Meet Spaun, The Most Complex Simulated Brain Ever

12-02-2012 • http://www.popsci.com,

Chris Eliasmith has spent years trying to figure out the ingredients and precise recipe for building a brain. He even has a book coming out in February--called “How to Build A Brain”--describing gray matter, dendritic connections and other brainy anatomy. As he was writing it, it occurred to him that he might want to demonstrate it. So he built Spaun, the most complex simulation of a functioning brain built to date.

Spaun, which stands for Semantic Pointer Architecture Unified Network, is a computer model that can recognize numbers, remember them, figure out numeric sequences, and even write them down with a robotic arm. It’s a major leap in brain simulation, because it’s the first model that can actually emulate behaviors while also modeling the physiology that underlies them.

The program consists of 2.5 million simulated neurons organized into subsystems that are designed to resemble specific brain regions, including the prefrontal cortex, basil ganglia and thalamus. It has a virtual eye and a robotic arm, and can perform a series of tasks, each different from one another.