On 12 October, representatives of the highest levels of research policy and brain science met in Brussels for the first European Brain Summit, carried out jointly with the European Brain Council (EBC) and in conjunction with the Brain Innovation Days.

The innovation developed in the context of HBP is a Perturbational Complexity Index (PCI), which measures the complexity of electroencephalographic (EEG) responses to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS); it showed a remarkable sensitivity in detecting minimal signs of consciousness.

Just before the start of the new semester, the Programme Committee of the Baltic-Nordic Summer School invited students and researchers from all over the world to join them in this year’s summer school titled ‘Learning in the Brain and NeuroRobots - from Molecules to Behaviour with the EBRAINS Training on the Brain Function, Dysfunction and Neurorobotic Systems on Brain Atlasing and Simulation Services available on EBRAINS’, from 21 – 25 September 2021. The Baltic-Nordic Summer School was first established in 2013 to further the exchange between researchers from the Baltic-Nordic countries, but has since then also attracted participants world-wide.

The full dataset of the Julich-Brain probabilistic maps has been published and can be freely downloaded. The data package comprises 148 probability maps in a three-dimensional reference space.

Researchers from the Human Brain Project (HBP) have released version 4 of the Waxholm Space atlas of the Sprague Dawley rat brain, a volumetric open access atlas. The new atlas version contains both novel and revised subdivisions of the basal ganglia, cerebral cortex and thalamus, defined by domain experts. WHS rat brain atlas v4 will be integrated in EBRAINS tools and workflows, allowing researchers to navigate and analyse their data using the new anatomical subdivisions.

HBP scientists show how self-supervised deep learning can help to model the brains visual system

Researchers show that evolutionary expansion of a part of the human brain that is responsible for cognitive function involves cell diversification–with possible consequences to our susceptibility to Alzheimer's. The study, carried out within the BRAIN Initiative with contributions from HBP researchers from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam has been published in Nature.

In advance of the HBP summit, we spoke to the theoretical neuroscientist about his exciting work on developing computational brain models, the potential of the Human Brain Project and what we can expect from his keynote lecture at the summit.