This is the third entry on VC [1, 2] for the remarkable research effort by IBM and the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, entitled Blue Brain Project.
On January 2007 they released 3 videos showing a simulated animation through a cortex's neuronal network. The cortex, the convoluted "grey matter" that makes up 80% of the human brain, is responsible for our ability to remember, think, reflect, empathize, communicate, adapt to new situations and plan for the future. The cortex first appeared in mammals, and it has a fundamentally simple repetitive structure that is the same across all mammalian species. This structure lends itself to a systematic modeling approach. And indeed, the first step of the Blue Brain project is to re-create this fundamental microcircuit, down to the level of biologically accurate individual neurons. This microcircuit can then be used in simulations like the one shown here.