MICrONS
Commercial?No
Type of projectAcademic; Scientific (neuroscience)
LocationUnited States
OwnerIARPA
Established2016
FundingUnited States government, US$100 million
Websitewww.iarpa.gov/index.php/research-programs/microns

The MICrONS program (Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks) is a five-year project run by the United States government through the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) with the goal of reverse engineering one cubic millimeter—spanning many petabytes of volumetric data—of a rodent's brain tissue and use insights from its study to improve machine learning and artificial intelligence by constructing a connectome.[1][2] The program is part of the White House BRAIN Initiative.[1][2]

Teams

The program has set up three independent teams, each of which will take a different approach towards the goal. The teams are led by David Cox of Harvard University, Tai Sing Lee of Carnegie Mellon University;[1][2] and jointly by Andreas Tolias and Xaq Pitkow of the Baylor College of Medicine, Clay Reid of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and Sebastian Seung of Princeton University.[3]

The Cox team has aimed to build a three-dimensional map of the neural connections within the source tissue block using reconstructions from electron micrographs.[3]

Technology and infrastructure for storing petabyte-scale volumetric data, including a cloud-based database, bossDB,[4] were developed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab.[5]

Approach

The part of the brain chosen for the project is part of the visual cortex, chosen as a representative of a task – visual perception – that is easy for animals and human beings to perform, but has turned out to be extremely difficult to emulate with computers.[1][2]

Cox's team is attempting to build a three dimensional mapping of the actual neural connections, based on fine electron micrographs.[2] Lee's team is taking a DNA barcoding approach, in attempt to map the brain circuits by barcode-labelling of each neuron, and cross-synapse barcode connections.[1] Tolias's team is taking a data-driven approach, assuming the brain creates statistical expectations about the world it sees.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Cepelewicz, Jordana (March 8, 2016). "The U.S. Government Launches a $100-Million "Apollo Project of the Brain"". Scientific American. Springer Nature America. Retrieved November 27, 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Emily, Singer (April 6, 2016). "Mapping the Brain to Build Better Machines". Quanta Magazine. Simons Foundation. Retrieved November 27, 2018.
  3. 1 2 Gleeson, Alfie; Sawyer, Abigail (October 2018). "Mapping a Brain". BioTechniques (Paper). 65 (4): 181–5. doi:10.2144/btn-2018-0142. PMID 30284931.
  4. ↑ "BossDB". bossdb.org. Retrieved December 31, 2018.
  5. ↑ "boss". Retrieved November 27, 2018. The Boss is a cloud based storage service developed for the IARPA MICrONS program.


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