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Where Is the Brain in the Human Brain Project?

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Where Is the Brain in the Human Brain Project? COMMENT SATELLITES A call for all Earth BIOLOGY Lewis Wolpert’s ENERGY Social sciences and OBITUARY Yoshiki Sasai, observations to be open survey of sex differences, humanities take their seats at stem-cell pioneer, access p.30 reviewed p.32 the table p.33 remembered p.34 NATURE ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS RYAN/ CHRIS BY ILLUSTRATION Where is the brain in the Human Brain Project? Europe’s €1-billion science and technology project needs to clarify its goals and establish transparent governance, say Yves Frégnac and Gilles Laurent. aunched in October 2013, the Human Contrary to public assumptions that the Many signatories are scientists in experi- Brain Project (HBP) was sold by HBP would generate knowledge about how mental and theoretical fields, and the list charismatic neurobiologist Henry the brain works, the project is turning into includes former HBP participants. The letter LMarkram as a bold new path towards under- an expensive database-management project incorporates a pledge of non-participation standing the brain, treating neurological dis- with a hunt for new computing architec- in a planned call for ‘partnering projects’ eases and building information technology. tures. In recent months, the HBP executive that must raise about half of the HBP’s total It is one of two ‘flagship’ proposals funded board revealed plans to drastically reduce its funding. This pledge could seriously lower by the European Commission’s Future and experimental and cognitive neuroscience the quality of the project’s final output and Emerging Technologies programme (see arm, provoking wrath in the European leave the planned databases empty. go.nature.com/icotmi). Selected after a neuro science community. With the initial funding, or ‘ramp-up’, multiyear competition, the project seemed The crisis culminated with an open letter phase now in full swing, the European Com- like an exciting opportunity to bring from neuroscientists (including one of us, mission is currently evaluating the HBP together neuroscience and IT to generate G.L.) to the European Commission on 7 July directors’ plan for the larger second part of practical applications for health and medi- 2014 (see www.neurofuture.eu), which has the project. This offers an opportunity to cine (see go.nature.com/2eocv8). now gathered more than 750 signatures. introduce reforms and reconciliation. 4 SEPTEMBER 2014 | VOL 513 | NATURE | 27 © 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved COMMENT Here, we offer our analysis of how the principal investigators. As the HBP prepares HBP project strayed off course and how it to move into its second phase, the project’s might be steered back. BRAIN ACTIVITY executive board has revised its objectives. As Timeline of the Human Brain Project. well as decreasing the emphasis on experi- THE ROOTS OF CRISIS mental neuroscience, it has eliminated non- The HBP blends two styles. One comes from a human-primate research, and restricted the history of successful interdisciplinary collabo- focus of experimentation mainly to human rations in the European Union in brain- and imaging and ‘atlases’. These are typically static 1 neuron-inspired computation . The second catalogues of gene expression, neuronal coup- SHUTTERSTOCK originates from a computational research lings, cell types and other measurements programme, the Blue Brain Project2, initi- across brain structures, but without experi- ated by Markram in 2005 (see ‘Brain activity’). ments to assess function. The board also This collaboration between the Swiss Federal 2005 The European Union starts announced plans to dissolve the cognitive- Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) funding research merging computing neuroscience sub-programme, leading to and the IBM computing corporation aimed architecture and neuroscience. the resignation of that project’s 18 principal to build large-scale ‘bottom up’ numerical investigators, including its director. simulations of a rat’s neocortical column, a MAY 2005 Neurobiologist Henry Neuroscience in the HBP is now limited set of about 100,000 neurons considered to Markram launches the Blue Brain mainly to simulations and to building a mas- be a functional unit within the brain. Project, led by IBM and the Swiss sive infrastructure to process mostly existing The crisis results mainly from ambigui- Federal Institute of Technology in data. The revised plan advances a concept in ties concerning the place of neuroscience in Lausanne (EPFL). which in silico experimentation becomes a the HBP. From the beginning, neuroscien- “foundational methodology for understand- tists pointed out that large-scale simulations NOVEMBER 2008 US defence ing the brain”5. Numerical simulations and make little sense unless constrained by data, department launches programme on ‘big data’6 are essential in modern science, but brain-inspired electronic systems. and used to test precise hypotheses. In fact, they do not alone yield understanding. Build- we lack, among other resources, a detailed JULY 2009 Markram publicizes ing a massive database to feed simulations ‘connectome’, a map of connections between without corrective loops between hypotheses 3 his vision to build the brain in a neurons within and across brain areas that supercomputer. and experimental tests seems, at best, a waste could guide simulations. There is no unified of time and money. The HBP’s goals now look format for building functional databases or JULY 2010 The European like a costly expansion of the Blue Brain Pro- for annotating data sets that encompass data Commission calls for proposals ject, without any further evidence that it can collected under varying conditions. Most for 10-year, €1-billion ‘flagship’ produce fundamental insights. importantly, there are no formulated biologi- interdisciplinary technology projects. cal hypotheses for these simulations to test4. BRAIN WRECK Many scientists also feared that the HBP APRIL 2012 European Neuroscientists who initially supported the would siphon funds from fundamental neuroscientists sign on to a proposal HBP feel that they have been taken advan- research. The European Commission’s invest- for a brain project. tage of. The organizers attracted well-funded ment in a large ‘brain project’ would influence neuroscience labs for credibility and, ulti- JANUARY 2013 The Human Brain what other research areas it chooses to fund. mately, for their data. Now those labs are Project (HBP) is selected as a winning Nonetheless, such an opportunity seemed being edged out. flagship proposal, along with a project unlikely to arise again, and neuroscientists on graphene. The changes to the HBP are not only (ourselves included) joined up, even if they disingenuous, they are self-defeating. About did not agree with all aspects of the HBP pro- APRIL 2013 US President Barack €430 million (US$570 million) of the Euro- posal or with certain promises used to sell it. Obama announces the BRAIN initiative. pean Commission funding goes to the HBP’s We put our faith in open and interdisciplinary ‘core team’. The remainder of the €1-billion collaboration, trusting that intellectual and OCTOBER 2013 The HBP launches, budget depends mostly on scientists through- operational details would take shape gradu- coordinated by Markram at the EPFL. out Europe raising partnering funds from ally and collectively. sources such as regional governments, and Preparation of the HBP flagship document APRIL 2014 The HBP governance then being selected by the HBP management (in a pre-project phase funded by the Euro- announces plans for the project’s on the HBP’s terms. Why would people want pean Commission) lasted several months and larger second phase, radically to join the project under such conditions? took place at the EPFL. Selection criteria for reducing the role of experimental Since problems surfaced, the HBP execu- flagship proposals included scientific vision, neuroscience. tive board of directors and administrators at societal impact and the size of the scientific the EPFL, the coordinating institution, have JULY 2014 European researchers community involved. We trust that the selec- write an open letter (now with about been deflecting rather than addressing criti- tion of the HBP by the commission rested on 750 signatories) to the European cism (see go.nature.com/nenowj). Support- its focus on the relationship between brain Commission, decrying shifting goals ers argue that the Human Genome Project structure and function, and on the pro- and lack of transparent leadership. was also initially criticized by the biological ject’s interdisciplinary approach. More than community and eventually proved its detrac- 240 labs were initially pegged to participate. tors wrong. But the genome project was dif- Official descriptions expressed hopes that principles of neural computation through ferent: its goals were well defined, and the the project would “gain fundamental insights animal studies was considered integral. associated challenges, mostly technological, into what it means to be human, develop new Flagship initiatives differ from other Euro- were well posed. These descriptions do not treatments for brain diseases and build revo- pean Commission projects because unusually apply to the HBP. lutionary new information and communica- large administrative, scientific and strategic In July, HBP co-executive director Richard tions technologies”. The exploration of the leadership responsibilities fall onto few Frackowiak wrote7 that the project is “a CERN 28 | NATURE | VOL 513 | 4 SEPTEMBER 2014 © 2014 Macmillan Publishers
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