Cat licked, now computers tackle human brain

Supercomputers complex enough to think like human beings may be only a decade away, researchers at IBM have said.

Scientists in pursuit of machines that mimic a brain — a staple of science fiction but in practice a supremely difficult technological feat — have used a huge supercomputer to simulate the processes carried out by a cat’s cerebral cortex.

The computer simulated the flow of data through more than one billion neurons and ten trillion synapses, exceeding the activity inside a cat’s brain, according to researchers.

IBM scientists also said that they have created an algorithm called BlueMatter aimed at mapping the vast number of connections inside a human brain. Researchers hope that the ability to map the human brain will lead to a proper understanding of how it processes information.