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Mouse brain simulated on computer

From the article:

US researchers have simulated half a virtual mouse brain on a supercomputer.
The scientists ran a "cortical simulator" that was as big and as complex as half of a mouse brain on the BlueGene L supercomputer.

In other smaller simulations the researchers say they have seen characteristics of thought patterns observed in real mouse brains.

Now the team is tuning the simulation to make it run faster and to make it more like a real mouse brain...

Also:

Half a real mouse brain is thought to have about eight million neurons each one of which can have up to 8,000 synapses, or connections, with other nerve fibres.

Right now, it takes a supercomputer with 4,096 processors to simulate the mouse brain. And there is still a lot of work to do: "For future tests the team aims to speed up the simulation, make it more neurobiologically faithful, add structures seen in real mouse brains and make the responses of neurons and synapses more detailed." However, look 20 years down the road. In 20 years, a processor like that will cost $200. There will be open source versions of simulated human brain systems. Thousands of people will have been working for years in an open source community to improve the performance and realism. And, somewhere between 2025 and 2035, that simulated brain will start talking to us.

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