Connecting the dots in the BRAIN

The Martinos Center's Anna Devor and colleagues have outlined a collective vision for what we can achieve through the NIH BRAIN Initiative. In a recently published Neuron paper - "The Challenge of Connecting the Dots in the B.R.A.I.N." - they discuss likely technological deliverables and neuroscience progress in the coming decade, given "a large-scale, coordinated program with coherent technological, experimental, and theoretical efforts."

The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is part of a new Presidential focus seeking to produce a dynamic picture of the brain showing, for the first time, how individual cells and complex neural circuits interact in both time and space. Efforts encompassed by the initiative will fill major gaps in our current knowledge and thus could help to identify new ways to treat, cure and prevent a range of brain disorders.