Scientists Create Most Detailed Brain Map Ever With 10 Million Neurons
Researchers have unveiled the most comprehensive brain map ever created, detailing nearly 10 million neurons, 26 billion synapses, and 86 interconnected brain regions. This breakthrough simulation, developed using Japan’s ultra-fast Fugaku supercomputer, opens new frontiers in understanding neurological diseases, brain waves, and seizure mechanisms.
Key Takeaways
- Most detailed brain simulation ever created with 10 million neurons
- Developed using Japan’s Fugaku supercomputer capable of quadrillions of calculations per second
- Virtual copy of mouse cortex shows spontaneous activity in resting state
- Enables study of diseases, brain waves, and seizures without real tissue
A Technical Milestone in Neuroscience
Dr Anton Arkhipov from the Allen Institute described the achievement as a “technical milestone.” He stated: “With this kind of computational power, the goal of a full, biophysically accurate brain model isn’t just science fiction anymore. Scientists are in a new frontier where understanding the brain means, quite literally, being able to build one.”
The simulation represents a virtual copy of a mouse’s cortex, the brain’s critical outermost layer responsible for visual processing, movement, and decision-making. Different cortical areas appear in vibrant colors, while active neurons show as white tree-like branches that spike and signal to transmit messages.
Why Brain Modeling Matters
Dr Tim Jarsky, associate director of electrophysiology at the Allen Institute, explained the importance of computational modeling: “Modeling is incredibly important because the brain is too complex a system to use your intuition to figure out how cells should be behaving. Even with the subset of kinds of neurons in this dataset, we have so many possible interactions with many different types of signaling. You really need a model to understand how the circuit could behave when you put all those elements together.”
Fugaku: The Power Behind the Breakthrough
Fugaku, Japan’s flagship supercomputer at the Riken Center for Computational Science, ranks as the world’s seventh-fastest supercomputer. Capable of over 400 quadrillion calculations per second, it processes data faster than human blinking. To put this in perspective, counting to 400 quadrillion in seconds would take over 12.7 billion years—nearly the age of the universe.
Dr Tadashi Yamazaki from Japan’s University of Electro-Communications noted: “Fugaku is used for research in a wide range of computational science fields, such as astronomy, meteorology, and drug discovery. On this occasion, we utilised Fugaku for a neural circuit simulation.”
Future Directions and Global Context
The long-term goal involves simulating the entire mouse brain and developing human brain models. While currently focused on mouse cortex, the model provides reliable insights into human brain development due to structural similarities between species.
Though Fugaku was the world’s fastest supercomputer in June 2020, it now ranks seventh globally. The current leader, El Capitan at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, represents the third US “exascale” system capable of one quintillion operations per second.
The research team will present their virtual brain simulation at SC25, the supercomputing conference in St. Louis, Missouri this week.
What is a Supercomputer?
Supercomputers represent the pinnacle of computational power, measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) rather than standard computing metrics. These systems contain tens of thousands of processors performing billions of calculations per second, enabling advanced research in weather forecasting, quantum mechanics, drug discovery, and artificial intelligence applications.
