One decade and more than half a billion dollars later, the curtain falls on the EU's Human

Brain Project.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Lily Dremalli.

Back in 2009, in making the case for the Human Brain Project, neuroscientists Henry

Mark from noted that two billion people are affected by some kind of mental disorder.

It was time he said to explore fundamental questions about how the brain works.

We have to embody all our data and all our knowledge into a working model.

It's like a Noah's Ark, it's like an archive.

The collaboration that resulted has involved hundreds of scientists across several nations.

This week marks the end of Europe's ambitious but also at times controversial initiative.

I spoke with reporter Miriam Nadaf of the publication Nature about what researchers have accomplished.

So the Human Brain Project has created what we call the Human Brain Atlas, which is this

platform that hosts 3D maps of brain structures and the director of the Human Brain Project

described as the Google map of the brain.

And the Atlas basically shows how the brain is organized from its cellular and molecular

architecture to its the way that it's connected, the connectivity and the functional models.

And the scientists at the Human Brain Project have managed using the Atlas to identify

six previously unknown brain regions that were associated with memory, language, attention

and music processing.

And this brain Atlas is accessible through a digital platform called eBrain, which is what

we call the continuing legacy of the Human Brain Project.

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