Researchers in US have been successful in simulating half of virtual mouse brain on a supercomputer. A cortical simulator was run by the researchers which matches the size and complexity of half of the brain of the mouse on BlueGene L supercomputer. Researchers are now in the process of tuning the simulation so that it runs faster and appears like a real mouse brain.

Half of the brain of the mouse has around eight million neurons and each of them has around eight thousand synapses with nerve fibres. The simulation was run on a BlueGene L supercomputer which had 4096 processors. With the help of the machine half of the virtual mouse brain was created which had eight thousand neurons with more than six thousand synapses. Due to complexity involved the simulation was run only for ten seconds at a speed which was ten times slower as compared to real life and equals one second in a real mouse brain.