Aug. 2, 2006 —A computer with thousands of microprocessors is being built to mimic and model the function of millions of nerve networks in the brain.
The Spinnaker — short for "spiking neural network architecture" — system will not only help scientists better understand the complex interactions of brain cells, but it could also lead to fault-tolerant computers that, like the brain, work despite malfunctions in tiny circuits.
"You lose one neuron per second during your adult life. As they die, there doesn't seem to be any gross underperformance in the brain," said Steve Furber of the University of Manchester in the U.K., leader of the Spinnaker project.
The idea, said Furber, is to mimic that kind of biological robustness in components of future electronic devices — which, as they inevitably shrink to smaller and smaller sizes, are likely to experience more and more failures.
But understanding how brains achieve such resilience is still a great mystery.
Scientists frequently use technologies such as functional magnetic resonance (commonly known as MRI) to image regions of the brain, and can probe to acquire an even finer picture of specific cellular networks.
But nerve cells are so tiny and numerous that pinpointing neural networks responsible for a particular activity is nearly impossible.
Pinpointing them on a computer brain should be much easier.
Furber's electronic version will contain silicon chips equipped with 20 tiny processors each, 19 of which will be designed to behave as neurons. The other will monitor the activity of the chip.
Each processor will model about a thousand neurons, so each chip will represent about 20,000 neurons. (The brain has hundreds of billions.) The system will replicate how signals propagate to accomplish specific tasks.
