About EBRAINS

The EBRAINS research infrastructure, a key outcome and legacy of the EU-funded Human Brain Project (HBP), was officially launched in 2019. Two years later, in 2021, EBRAINS was included in the Roadmap of the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI).

What is EBRAINS?

EBRAINS is an open research infrastructure that gathers high-quality research data, tools and computing facilities for brain-related research, built with interoperability at the core. The infrastructure offers:

Extensive range of FAIR datasets
Most comprehensive multilevel brain atlas
AI-based tools for analysis
Modelling and simulation tools
Access to high-performance computing resources
Neuromorphic computing platforms

The primary focus of EBRAINS is computational neuroscience, but the research infrastructure is also useful for other branches of neuroscience as well as neighbouring fields such as neuromorphic computing.

Key Infrastructure Components

The Knowledge Graph

The EBRAINS Knowledge Graph is designed to facilitate the discovery and sharing of data. It connects users to necessary software and hardware tools for data analysis. The knowledge graph supports rich terminologies, ontologies, and controlled vocabularies, promoting common standards. As a multi-modal metadata store, it integrates diverse information and uses a graph database to link experimental and neuroscientific data.

Browse EBRAINS Datasets

The Collaboratory

The Collaboratory is at the heart of EBRAINS. This is where researchers and developers work in teams and share their work with users, teams or all of the Internet. The Collaboratory provides:

Documentation spaces
Small file storage
Large file storage
Access to EBRAINS software and hardware

For detailed instructions, see the Collaboratory documentation

Neuromorphic Computing Hardware

EBRAINS includes neuromorphic computing hardware offering free, remote access to two advanced systems:

BrainScaleS in Heidelberg
SpiNNaker in Manchester

These systems enable high-speed, low-energy simulations or emulations of spiking neural networks with synaptic plasticity.

Access and Registration

EBRAINS provides free access to numerous resources, including datasets, software, hardware, models, web services, and learning tools. Access to most resources requires a free registration. An institutional email address is normally needed for registration.

Resources Inherited from HBP (2013-2023)

In some cases, these resources are maintained and further developed by EBRAINS 2.0, whereas in other cases, they may be deprecated.

The HBP Tool Book

This book introduces the cutting-edge digital tools developed by the Human Brain Project over the past decade. These tools, accessible via the EBRAINS digital infrastructure, support reproducibility and replicability in research.

The EBRAINS Multilevel Human Brain Atlas

The EBRAINS Multilevel Human Brain Atlas is a book detailing the multilevel brain atlas developed during the HBP project.

Support and Contact

Support can be contacted by email to support@ebrains.eu.

There is a tech support channel for interactive communication as well.

For additional contact information, see the EBRAINS contact page