As a layman, I imagine the simulation would have to account for any one of the thousands of different compounds and chemicals in the brain where emulating it might be easier but a lot less useful, like testing drugs on mice versus humans, never knowing what real difference will make an important one.

And yet the distinction is important as we are discussing a project on the very topic.

I don't think anyone playing SimCity thinks there's a whole real city running on their CPU. And certainly no one has a heart attack if you say SimCity is a simulation of a whole city.