Recreating the Brain

Imagine if we knew just exactly how every intricate cell of our brain acts. Imagine all that we could accomplish with this information, how much more we could discover about neurological and cognitive diseases. Sounds too good to be true right? Years ago we could not have fathomed such an idea. However, after years of research, we are one step closer to unlocking all the treasures that lie in the 3 pound lump of nervous tissue that our cranium holds. Researchers from multiple institutions from across the globe recently reported that they have successfully recreated a section of a rat's brain digitally. Henry Markram, who leads the project says that he and his colleagues have successfully created the first draft of a functioning map of more than 30,000 brain cells. This is very significant and exciting news for us neuroscientists. The human brain contains more than 85 billion brain cells! So although we are still very far from our goal of one day creating a map of the human brain, we have taken a very big step towards getting there. Cori Bargmann, co-director of the Kavli Neural Institute at Rockefeller University, described it as "They built it a 747, and its taxiing around the runway. I haven't seen it fly yet, but it's promising." The potential for what this project could accomplish is tremendous. This research will give us a much better understanding of how our mind functions and how different parts of our brain interact. For example, taking a look at Dr. Collin's research, which studied what possible beneficial effects alcohol can have by taking a look at a certain region of a rat's brain and correlating it to the brain of a human. In fact, the study shows how some moderate amount of alcohol could actually prevent cognitive diseases such as Alzheimer's Disease and AIDS dementia. However, we also know that high amounts of alcohol leads to severe negative effects on the brain. There is a fine line between moderate and high amounts of alcohol intake. How can we see at what amount do the consequences outweigh the benefits? If we take a look at the map of that certain region of the rat's brain, and can physically see how the brain behaves when alcohol is in the system of the rat, it would give us a much better insight on exactly how it responds to the different amounts of alcohol. This is only one example of what we can possibly do with this information. Although it makes up a small part of our body, the human brain is one of the most diverse and complicated tissues that we have. So while this entire process may be completed many years down the road, the potential is infinite. 

Collins, M., Neafsey, E., Wang, K., Achille, N., Mitchell, R., & Sivaswamy, S. (2010). Moderate Ethanol Preconditioning of Rat Brain Cultures Engenders Neuroprotection Against Dementia-Inducing Neuroinflammatory Proteins: Possible Signaling Mechanisms. Molecular Neurobiology Mol Neurobiol, 420-425.

Gorman, J. (2015, October 8). Researchers Say They’ve Recreated Part of a Rat Brain Digitally. Retrieved October 15, 2015.