The Blue Brain Project follows a four-year roadmap with specific scientific milestones to achieve its ultimate goal, digitally reconstructing and simulating the entire mouse brain. One of the goals in the current period is to model structures with direct relevance for the neocortex. The thalamus is highly interconnected with the cortex and plays an important role in an array of cognitive processes. It funnels sensory input to the neocortex with the thalamocortical loop playing a central role in cerebral rhythmogenesis (biological rhythm). As such, it has a key role in many functions, such as sleep and wakefulness and is involved in various diseases associated with dysfunction of rhythmic activity such as epilepsy, autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. However, there is much that scientists do not know about this brain region and as the understanding of the thalamocortical system deepens, so does the complexity of the questions scientists face.