Obama Announces BRAIN Initiative

On April 2, President Obama announced a new BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative designed to revolutionize our understanding of the human brain, to be funded with approximately $100 million in the President’s Fiscal Year 2014 Budget.

Beginning in fiscal year 2014, the National Institutes of Health, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the National Science Foundation will support approximately $100 million in “research to accelerate the development and application of new technologies that will enable researchers to produce dynamic pictures of the brain that show how individual brain cells and complex neural circuits interact at the speed of thought.” Federal agencies will partner with companies, foundations, and other private institutions, such as the Allen Institute, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Kavli Foundation, and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

Resources

• White House Fact Sheet: BRAIN Initiative
• White House Blog: BRAIN Initiative Challenges Researchers to Unlock Mysteries of Human Mind
• NIH: Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative
• NIH Director’s Blog
• National Science Foundation Participates in White House Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative
• DARPA: Better Understanding of Human Brain Supports National Security
• UC Berkeley News: Campus poised to join Obama’s BRAIN initiative