Hemispheres of the Mind - a visual journey
"Hemispheres of the Mind", a 180deg dome projection, explores computational imaging and simulation of brain structure and activity. It is a collaboration between the Laboratory for Experimental Museology and the Blue Brain Project, both at EPFL.
Some descriptions for the visualizations depicted in the movie.
Mouse brain: The goal of Blue Brain is to digitally reconstruct and simulate the brain and its functions at all the multi-scale levels of organization. Given that the human brain is the most complex object known on Earth, modeling the brain with biologically realistic detail requires tremendous computing power.
Molecular systems: At the most fundamental level, senses, cognition and brain function ultimately depend on complex molecular processes occurring within and between neurons. Biologically detailed molecular simulations offer a way to investigate these molecular processes, allowing us to gain mechanistic insights and predict parameters that can be used to constrain higher-level models of sub-cellular signaling.
Touch detection: Complex morphologies are processed in order to find proximal touches between the axons, somas, and dendrites. Blue Brain uses a statistical process which transform potential synaptic connections in a neuron network into real synapses following a recipe describing the circuit’s neuronal and synaptic properties.
Synapses: In the nervous system, a synapse is a structure that permits a neuron (or nerve cell) to pass an electrical or chemical signal to another neuron. Synapses can be classified by the type of cellular structures serving as the pre- and post-synaptic components. The vast majority of synapses in the mammalian nervous system are classical axo-dendritic synapses (an axon connecting to a dendrite).
Glial cells and vasculature: Besides neurons, the brain contains other cells and blood vessels. Blue Brain includes this in silico-generated structural architecture of the neuro-glio-vascular networks in the somatosensory cortex. Astrocytes have been algorithmically grown, encapsulating neuronal synapses and projecting to the vasculature surface. This structural model allows for functional models of trophic support, tripartite synapse and calcium-induced wave signaling through the astrocytic syncytium.
Brain regions: Blue Brain makes available via the Blue Brain Portal, to neuroscientists and the wider community, brain regions as our work progresses. Blue Brain building tools aim to build comprehensive digital reconstructions of brain structures at different levels of organization that are compatible with the available experimental data. The strategy of these tools is to identify interdependencies in the experimental data and use them to constrain the reconstruction process.
Brain simulation (Neocortical Column and Hippocampus): Blue Brain simulations make use of computers to represent the dynamics and interactions of molecular, neuronal, synaptic and network activity in the mouse brain. An in silico experiment is a simulation of a digital reconstruction in which the stimulus and recording conditions mimic an actual biological experiment (in vivo or in vitro).
Thalamo-neocortical system: The thalamo-neocortical system constitutes the vast majority of the mammalian brain. Commensurate with its size, this system has been the subject of extensive neurobiological and computational study. The thalamus and the neocortex are reciprocally connected via pathways of long-range axonal projections.
Connectivity: Using algebraic topology in a way that it has never been used before in neuroscience, a team from the Blue Brain Project has uncovered a universe of multi-dimensional geometrical structures and spaces within the networks of the brain.
Executive Producer: Sarah Kenderdine
Created by Cyrille Favreau & Peter Morse
Fulldome Scientific Data Visualisation by Cyrille Favreau
Fulldome Edit, SFX and Post-Production by Peter Morse
Audio Production by Peter Morse and Cathie Travers
Music by Kai Engel & Cathie Travers
More information:
Laboratory for Experimental Museology (eM+) https://www.epfl.ch/labs/emplus/
Blue Brain Project https://www.epfl.ch/research/domains/...
Peter Morse http://www.petermorse.net/
‘Hemispheres of the Mind‘ was originally exhibited as an immersive fulldome experience for ArtLab Infinity Room II 2019, celebrating 50 years of EPFL.
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