More than $100 million has been dedicated to a new research initiative announced Tuesday by President Obama aimed at helping researchers find new ways to treat, cure, and prevent brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury.
Launched with about $100 million in President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2014 Budget, the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) initiative will “accelerate the development and application of new technologies that help researchers produce dynamic pictures of the brain that show how individual brain cells and complex neural circuits interact at the speed of thought,” says the announcement.
The technologies are expected to increase exploration into how the brain records, processes, uses, stores, and retrieves vast quantities of information, and gain new understanding of the complex links between brain function and behavior.
The National Institutes of Health, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the National Science Foundation will support about $100 million in research beginning in fiscal year 2014, with allocations or investments of about $40 million, $50 million, and $20 million, respectively.
Through the initiative, the National Institutes of Health will establish a “high-level working group” co-chaired by Dr. Cornelia Bargmann of The Rockefeller University, and Dr. William Newsome of Stanford University, to define detailed scientific goals for the NIH’s investment, and to develop a multi-year plan to achieve these goals.
There will also be partnerships with the private sector, including The Allen Institute for Brain Science and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies under its Dynamic Brain Initiative, with further monetary investments and allocations.
Find out more about the BRAIN Initiative.
Written by Alyssa Gerace
