Tags:
Journalism of Courage
MILLIONS OF NEURONS
To be watched,to reconstruct activity of every single one as they fire simultaneously in different brain circuits,or perhaps even whole brains,at time scales matching behaviourat the speed of thought,as one Obama advisor put it. While its possible to get a rough view of whole neural circuit activity using tools like MRI and EEG,its only at a low resolution. And the behaviour of the brain in between these two scaleshow thousands or millions of neurons individually interact to control the behaviour of discrete circuitshas been inaccessible.
$100 mn
The amount of funding announced by US President Barack Obama,along with partnerships with universities and the private sector. Starting 2014,the 10-year project could eventually cost billions of dollars.
AMOUNT OF WORK
First task at hand is developing technology to monitor so many neurons together; currently,the capability is fewer than 100 neurons at a time. Emerging micro- and nano-fabrication techniques could be used to create smaller chips bearing smaller electrical and even chemical probes that would be less invasive.
One million neurons is approximately what would be needed to fully record the brain of the zebrafish.
TOOLS BEING LOOKED AT
Novel optical techniques,such as voltage-sensitive fluorescent molecules,or synthetic biology using enzymes that build strands of DNA.
THE GOAL
Understand the origins of cognition,perception,moods and other brain activities,which may lead to more effective treatments for conditions such as autism or for brain injuries; perhaps even pave way for advances in artificial intelligence.
OTHER BRAIN PROJECTS
The European Union recently announced a nearly 1.2 billion Euro,10-year proposal to computationally simulate the human brain from the level of molecules and neurons up through neuronal circuits. However,the simulation will be built on knowledge that is still theoretical,incomplete or inaccurate.
THE DOUBTS
That the project would divert funding from individual studies.
That it would be a mistake to begin by spending money on technological methods,before knowing exactly what would be measured.
That the project would generate about 300 exabytes (1 exabyte = 1 billion gigabytes) of data every year,presenting a significant technical barrier.
That the usefulness of most of the currently available high-resolution brain activity monitors is limited because they are highly invasive,being implanted by a process that involves surgically opening the skull.
That brain changes from second to second,and its unclear what the data collected would be useful for.
As one blog put it,building an accurate picture of a few trillion neurons in action is as far from reality as a flea painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
LEVEL OF US COMMITMENT
According to Obama,of a scale not seen since the height of the Space Race.
Compiled by: NAYANIKA CHAKRABORTY
