A paper recently published in Neuron outlines three main obstacles to teaching students how to code. The Human Brain Project is proud to offer coding courses to young researchers through its Education programme.

The HBP has launched a High Potential Mentoring Programme for Early Career Stage Scientists and Managers of Science, developed by the Diversity and Equal Opportunities Committee (DEOC). Based on its overall success, the Mentoring Programme for early career stage scientists, researchers and managers of science is carried out one last time in the HBP.

A system developed by Grégoire Courtine and Jocelyne Bloch at HBP partners EPFL and CHUV now enables patients with a complete spinal cord injury to stand, walk and even perform recreational activities like swimming, cycling and canoeing. An important element for the success is a digital atlas of the human spinal cord. It contains computational models of the neural circuitry in the spinal cord that were created by the team around Courtine within the Human Brain Project. The atlas has now been presented as part of a larger article about the approach in the latest edition of Nature Medicine.

HBP Scientific Director Prof. Katrin Amunts has received the Hector Science Award 2021. The prestigious prize of 150,000 Euro honours professors from German universities and research institutions for outstanding research achievements, dedication to the education and support of young scientists and contributions to advancing their disciplines and institutions. The award was presented during a virtual award ceremony on 28 January.

The first computer that combines High-Performance and Quantum Computing was inaugurated in Jülich, Germany on 17 January. Its new capabilities will be available to neuroscientists via the Human Brain Project’s FENIX computing infrastructure.

A look back at some of the best Human Brain Project images from 2021.

Researchers of the Human Brain Project at University of Amsterdam and University of the West of England have built a neural network architecture on the EBRAINS research infrastructure that can enable robots to effectively combine multiple senses for perception and navigation. The team, led by Prof. Dr Cyriel Pennartz, has now published the findings in the open-access journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI.

The HBP and EBRAINS together with the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) invited the entire scientific community to join a workshop on the Future of Medical Data Sharing in Clinical Neurosciences between 9–11 December 2021. This event aimed at identifying and openly discussing all issues and challenges associated with data sharing in Europe, from ethics to data safety and privacy, including those specific to data federation, such as the development and validation of federated algorithms.

Researchers at Human Brain Project partner University of Granada in Spain have designed a new artificial neural network that mimics the structure of the cerebellum, one of the evolutionarily older parts of the brain, which plays an important role in motor coordination.

An interview with Giacomo Indiveri on how developers take inspiration from the human brain to make computers more energy-efficient and what the future of computing will look like