Yesterday, the Obama administration announced a proposal for an initial $100 million investment into a science initiative to study the most complex mechanism in the human body, and possibly the known universe: the brain.
The president gathered a group of scientists he called “some of the most imaginative and effective researchers in the country” to discuss the aptly-named BRAIN initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) and to give a conference announcing the project.
The BRAIN initiative will receive the approximate $100 million in the 2014 Fiscal Year. According to WhiteHouse.gov, the purpose of the initiative is to help researchers find new ways to treat, cure, and prevent brain disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury—and to study how the brain produces memories and programs human behavior.
By comparison, the Human Genome Project, another government-funded research initiative, cost taxpaying citizens $2.6 billion over the course of a few years. According to Obama, the genome sequencing project returned $140 to the U.S. economy for every single dollar spent on the project—and the research has been an invaluable source of knowledge for scientists around the world.
“I’m directing my bioethics commission to make sure all of the research is being done in a responsible way,” Obama said. “And we’re also partnering with the private sector, including leading companies and foundations and research institutions, to tap the nation’s brightest minds to help us reach our goal.”
According to John Ngai, director of UC Berkeley’s Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, the BRAIN initiative aims to map the brain’s 10 billion neurons and 100 trillion connections, and also to understand how signals travel through the brain and what processes modulate these signals.
Though many are excited about the planned initiative, some in the scientific community are skeptical as to whether the BRAIN initiative will yield any fruitful results. Michael Eisen, a biologist at U.C. Berkley, was critical of the project, saying that more basic research had to be done on the brain for any of the big goals Obama outlined to come to be. Others said that the BRAIN initiative’s goals were much too vague and not at all focused on technology development.
Despite potential backlash, Obama believes the initiative will provide opportunities and important information to the United States and the human race as a whole.
“We have a chance to improve the lives of not just millions, but billions of people on this planet through the research that’s done in this BRAIN Initiative alone,” Obama said. “And it’s going to require us as a country to embody and embrace that spirit of discovery that is what made America, America.”
