The Human Brain Project: High Performance Computing for Brain Cells Hw/Sw Simulation and Understanding

This paper describes the challenge of understanding brain function through high performance computing dealt with by the Human Brain Project, the European Commission Future and Emerging Technologies Flagship involving a consortium of 112 partners spread in 24 European countries. In particular, we describe the activity, performed by one of the Italian units involved into the project, aiming at identifying very accurate models of cerebellum neurons. These models are processed through high end Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) during the tuning phase and later implemented on FPGA-based application specific processors for respecting real time requirements together with embedded implantability. Models and performance of granular neurons implementations are given in the results section.