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Cognition
New Tools
Technology

Our Objectives:
Understanding the brain

Understanding how cognition emerges at the behavioral level from mechanisms at the molecular level remains one of the most elusive puzzles in biology. Given the brain's complexity and the difficulties inherent in its study, gaining a thorough and integrated understanding requires an interdisciplinary perspective.

Studying Neurons Physiologists eavesdrop on the electrical life of cells using the patch-clamp (right); it can also mimic the effect of synaptic transmission (left). The information they gather about the cell's behavior is summarized in a model (overlaid) consisting of batteries, variable resistors, and a capacitor, primitives borrowed from electrical engineers that are readily assembled on a chip—using transistors in place of resistors. [John Wittig 2004]

Information must be integrated from seven levels of investigation spanning nine spatial scales—nanometer-sized ion-channels to meter-tall organisms.

Technological developments in electrical engineering and computer science increasingly further the process of discovery in a variety of scientific fields, notably in the life sciences. Advanced technologies provide new tools to deepen the study of current problems in biology and neuroscience, but importantly can also enable a reformulation of the very approach taken towards answering these questions.

Bridging levels requires large-scale simulations—as well as powerful computers to run them and high-throughput brain probes to constrain them.

Our research at the intersection of neurobiology and electrical engineering takes this technology-driven approach to scientific investigation. We have crafted two complementary objectives: To use existing knowledge of brain function in designing an affordable supercomputer—one that can itself serve as a tool to investigate brain function—feeding back and contributing to a fundamental, biological understanding of how the brain works.