Obama outlines private-public project to study the brain
Tuesday, April 2, 2013 - 22:00
in Biology & Nature
Patterned after the Human Genome Project, the BRAIN initiative aims to make an unprecedented study of the human brain. Most of the federal-private funding, however, remains to be worked out.Making good on a promise first hinted at during his State of the Union speech in February, President Obama on Tuesday unveiled the broad outlines of a scientific initiative aimed at mapping the human brain. The project's ambitious goals include understanding how the brain forms memories and controls human behavior; how it becomes damaged by conditions such as Parkinson's disease and autism; and how it can be repaired when afflicted by Alzheimer's disease, post-traumatic stress disorder and other illnesses.