Build neurons with mathematics

© Blue Brain Project - Researchers from EPFL have found a way to use only mathematics to automatically draw neurons in 3D, meaning we are getting closer to being able to build digital twins of brains. Santiago Ramón y Cajal, a Spanish physician from the turn of the 19^th century, is considered by most to be the father of modern neuroscience. He stared down a microscope day and night for years, fascinated by chemically stained neurons he found in slices of human brain tissue. By hand, he painstakingly drew virtually every new type of neuron he came across using nothing more than pen and paper. As the Charles Darwin for the brain, he mapped every detail of the forest of neurons that make up the brain, calling them the "butterflies of the brain". Today, 200 years later, Blue Brain has found a way to dispense with the human eye, pen and paper, and use only mathematics to automatically draw neurons in 3D as digital twins. Math can now be used to capture all the "butterflies of the brain", which allows us to use computers to build any and all the billons of neurons that make up the brain.