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Integrating Brain Structure and Dynamics on Supercomputers

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Brain-Inspired Computing (BrainComp 2013)

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Abstract

Large-scale simulations of neuronal networks provide a unique view onto brain dynamics, complementing experiments, small-scale simulations, and theory. They enable the investigation of integrative models to arrive at a multi-scale picture of brain dynamics relating macroscopic imaging measures to the microscopic dynamics. Recent years have seen rapid development of the necessary simulation technology. We give an overview of design features of the NEural Simulation Tool (NEST) that enable simulations of spiking point neurons to be scaled to hundreds of thousands of processors. The performance of supercomputing applications is traditionally assessed using scalability plots. We discuss reasons why such measures should be interpreted with care in the context of neural network simulations. The scalability of neural network simulations on available supercomputers is limited by memory constraints rather than computational speed. This calls for future generations of supercomputers that are more attuned to the requirements of memory-intensive neuroscientific applications.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The cerebral cortex is the thin layer of cells on the outer surface of the vertebrate brain, responsible for high-level sensory, cognitive, and motor functions. We here refer to the cerebral cortex also simply as ‘cortex’.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by JUQUEEN grant JINB33 of the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, EU grants 269921 (BrainScaleS) and 604102 (Human Brain Project), the Helmholtz Alliance on Systems Biology, the Next-Generation Supercomputing Project of MEXT, and the Helmholtz Association in the Portfolio Theme Supercomputing and Modeling for the Human Brain.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-6) and Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS-6), Jülich Research Centre and JARA, Jülich, Germany

    S. J. van Albada, A. Morrison & M. Diesmann

  2. Simulation Laboratory Neuroscience – Bernstein Facility for Simulation and Database Technology, Institute for Advanced Simulation, Jülich Research Centre and JARA, Jülich, Germany

    S. Kunkel & A. Morrison

  3. Faculty of Psychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    A. Morrison

  4. Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    M. Diesmann

Authors
  1. S. J. van Albada
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  2. S. Kunkel
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  3. A. Morrison
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  4. M. Diesmann
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to S. J. van Albada .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Engineering, University of Calabria, Arcavacada di Rende, Italy

    Lucio Grandinetti

  2. Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Jülich, Germany

    Thomas Lippert

  3. Computing Science, University of Groningen Institute for Mathematics &, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Nicolai Petkov

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© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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van Albada, S.J., Kunkel, S., Morrison, A., Diesmann, M. (2014). Integrating Brain Structure and Dynamics on Supercomputers. In: Grandinetti, L., Lippert, T., Petkov, N. (eds) Brain-Inspired Computing. BrainComp 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8603. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12084-3_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12084-3_3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-12083-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-12084-3

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