Researchers involved in the Human Brain Project (HBP), which aims to simulate the human brain on supercomputers, are developing virtual worlds to perform experiments on robots and animals in a simulated environment.

Dr Marc-Oliver Gewaltig, who co-directs the HBP Neurorobotics Subproject, believes that researchers could use virtual spaces for real experiments, where the specifics of the situation and the scenario can be changed.

This freedom would allow them to go back in time to re-examine and replay certain elements – a concept remarkably similar to the memory remix sequence in the game Remember me – giving them multiple chances to train and learn.

The Neurorobotics Platform team has more than 20 engineers working on rendering – the creation of imagery within a video game – robot simulation, user interface and integration with brain models.

By replicating the behaviour of an actual brain, neurorobotics will be used to link the current brain simulations in the HBP project to what Gewaltig calls “bodies”.

“The best proof of what you’re doing is to replicate the sensory input and motor output of the system,” he adds.

This is where ‘Cheesy’ comes in, a rodent-like creature that is powered by a model of a mouse brain. This mimics the behaviour of the real thing to provide researchers with an accurate representation.

‘Cheesy’ is also linked to a model of the spinal cord, which produces the tapping motion in the virtual mouse’s forepaws.

“This is the closest thing to putting the mouse brain model into its natural habitat,” says Gewaltig.

By using creations like ‘Cheesy’, robotics and cognitive science researchers will be able to experiment within simulations, removing the need to use machines and laboratory animals.

However, the virtual reality doesn’t stop there. The HBP Neurorobotics Platform has also developed a virtual room for the real-time simulation of virtual robots.

Inventions such as ‘Cheesy’ and the virtual room move beyond the boundaries of cleverly designed computer graphics often found in video games, however.

Unlike the latest Xbox One or Playstation 3 releases, ‘Cheesy’ interacts with the rendering, enabling it to see what the researcher sees.

The virtual room can also be used to improve the brain models developed by the HBP, which was criticised by more than 200 neuroscientists in July for being off-course. One said that it was “not very transparent” and claimed there was a “crazy degree of resentment and distrust”.

However, Gewaltig is unfazed: “The challenge of working with reconstructions of natural neural networks is, how far can you get in making them do something realistic?” he says.

First inline image: screenshot from Remember Me (2013, Capcom).