Chips hold the key to understanding the human brain

Chips based on ARM processor technology will be linked together to simulate the highly-complex workings of the brain, whose functionality derives from networks of billions of interacting, highly-connected neurons.

The chips upon which this work critically depends were delivered last month, and have passed their functionality tests with flying colours.

They will form the system architecture for a massive computer, called SpiNNaker (Spiking Neural Network architecture), which aims to map out the brain's individual functions.

SpiNNaker could be a vital tool for neuroscientists, psychologists and doctors to help them understand complex brain injuries, diseases and conditions, and identify the most effective therapies.

The University of Manchester was selected to design the system architecture for the project, and received half of the £5m EPSRC grant which supported the work, while the universities of Southampton, Cambridge and Sheffield share the rest to work on other parts of the project.

Even though there will be up to one million ARM processors, – technology used in most of the world's mobile phones– in the final SpiNNaker machine, computer scientists point out that this will enable  them to recreate models of only up to 1% of the human brain.