The Human Brain Project: Parallel technologies for biologically accurate simulation of Granule cells

Studying and understanding human brain is one of the main challenges of 21st century scientists. The Human Brain Project was conceived for addressing this challenge in an innovative way, enabling collaborations between 112 partners spread in 24 European countries. The project is funded by the European Commission and will last until 2023. This paper describes the ongoing activity at one of the Italian units focused on innovative brain simulation through high performance computing technologies. Simulations concern realistic models of neurons belonging to the cerebellar cortex. Due to the level of biological realism, the computational complexity of this model is high, requiring suitable technologies. In this work, simulations have been conducted on high-end Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) and Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). The first technology is used during model tuning and validation phases, while the latter allows to achieve real time elaboration, aiming at a possible development of embedded implantable systems. Simulations performance evaluations are discussed in the result section.