Niccolo Zanichelli
Brain emulation research community
Functionalist What matters is the organisation of the processing, not the material
Niccolò Zanichelli is an independent researcher working on whole brain emulation, best known as the lead author of the State of Brain Emulation Report 2025 (arXiv:2510.15745), the first systematic reassessment of the field since the Sandberg-Bostrom roadmap of 2008.
The report organizes brain emulation around three capabilities, recording brain function through neural dynamics, mapping brain structure through connectomics, and emulating and embodying through computational neuroscience. Its assessment is that connectomics has advanced furthest, recording remains the binding constraint, and computation is bounded by the first two.
Zanichelli’s framing treats brain emulation as an engineering question with measurable distance to goal, separate from the philosophical question of whether an emulation would be conscious, which the report deliberately leaves open.
Known for. State of Brain Emulation Report 2025, whole brain emulation roadmap reassessment, connectomics and emulation coordination
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Niccolo Zanichelli is listed with the other functionalists and computationalists, who hold that what matters is the organisation of the processing, not the material. The theory family behind that position is set out in the index of consciousness theories. Every researcher covered on this site is indexed in the directory of consciousness researchers.