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Obama announces $100 million in funding for new brain project
Copyright 2013 Thompson Reuters
The Obama administration is investing aggressively in a new project to do for neuroscience what the Human Genome Project did for genetics.
7 POINTSApril 2, 2013 AT 5:10PM
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Speaking before a room full of scientists on Apr. 2, President Obama announced the new Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. The project "aims to help researchers find new ways to treat, cure, and even prevent brain disorders." Copyright 2013 Thompson Reuters
Speaking before a room full of scientists on Apr. 2, President Obama announced the new Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. The project "aims to help researchers find new ways to treat, cure, and even prevent brain disorders."
April 2, 2013, 9:53 a.m.
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"There is this enormous mystery waiting to be unlocked, and the BRAIN Initiative will change that by giving scientists the tools they need to get a dynamic picture of the brain in action and better understand how we think and how we learn and how we remember."
– President Barack Obama
April 2, 2013, 4:40 p.m.
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The administration hopes the BRAIN initiative will advance treatments for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other forms of mental illness, and may even help in the development of artificial intelligence. The research could cost billions, so government support is crucial in carrying it out.
Feb. 18, 2013, 3:28 p.m.
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"Mapping the human brain is exactly the type of research we should be funding, by reprioritizing the $250 million we currently spend on political and social science research into expanded medical research, including the expedited mapping of the human brain. It's great science."
– House Majority Leader Eric Cantor
April 2, 2013, 4:45 p.m.
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"We don't understand the fly brain yet. How will this come to anything?"
– Leslie Vosshall of Rockefeller University
Some have criticized the project's ambition and potential cost, saying the initiative will pull from other, more important research.
Feb. 21, 2013, 4:43 a.m.
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As a point of comparison, the Human Genome Project cost $3.8 billion. It started in 1990 and completed its goal of mapping the human genome ahead of schedule, in April 2003. The project returned $800 billion by 2010, according to a government study.
Feb. 18, 2013, 7:57 p.m.
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"Every dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 to our economy — every dollar… Now is not the time to gut these job-creating investments in science and innovation."
– President Barack Obama
Obama named brain research as one of the ways the U.S. should "invest in the best ideas."
Feb. 18, 2013, 3:34 p.m.
Citations
  1. 1. Project Seeks to Build Map of Human Brain
  2. 2. Researchers debate wisdom of brain-mapping initiative
  3. 3. Obama announces $100M to unlock mysteries of the brain
  4. 4. Obama launches research initiative to study human brain
  5. 5. President Obama Pitches Brain Mapping Project, But Are We Late To The Table? - Forbes

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