White House to pour $100 million into brain research

President Barack Obama unveiled a new research initiative designed to revolutionize scientists? understanding of the human brain in search of new ways to treat, cure and possibly prevent disorders such as Alzheimer?s disease, epilepsy and traumatic brain injury.

Launched with approximately $100 million in the fiscal year 2014 budget, the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative will accelerate the development and application of new technologies to produce dynamic pictures of the brain that show how individual brain cells and complex neural circuits interact at the speed of thought, according to a White House fact sheet on the initiative.

These technologies will open new doors to explore how the brain records, processes, uses, stores and retrieves vast quantities of information, and will shed light on the complex links between brain function and behavior.

In the last decade alone, scientists have made a number of landmark discoveries that have created the opportunity to unlock the mysteries of the brain, including the sequencing of the human genome, the development of new tools for mapping neuronal connections, the increasing resolution of imaging technologies and the explosion of nanoscience.

These breakthroughs have paved the way for unprecedented collaboration and discovery across scientific fields. For instance, by combining advanced genetic and optical techniques, scientists can use pulses of light to determine how specific cell activities in the brain affect behavior. In addition, through the integration of neuroscience and physics, researchers can use high-resolution imaging technologies to observe how the brain is structurally and functionally connected in living humans.

While these technological innovations have contributed substantially to scientists? expanding knowledge of the brain, significant breakthroughs in the treatment of neurological and psychiatric disease will require a new generation of tools to enable researchers to record signals from brain cells in much greater numbers and at even faster speeds. Those tools are not yet available, but great promise for developing such technologies lies at the intersections of nanoscience, imaging, engineering, informatics and other rapidly emerging fields of science and engineering, according to the fact sheet.

?We are very excited by the administration?s commitment of much-needed support for research into the brain diseases that devastate the lives of so many people,? Timothy A. Pedley, MD, FAAN, president of the American Academy of Neurology, said in a news release.

A White House infographic about the initiative is available at www.whitehouse.gov/infographics/brain-initiative.