Spaun, the most complex computer simulation of a brain to date, has the ability to recognise objects and can even pass some parts of an IQ test.

Spaun stands for Semantic Pointer Architecture Unified Network and it's the creation of theoretical neuroscientist Chris Eliasmith at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

It's not like other artificial brains that have been created in the past, like IBM's Watson or the Blue Brain project. Those were focused on mimicking the brain's structure and connectivity -- its connectome. Spaun does that, but is also designed to replicate neural behaviour too.

It's divided into two parts - loosely based on the cerebral cortex and basal ganglia. 2.5 million simulated neurons make up these parts, as well as a virtual eye and a real-life robotic arm. Based on the visual information it receives, it can route data to different parts of the cortex that are best suited to the task at hand.

It works, to an extent. The model can recognise numbers, remember them, process sequences and write them down with the robotic arm. However, it lacks the adaptive capabilities of a human brain - it can't tell if it's doing a good or bad job, for example.

However Eliasmith told Popsci  in an interview that he's working on that. "Eventually it would discover its own strategy for accomplishing its own task."

His research appears in the journal Science.


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