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University to build brain-computer

13/07/2006

The University of Manchester is to build a computer that will help scientists learn more about how the brain works.

Aiming to mimic the interactions between nerve cells in the brain, the computer will be the first of its kind.

It is hoped that the system will be able to explain phenomena such as how the brain encodes complex visual scenes.

Professor Steve Furber, from the School of Computer Science at the university, said: "Our brains keep working despite frequent failures of their component neurons and this 'fault-tolerant' characteristic is of great interest to engineers who wish to make computers more reliable.

"Our aim is to use the computer to understand better how the brain works at the level of spike patterns and to see if biology can help us see how to build computer systems that continue functioning despite component failures."

The University of Manchester has a history in computing.

Although the exact origins of the computer are difficult to trace, the institution played a role in the development of the first modern computerised system in 1948.


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