Researchers from many scientific fields such as chemistry, physics, and engineering will be essential to the development of new tools and technology for studying the brain…
The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative® aims to revolutionize our understanding of the brain, particularly how individual cells and complex neural circuits interact in both time and space. The first phase of the BRAIN Initiative focuses on accelerating the development and use of new research tools to gain fundamental insight into how the nervous system functions. This requires not only neuroscientists, but experts from a wide variety of disciplines including analytical, organic, and inorganic chemists, nanotechnology researchers, materials scientists, physicists, engineers, and informatics experts. An article in Chemical and Engineering News outlines the importance of recruiting chemists into the BRAIN Initiative for collaborative, “high-risk” research. The unique expertise and perspective of multiple fields of science are essential to creating truly innovative methods to study the brain.