The big hall of the former electricity sub-station Selnau is only dimly lit by ten horizontal video projections, measuring two by two metres, lying on the floor. These are the core of the exhibition "Power of the Brain“, which, by the means of experiments and the projection of texts, lead the visitor through the different levels of the brain's cognition processes. Immediately next to the entrance, the visitor is comes face to face with a touch-sensitive silicon brain encased in a perspex box. The prototype was developed by Professor Robert Riener from the ETH Automatic Control Laboratory and the Paraplegics Centre at the University Hospital of Zurich at Balgrist.

Learning by touching

"With a slight pressing motion video projects of tomographical sections are produced and information on the corresponding areas in the brain is delivered according to the position and orientation of the applied force," explains Riener. The prototype of the project, "BrainTrain“ (2) was not originally developed by his research team as an exhibit; but primarily for the training of medical students and young physicians. At some later date the system will be expanded to enable simple access to magnetic resonance imaging, used for clinical diagnosis or in planning surgical operations. In addition to the brain, further prototypes of any kind of organ could also be developed, for example for cardiac demonstrations or acupuncture treatment.

Rector of the University of Zurich, Hans Weder (right), using his fingertip to navigate his way through the model brain of ETH Professor Robert Riener, standing next to him. large

For the time being, and as a first step, visitors to the exhibition can navigate their way through Riener's brain. With this contribution to the exhibition Riener wants to inform the public and show them how their tax money is used in research. "Naturally we also hope that we can inspire visitors for science and so help to motivate young people to study," says Riener.

The optical illusion of the "distorted circles", which, in actual fact, are perfectly round. large

Mysterious deceptions

In the second row, optical illusions and erroneous interpretations are projected on to the surfaces–the work of the Neuroscience Center Zurich, a joint institute of the University and ETH. The images are supplemented with presentations of the Technorama in Winterthur on the walls. The reasons for many of these cognitive deceptions are still unknown. As, for instance, M. C. Escher's deceptive circles, pictured above. Scientists suspect that the deception occurs already in an early stage of visual processing.

The hall of the former power plant Selnau is dimly lit by ten horizontal video projections lying on the floor. large

Other projections show simulations of robots, face recognition appliances and further applications developed in the laboratories for intelligence and brain research. The star attraction for the children is clearly the noisy dog robot, running along a treadmill. The back part of the hall is filled with art installations from the F+F School of Art and Media Design. An additional ten projection surfaces will be daily filled with short theatre pieces from the Academy for Music and Theatre on the subject of feelings. The artistic side of his research is also important to ETH Professor Riener, because, he says, it opens up new and surprising perspectives to add to the scientific view of the brain.

As complex as the universe

To conclude the opening ceremony last week, BrainFair director Wolfgang Knecht from the Neuroscience Center Zurich made a point of emphasising the current boom in brain sciences. This was primarily a result of new methods, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or the application of molecular biology. The great interest accorded to the brain was a result of interest in illnesses such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's or multiple sclerosis, the causes of which were largely still unknown, even though in Switzerland alone there were 220,000 sufferers, he said. The exhibition showed only a tiny measure of the enormous complexity of the human brain, because "The brain, apart from the universe, is the most complex system that we know!“. The latter was made up of 100 billion galaxies, the former, of the same number of nerve cells.