Neuroscience: The Conceptual Failure of EU’s Human Brain Project and the US BRAIN Initiative

There is a recent news feature in Nature, Europe spent €600 million to recreate the human brain in a computer. How did it go?, stating that:

“It took 10 years, around 500 scientists and some €600 million, and now the Human Brain Project — one of the biggest research endeavours ever funded by the European Union — is coming to an end. Its audacious goal was to understand the human brain by modelling it in a computer.

During its run, scientists under the umbrella of the Human Brain Project (HBP) have published thousands of papers and made significant strides in neuroscience, such as creating detailed 3D maps of at least 200 brain regions, developing brain implants to treat blindness and using supercomputers to model functions such as memory and consciousness and to advance treatments for various brain conditions.”

“The HBP was promised €1 billion (US$1.1 billion) in funds. In the end, it received €607 million, including €406 million from the EU, released over four phases and trickled out to labs that competed for grants at each phase. Meanwhile, large brain projects launched or kicked into high gear elsewhere.

The United States and Japan both launched brain projects around the same time as the HBP — the former will continue until 2026 and the latter is hoping to run for a total of 15 years. China’s brain project started in 2021, and Australia’s and South Korea’s projects have both entered their seventh year.”

The feature quoted a neurophysicist who said, “A project that lasts over ten years, I would expect it to produce a conceptual breakthrough.” It didn’t. The other ongoing large brain projects don’t seem to have produced any conceptual breakthroughs either; so what might the problem be?

Breaking Down the Human Brain

The brain is a whole, and it is also in parts. The parts have intricacies that have been studied, but characteristics of parts, forming a whole, hold answers to some of the most confounding problems of modern science, most especially mental illnesses.

It was stated that “In each hemisphere of our brain, humans have a primary visual cortex, also known as V1, containing 140 million neurons, with tens of billions of connections between them. And yet human vision involves not just V1, but an entire series of visual cortices — V2, V3, V4, and V5 — doing progressively more complex image processing.”

There are different parts of the brain involved in different functions, with millions of neurons and billions of connections. So, how can the brain be understood for its processes across circuits?

The two most important elements in any brain center are the electrical and chemical impulses of neurons. It is postulated that these impulses with their features and interactions are the human mind.

In the V1, as well as in other circuits, all the electrical and chemical impulses form a loop. There are the features of impulses in these loops and how they interact that can be used to explain observations about the brain conceptually. No loop is isolated; they have inter and intra pathways.

Can the Brain Predict?

A common description of what the brain is said to do predictive coding, processing, and correcting prediction errors. Some have said the brain is a prediction machine, does controlled hallucination, or gives a best guess.

There is no evidence anywhere in neuroscience that the brain has a distinct feature to predict anything. Also, there is no standalone function for prediction. If there isn’t, the brain cannot be said to predict or generate predictions, refuting all the assumptions of predictions.

What is observed as predictions can be explained as early-splits or go-before of electrical impulses in a loop, where some proceed earlier than others to interact with chemical impulses in that loop like they had done before, such that if the interaction matches with the input, other behind do nothing different, but if it does not, the others go in the right direction.

These splits feature also use old sequences as relay paths as well as prioritization or what sets attention.

There is no evidence anywhere in neuroscience that the brain has a distinct feature to predict anything. Also, there is no standalone function for prediction. If there isn’t, the brain cannot be said to predict or generate predictions, refuting all the assumptions of predictions.

It is postulated that some electrical impulses in the same loop leap concurrently, to go first before others follow. This explains what is observed as predictions. It also explains how some things are held in mind, in a moment or what is termed working memory or short-term memory.

It explains things held in mind when speaking, typing, writing, or signing, since they are held in mind or some go first, then others follow as outputs.

In a major depressive disorder, with an intense heaviness resulting in the inability to do anything, it is theorized to be a result of a feature of chemical impulses called a principal spot.

There is just one principal spot on the mind, with the most domination, for any loop of chemical impulses that moves there.

What represents this is the pull-then-clip of some of the stairs or drifts of chemical impulses, exceeding others across the mind. Stairs or drifts of chemical impulses are the decision points of interactions of impulses in loops.

When electrical impulses strike chemical impulses in a loop, they shape how chemical impulses in that loop are rationed or filled to produce experiences, learn something new, or for neuroplasticity.

The rationing also separates an emotion from a feeling, a taste from a smell, or the degree of touch.

In a sharp pain, for example, the rationing or fills are reversed in a direction that results in the intensity.

Something close happens with the principal spot where some of the stairs or drifts pull, then clip some of the neighboring loops, drawing as many pre-prioritized interactions and dominating, with outcomes such as being unable to do other things or creating effects that slow down other processes. The stairs or drifts are available at the synaptic clefts.

In the visual cortices — V1, V2, V3, and V4, representations of the sight form of objects are encoded and then retrieved, useful to the interpretation of incoming signals. These cortices, as their own loops, use the features and interactions of impulses, with some differences in stairs or drifts — for chemical and electrical impulses.

The loops are also able to connect to others, say for the color red, or the spelling, as well as the hearing of the word at the auditory cortex, or some odor say for a red flower at the olfactory cortex. The drifts in these cortices also allow emotions or feelings possible, per instance.

What Makes Smell Different From Sight, or What Makes Touch Different From Taste?

It is theorized that some brain centers or circuits have multiple loops of electrical and chemical impulses, whose architecture is different due to the differences in how the brain parts of the brain are packed, contributing to how the drifts or stairs are also different.

There are nuclei within brain centers that are responsible for different functions; they can be said to be their own loops, where differences in their structures shape the drifts or stairs, for electrical and chemical impulses.

The gyri and sulci of the cerebral cortex are hypothesized to play a significant role in how some of the loops of impulses shape functions. Though the cerebellum has more neurons than the cerebral cortex, it has fewer gyri and sulci, which is proposed to lower the amount of loops.

Mammals with a smooth brain have loops of impulses for functions, but fewer than in humans.

Animals with larger brains than humans have fewer loops of impulses in certain parts [including the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus], even though they have more neurons, gyri, and sulci.

Stairs or drifts often break out, to form new loops to prepare then determine growth stages from birth, then at puberty, pregnancy, and certain aging outcomes.

Differences in humans with preferences, voices, behaviors, and so forth could also be a result of the intensity [or extensiveness of drifts] of certain loops of impulses. There are a few stairs or drifts that may fade or lose their contribution to the loop, as some synapses become weaker.

There are also stairs or drifts that may influence how long some genes, within neurons, stay turned on or off.

Lissencephaly could also be referred to as a problem that does not provide states for the required loops for neurons. Polymicrogyria can be said to distort loops or break them, making some incomplete, such that the drift or stairs of impulses, are unable to do what they should.

All drifts or stairs of impulses have the sense of self, or subjective experience. Some of them are shaped in a way that allows for control, intentionality, or free will.

For example, it is possible to open and close the eyes, but not possible to open the eyes, focus [or prioritization], and decide not to see what is there.

The access to control of the eyes is possible, but the sight, even though subjective, is out of control. This applies to several other processes in the body. Some loops may contribute to this free will outcome.

This is a conceptual option to understand what happens in the brain, aside, from seeking intricacies that help but do not tell the full story for answers against mental disorders. Dopamine or serotonin are never final; they are rationed in loops whose measures — in the right proportions — with other neurochemicals result in experiences.

It is why medications have side effects as receptors are induced or inhibited, then the rations become affected in other circuits.

The HBP and several other ongoing large projects would learn more from neuropeptides, genes, and so forth, but the human brain is operationally loop-driven, with a basis in impulses, their features, and interactions.

Feature image source