Please join us for two virtual NIH BRAIN Initiative working group meetings on Thursday, May 8 and Friday, May 9. The public is welcome to join both open meeting sessions via videocast.
Multi-Council Working Group Meeting—Thursday, May 8, 2025
The BRAIN Initiative Multi-Council Working Group (MCWG) will hold its thirtieth meeting on Thursday, May 8, 2025. MCWG meetings provide an opportunity for members to discuss the NIH BRAIN Initiative’s ongoing and upcoming projects, programs, and funding opportunities and guide progress towards the long-term scientific vision of the BRAIN Initiative.
The meeting will begin with a welcome address from Dr. Susan Weiss, Director of the Division of Extramural Research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse and Designated Federal Official of MCWG. Dr. John Ngai, NIH BRAIN Initiative Director, will then provide the latest updates on the BRAIN Initiative, including new MCWG members, recent events, funding opportunities, and new scientific advances in BRAIN-funded research.
The meeting will also feature a presentation by Dr. Mala Murthy, Professor of Neuroscience at Princeton University, who is the head of the Murthy Lab at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute and an MCWG member. Dr. Murthy co-led the FlyWire Consortium, a BRAIN-funded collaboration that produced the first complete wiring map of an adult animal’s brain. She will present an overview of the relationship between brain wiring and behavior using the fruit fly (genus Drosophila) as a model organism. For more details, please view the full meeting agenda and visit the MCWG webpage.
The open session of the MCWG meeting will take place from 12:00-2:30 pm ET. We invite you to attend via NIH Videocast. We will also make the meeting summary and archived videocast available on the MCWG webpage after the meeting.
Neuroethics Working Group Meeting—Friday, May 9, 2025
The Neuroethics Working Group (NEWG) will hold its nineteenth meeting on Friday, May 9, 2025. NEWG meetings provide an opportunity for members to anticipate, assess, and navigate the ethical implications of BRAIN-funded neurotechnologies.
First, Dr. Andrea Beckel-Mitchener, Designated Federal Official of the NEWG, will deliver a welcome address and Dr. John Ngai, NIH BRAIN Initiative Director, will provide an update on the BRAIN Initiative. NEWG members will then provide updates on emerging neuroethics topics in a roundtable session led by Dr. Jim Eberwine, Acting NEWG Co-Chair.
During the rest of the meeting, participants will focus on the potential ethical challenges with digital brain twins, which are virtual models of human brains that can simulate brain function. First, Dr. Nita Farahany, NEWG Co-Chair, will provide an overview of the topic. Then Dr. Viktor Jirsa, Director of the Inserm Institut de Neurosciences des Systèmes at Aix-Marseille-Université in France, will discuss digital twin technologies for brain medicine; Dr. Arleen Salles, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Neuroethics, will review the ethical considerations for medical computation models of digital brain twins; and Drs. Jana Schaich Borg and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong from Duke University, along with Dr. Vincent Conitzer from Carnegie Mellon University, will present on moral decision making in digital brain twins. The session will then move to a discussion of next steps led by Drs. Eberwine and Farahany.
The meeting will end with an overview of the Implantable BCI Collaborative Community (iBCI-CC) led by Ms. Jen French, Executive Director of the Neurotech Network, and Dr. Michael Young, neurologist and researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital. For more details, please view the full meeting agenda and visit the NEWG webpage.
The NEWG meeting will take place from 1:00-4:30 pm ET. We invite you to attend via NIH Videocast. We will also make the meeting summary and archived videocast available on the NEWG webpage after the meeting.