Next: Neurotechnologies to visualize (and why not enhance) brain circuits

Cred­it: Vin­cent Pieri­bone, Ph.D., John B. Pierce Lab­o­ra­to­ry, Inc.

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Obama’s Brain Project Backs Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy (MIT Tech­nol­o­gy Review):

“…The White House had com­mit­ted to spend­ing $100 mil­lion this year on the project, which seeks to devel­op new tech­nolo­gies for study­ing the brain. As part of that, today the U.S. Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health announced $46 mil­lion in awards to 58 research groups…The diverse tech­nolo­gies the NIH is back­ing include devel­op­ment of a wear­able PET scan­ner, which could mon­i­tor patients’ brains dur­ing every­day activ­i­ties, lasers able to con­trol how neu­rons fire, and dia­mond-coat­ed elec­trodes that can detect the neu­ro­trans­mit­ter dopamine in liv­ing brains…

Dur­ing a press brief­ing, NIH direc­tor Fran­cis Collins said the research grants would speed the “devel­op­ment of excit­ing new tools and tech­nolo­gies to under­stand how [brain] cir­cuits work.” He said the BRAIN Ini­tia­tive could spend $4.5 bil­lion on such neu­rotech­nolo­gies over the next decade or so…”

Learn more:

• NIH awards ini­tial $46 mil­lion for BRAIN Ini­tia­tive research (NIH announcement)
• Exec­u­tive Sum­ma­ry: Info­graph­ic on the Dig­i­tal Brain Health Mar­ket 2012–2020