We Can, Must, and Will Simulate Nematode Brains

Summary

A near-perfect simulation of the human brain would have profound implications for humanity. It could offer a pathway for us to transcend the biological limitations that have constrained human potential, and enable unimaginable new forms of intelligence, creativity, and exploration. This represents the next phase in human evolution, freeing our cognition and memory from the limits of our organic structure.Unfortunately, it’s also a long way off. The human brain contains on the order of one hundred billion neurons — interconnected by up to a quadrillion synapses. Reverse-engineering this vast network would require computational resources far exceeding what’s currently available. Scientists seeking a proof of concept for whole brain emulation have had to turn to simpler model organisms. And by far the simplest available brain — at just 300 neurons — belongs to the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Scientists have been working on the problem of simulating C. elegans in some form or another for over 25 years. So far, they’ve been met with little success. But with today’s technology, the task is finally possible, and — as I’ll argue — necessary. Motion patterns of C. elegans. Credit: Hiroshima University, Osaka University A brief history of worm brains The biologist Sydney Brenner became interested in C. elegans as a model organism for developmental biology in the 1970s. Its simplicity and small size made it an ideal lab subject. In 1986, John C. White, a scientist in Brenner’s research group, produced a nearly complete map of the neural connections that make up the C. elegans brain — what scientists now call the connectome. As computers became more accessible, other scientists started building on Brenner’s work. Ernst Neibur and Paul Erdös kicked things off with a biophysical model of nematode locomotion in 1991. Two different teams (one at the University of Oregon and the other in Japan) published plans for building more ambitious models in the late 1990s. Both would hav...