A team of scientists is using the tools offered by the HBP’s digital research infrastructure EBRAINS to address one of the oldest enigmas in neuroscience: the dichotomy of brain structure and function.

One of the greatest challenges in the field of neurology and intensive care medicine is correctly diagnosing the level of consciousness of a patient in coma due to severe brain injury. Scientists of the Human Brain Project (HBP) now have explored new techniques that may pave the way to better tell apart two different neurological conditions.

Researchers of the Human Brain Project (HBP) have mapped four new areas of the human anterior prefrontal cortex that plays a major role in cognitive functions. Two of the newly identified areas are relatively larger in females than in males. 

Two opposing approaches stand out in the field of AI learning: error-based and target-based. Scientists also debate which one is more likely to be implemented in biological networks of neurons. Researchers of the Human Brain Project (HBP) now propose a unified framework for learning in recurrent spiking networks. Their work reconciles the two approaches in the field of supervised machine learning and demonstrates how such networks can solve different tasks: The results were published in the journal PLoS Computational Biology.

Researchers of the Human Brain Project have published a study using the principles of the second law of thermodynamics to understand, characterise and model different states of the brain.

Virtual brains and detailed microcircuit models are changing neuroscience; yet, the elusive multiscale model of the human brain still escapes us. A new approach that goes beyond the standard top-down versus bottom-up dichotomy is not only possible, but necessary, argue Egidio D’Angelo and Viktor Jirsa. In a recent review article published in Trends in Neuroscience, the HBP researchers are proposing to build an array of plug-and-play tools to bring together worlds of neuroscience previously separated.

Researchers of the Human Brain Project (HBP) have identified seven new areas of the human insular cortex, a region of the brain that is involved in a wide variety of functions, including self-awareness, cognition, motor control, sensory and emotional processing. All newly detected areas are now available as 3D probability maps in the Julich Brain Atlas, and can be openly accessed via the HBP’s EBRAINS infrastructure. Their findings, published in NeuroImage, provide new insights into the structural organisation of this complex and multifunctional region of the human neocortex. 

Right before the summer break the HBP Student Ambassadors and the EBRAINS Scientific Liaison Unit organised together with the HBP Education Programme the interactive workshop “Young Researchers using EBRAINS for tomorrow's scientific challenges”. During the event participants were given a platform to share their ideas for workflows on the EBRAINS Infrastructure and learn together with their peers how to conceptualize their research ideas and record them in a comprehensive workflow.

Scientists of the Human Brain Project (HBP) have used simulation tools to uncover molecular mechanisms of a family of enzymes that is key to processes related to brain plasticity and learning. Their results, published in WIREs Computational Molecular Science, provide insights into the dynamics between so-called adenylyl cyclase enzymes and the proteins that regulate their activity.