BRAIN Initiative Director Dr John Ngai provides a Leading Edge overview of three ambitious “BRAIN 2.0 transformative projects” – a comprehensive human brain cell atlas project, the BRAIN microconnectivity project, and the precision access to brain cell types project – which promise to revolutionize how researchers study the brain.
The Concept to Clinic: Commercializing Innovation Education Program is designed to help current BRAIN-funded investigators from a research institution or early-stage start-up better understand how to take their innovative technology and apply it to an unmet market need.
Imagine looking up on a clear night and instead of seeing the giant celestial smear that is the Milky Way, visualizing every individual star as a crystal-clear sparkle of light. That was my reaction 8 years ago when I laid eyes on the first data to emerge from the BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Consortium.
Post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Justin O’Hare, and colleagues publish landmark paper in Science, finding for the first time that intracellular calcium release plays a key role in how the brain adapts to new environments.
As a tourist, you might need directions to go from a hotel to a restaurant, but spend a few days in that town, and the task of navigating from the hotel to the restaurant becomes trivial. How our brains learn, remember, and navigate new environments has been an enduring mystery in neuroscience.
BRAIN-supported technology development holds promise for clinical applications.
SPIE journal Neurophotonics has published the first of two extensive status reports on tools for brain science.
Last week marked my second anniversary as BRAIN Director, an amazing opportunity and challenge for which I am deeply grateful. Over the past two years, I’ve strived to maintain perspective about all that we do, and to be guided by others’ views and critiques. People often ask me, “What’s the payoff, and when will we see it?” These questions are important, considering the magnitude of BRAIN investments and the promises we’ve made to better understand neural circuit function and develop new cures.
The Neuro Technology Center (NTC) at Columbia University and the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) are co-hosting an interdisciplinary symposium to explore the intersection of nanoscience and neuroscience on July 21, 2022.
In June, we hosted the 8th Annual BRAIN Initiative Meeting. I relish this yearly event as an opportunity to celebrate and reflect on the incredible progress from this foundational Initiative as we anticipate the next set of discoveries and innovations. Planning this meeting is an enormous exercise logistically. I am deeply grateful for the tireless efforts of the NIH staff and program committee who made it not only possible, but also successful despite all the curveballs thrown at us by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The NIH BRAIN Initiative announces awards for two-large scale projects that aim to transform neuroscience research and enhance our understanding of the human brain.
