Workshop on brain modelling inaugurated
The brain runs on about 60 watts of power. To make an electronic simulation of the human organ would require a computer the size of India and cost about US $ 30 billion annually for electricity alone, said Henry Markram, Director, Centre for Neuroscience and Technology, EPFL, on Thursday.He was speaking at the inaugural session of a workshop on brain modelling organised by the Waran Research Foundation (WARFT) here.Dr. Markram is part of the prestigious Blue Brain project, described as the “first comprehensive attempt to reverse-engineer the mammalian brain in order to understand brain function and dysfunction through detailed simulations.” According to bluebrain.epfl.ch, this is “a project to create a biologically accurate, functional model of the brain using IBM’s Blue Gene supercomputer” that would “help us explore solutions to intractable problems in me ntal health and neurological disease.”Nuclear physics, for instance, hardly involves experiments anymore, as they can be simulated. Life sciences, though, are yet to see simulation-based research. The power of such a brain model would be to provide a new foundation for medicine. It could be used to trace the course of disease or the consequences of a drug, he said.
The WARFT established a Chennai-based Centre for Advanced Research in Brain Modelling and Super Computing to encourage undergraduate students and professionals in science and engineering to look at this fascinating field of research.“The much-hyped information technology boom is drawing away students from research,” rues N. Venkateshwaran, who is called ‘Professor Waran’ by his students. He established WARFT as a non-profit scientific research organisation in 2000. With students displaying a marked aversion to pure sciences, he expressed the hope that the multi-disciplinary nature of brain modelling would encourage them to choose areas of interest within it.
The workshop will feature panel discussions and lectures from eminent people in the field. More than 200 students are expected to participate.K. Kasturirangan, Director, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, inaugurated the workshop. He said the workshop would give undergraduate students an idea of the methodology of thinking and writing a research paper.N. Ranganathan of the University of South Florida said that some 70 per cent of engineering graduates from the institution were Indian, and that the American government was spending a lot of money to encourage students to take up research.
