are multiple symptoms and every MS patient experiences different ones. Most common symptoms include sensory, visual or motor problems such as numbness, double vision or bladder dysfunctions.


These are only three of a wide range of neuropsychiatric diseases which are a serious problem that should best be addressed as soon as possible. According to predictions by the WHO (World Health Organization) "(...) unless immediate action is taken globally - the neurological burden will continue to remain a serious threat to public health." An estimation is presented by the WHO which predicts a 12% increase of deaths caused by neurological disorders in Europe, including those shortly described above.

sources:
http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_1973.asp
http://www.nationalmssociety.org
http://www.epilepsy.com/learn/epilepsy-statistics
http://www.who.int/mental_health/neurology/chapter_2_neuro_disorders_public_h_challenges.pdf