A European research team from the Blue Brain Project claimed to have digitally reconstructed part of a rat's brain but some critics aren't impressed with the feat.
"The electrical behaviour of the virtual brain tissue was simulated on supercomputers and found to match the behaviour observed in a number of experiments on the brain," the team said on their project page.
Per Tech Times, 31,000 brain cells connected by around 37 million synapses is shown in the simulation which is "one of the scientific community's most detailed brain models yet."
The study is the first milestone for the Blue Brain Project which itself is part of the Human Brain Project - both led by neurobiologist Henry Markram of Switzerland's École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, according to the website.
Digitally recreating part of a rat's brain is just the first step. Reportedly, the project will move on to recreating it in full with the ultimate goal of digitizing the human brain.
But the Blue Brain Project is not without detractors. Last year, the New York Times reported that a group of neuroscientists criticized the initiative's feasibility and transparency.
More recently, Lisbon neuroscientist Zachary Mainen disapproved of the results.
"There is nothing in it that is striking, except that it was a lot of work," he said as quoted by Science Magazine.
Markram is unfazed however saying, "As you can imagine, publishing this paper was very tough in a climate of extreme prejudice based on second-hand information. Now, at least everyone can judge the science directly for themselves."
But having read the paper, Max Planck Institute for Brain Research director Moritz Helmstaedter said the Blue Brain Project "has been hyped immensely."
"But what happened is exactly what we feared: There are no real findings. Putting together lots and lots of data does not create new science," he told Science.
According to Washington Post, other scientists said the new rat's brain model won't do more than other less complex ones.
Still, the Blue Brain Project will reportedly continue their work. Their work on digitizing part of a rat's brain is published on Cell.
