11 ms·

Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain

119 points by robg 14y ago

chbrown 14y ago
This sounds awfully familiar (Europe's a step ahead, this time, at least in the press): http://uk.news.yahoo.com/billion-euro-supercomputer-to--simulate-entire-human-brain---120811728.html http://uk.news.yahoo.com/billion-euro-supercomputer-to--simu...
- ihnorton 14y ago
  Not exactly. The Obama initiative is markedly different from a recently announced European project that will invest 1 billion euros in a Swiss-led effort to build a silicon-based “brain.” The project seeks to construct a supercomputer simulation using the best research about the inner workings of the brain. Critics, however, say the simulation will be built on knowledge that is still theoretical, incomplete or inaccurate.
mtgx 14y ago
This sounds like a reactionary move after Europe announced their own. Can't complain though. Great to see they are taking this sort of research seriously. Now if they started funding international anti-asteroid systems, too (like how Russia suggested), that would be great.
contingencies 14y ago
1984: We're behind schedule.
ibuildthings 14y ago
http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/cms/lang/en/pid/56882 http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/cms/lang/en/pid/56882 Here are more details of the European project (labelled Blue Brain Project) other posters had mentioned about in this thread. Also, there is this TED talk http://www.ted.com/talks/henry_markram_supercomputing_the_brain_s_secrets.html http://www.ted.com/talks/henry_markram_supercomputing_the_br... by Henry Markram, the project director of the blue brain project.
- wfn 14y ago
  For anyone still curious after watching the TED talk, also see the Almaden Cognitive Computing 2006 series - these presentations are technically intense (cellular biology, beyond-pop neuroscience) but(/and) enjoyable. The second one in the series is a lecture/presentation by the same Henry Markram: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gFI7o69VJM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gFI7o69VJM NB: intros (by those other people at the start of each video) tend to be long (especially for the first presentation (which is by the way very interesting as well)), I'd maybe skip them. There are a couple of other videos from the series on youtube, but the original collection of twelve was removed from google video once that service became defunct. They are still available via somewhat obscure means from the original source: webpage (original now gone from the source for some reason) with links to original AVIs and PPTs: http://kostas.mkj.lt/almaden2006/agenda.shtml http://kostas.mkj.lt/almaden2006/agenda.shtml ; I'm redownloading those AVIs now just in case... (www.almaden.ibm.com/institute/resources/2006/Disk[1-12].avi (replace integer interval with a single integer.))
- cbennett 14y ago
  found these three documentaries on the progress of the project so far. worth a watch! http://bluebrainfilm.com/bb/ http://bluebrainfilm.com/bb/
- etrautmann 14y ago
  To be clear, there are not many similarities between Markram's project and this program. Critics of bluebrain should be very interested in the proposed approaches and technologies outlined here. Rather than starting by simulating a whole brain before understanding a functional circuit-level description of different brain areas, this program proposes to start by studying simple and accessible circuits and build up to larger systems.
monochromatic 14y ago
Politicians gonna pander. In unrelated news, the sun rose as expected this morning.
toisanji 14y ago
maybe this is the science project to unite the US and push STEM forward.
gph 14y ago
I may be way out of my depth on this, but isn't this project assuming that there is a 'normative' human brain, and that we all have the same neuron structure? I know we all have the same general brain regions, and in most of us they function approximately the same. But to go down to the neuronal-level will any single brain be able to give a map that would be useful to the population as a whole? Or are they planning on making some type of composite map from multiple sources?
- keypusher 14y ago
  I used to work in functional brain imaging (fMRI), so perhaps I can shed some light on this. Generally what happens is you take a group of subject, and get "structural" (anatomic) scans of their brain as well as the functional scans showing brain activity for the given task. The structural scans are then run through a statistical "normalization" procedure, which basically does some fancy bending/warping of everyone's brains such that they all line up. Once this is done you apply that normalization function to the functional scans so you can compare everyone. It is also important to note that typically neuroimaging does not go down the neuronal level, the resolution is just not that high. Typically you are looking for brain regions, or sub-regions that correlate with a given activity. Something on the order of millimeters to centimeters. However there are other ways of investigating brain activity, and some of those can go down to the neuronal level. Here is an example of common software package to do such normalization and analysis: http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/ http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/
- ihnorton 14y ago
  isn't this project assuming that there is a 'normative' human brain, and that we all have the same neuron structure? At a certain resolution the structure of the brain is certainly close to normative, as demonstrated by decades of dissection studies. But when you get down to the axon level, there is a huge variability in connectivity. The open question is: at what level of connectivity (and, importantly, temporal synchronicity) does cognition emerge (or otherwise, depending on your philosophical school).
- etrautmann 14y ago
  I'm a PhD candidate in neuroscience, I'll take a stab at that. You highlighted a critically important question in the field. We do all have the same brain structures, and neurons within those structures have similar shape and function, but the exact wiring of the circuits will not be the same for two individuals. Understanding how the structure of circuits leads to behavior, memory, cognition, etc. are the high level goals that the whole field is striving for. This project seeks to answer quite a bit more than just mapping areas in the brain. I think the name is more of a way to connote that the project seeks to be comprehensive.
cantastoria 14y ago
I was stunned reading this. It looks like the group pushing this project are just taking advantage of the president's advisers ignorance. Cognitive neuroscientists, psychologists and neurologists have been "mapping" the human brain for well over 20 years now. There's even a conference dedicated to the pursuit (http://www.humanbrainmapping.org http://www.humanbrainmapping.org) it attracts over 2500 attendees each year. Unless this project is focusing on some aspect of the brain that has yet to be studied (not very likely) it looks like this is just going to take NIH funds away from researchers who are already working in these areas. It doesn't surprise me though. Francis Collins (head of NIH) was the leader of the publicly funded half of the Human Genome Project. I guess he's trying to pull the same trick twice. It will be very interesting to see what the final proposal looks like. EDIT: Also claims that "we'll be able to cure Alzheimers!" are pretty much part of every grant proposal submitted to NIMH in one way or the other. It's just an easy way to get your "impact on public health" covered. I can't believe they're failing for it here.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- ihnorton 14y ago
  Right, and people had been playing with rockets for 30 years before the Apollo project. There is something to be said for large, concerted effort toward a singular goal. There are still enough massive gaps in our understanding of the brain to justify further research. That said, this press speculation is just fluff and it's unclear to me whether it is possible to define such a focused goal. As an aside, I don't quite get all the cynicism in this thread. President: we will spend more money on science! HN: Meh?
  - Rocky_Outcrop 14y ago
    It's a positive goal not related to the military. I applaud that.
  - cantastoria 14y ago
    It's more like if people had been already going to the moon for 30 years in this case. There is something to be said for large, concerted effort toward a singular goal. As I said that concerted effort has been going on for quite some time now it just hasn't been funded by a narrow project that will benefit very few scientists (and apparently Google, Microsoft and Qualcomm). It's not cynicism, it's healthy skepticism. "More money on science" in this case looks more like a boondoggle that will benefit a few select scientists and corporations and will probably end up taking money away from a larger group of scientists already looking into these areas.
JoeAltmaier 14y ago
Sounds like snake oil. Too early to build a complete human brain model. Simpler brain models (cat, lizard) haven't been done yet (?) but that's not headline-worthy. How about "President announces program to solve all human suffering"? About as meaningless, but would actually be more useful if by some astronomical fluke they succeeded.
- lars 14y ago
  It's on the same timescale as the European Blue Brain Project (and also Kurzweil's predictions, if you put any faith in that). If you believe that this an information technology that has an exponential growth, it's not a sufficient objection that we're far off now. The same objections were raised for the Human Genome Project, which was far from completion most of its duration, but followed an exponential growth and completed on time.
  - JoeAltmaier 14y ago
    Genome is a couple megabytes. Brain is terabytes. A billion times more complex. And its not all about the chemistry, its about the physical wiring. So the same techniques won't apply.
    - lars 14y ago
      Yes, but you only have to double a megabyte 30 times to get a terabyte. That's a better perspective to take when dealing with exponential growth. Of course, the genome and the brain are different things, but the point remains that if you believe this will have an exponential growth, being far away from solving it is exactly where you expect us to be right now. And even now, we do have quite good computational models for certain small parts of the brain.
      - mortehu 14y ago
        > you only have to double a megabyte 30 times to get a terabyte. It seems to be only 19.93 times according to Wolfram Alpha? http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=log%281+terabyte%2F1+megabyte%29%2Flog%282%29 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=log%281+terabyte%2F1+me...
jahewson 14y ago
I went to a fantastic talk by Microsoft Research's Stephen Emmott recently in which he referred to fMRI as "phrenology for the 21st century" and advocated the building of computational models of the brain. Mixed feelings about this announcement - some of the newer methods do look promising.
- etrautmann 14y ago
  The proposed research is not focused on fMRI...
keypusher 14y ago
While there has been a huge growth in brain research over the last decade or so, the methods and analysis are still immature, and results are often quite fuzzy (even if researchers would like their reviewers to believe otherwise). There also doesn't seem to be a clear goal here, other than to throw a bunch of money at some interesting questions. The Genome Project had the very clear goal of mapping the human genome. The European project aims to simulate a human brain. This just seems to be directing a lot of money at research which is already being done. That being said, I think there might be some very interesting opportunities here for talented developers. When I worked in the field a few years ago, the software used for this stuff was generally a lot of MATLAB scripts with C subroutines held together by some scripting language duct tape (Python/Bash). It was slow, it was buggy, we were basically writing documentation as we figured it out ourselves, different labs had different methods and scripts and in general it was kind of a mess. It's actually bad enough that there are research grants out there to develop better analysis software. Most of the researchers are trained in statistics, neuroscience, and psychology but have very little programming experience. If you are interested in some of the software that is out there right now, below is a partial list. Also, if you are interested in this kind of research but can't contribute code-wise, contact your local research university. They are always looking for test subjects for this kind of stuff, you usually get paid pretty well ($50-100/hour for imaging studies) and you get some cool images of your own brain out of it if you ask. http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/ http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/ http://fsl.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl/fslwiki/FSL http://fsl.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl/fslwiki/FSL http://afni.nimh.nih.gov/afni http://afni.nimh.nih.gov/afni http://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/ http://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/ http://nipy.sourceforge.net/ http://nipy.sourceforge.net/ http://www.trackvis.org/ http://www.trackvis.org/
- omnisci 14y ago
  Well said! I agree and you are correct that the software used for this stuff pretty much sucks. The thing is that a lot of scientists don't know that the software could be better, and they are reluctant to try new software considering it is so expensive (We just spent $5k on a licence for software that is subpar. I've seen this 91203091283 times and it's disappointing). New software will change the game. To add to that list, http://www.brain-map.org/ http://www.brain-map.org/ is a reallllllllly nice tool. I love what this company is doing in terms of automating gene expression within the brain and look forward to their software going through some revisions.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
AutoCorrect 14y ago
How about a 10 year project to pay off the National Debt? Quit wasting money on science projects that aren't needed (this is already being done).
- adventured 14y ago
  3% interest times $20 trillion = $600 billion per year in interest. (interest rates will not stay this low indefinitely, and even 3% would be crazy low given the actual default risk via inflation that the US poses) That interest basis alone would effectively wipe out the ability to continue Social Security (or almost the entire US military, take your pick). The national debt can never be repaid under any circumstances. We can't afford the real interest cost right now, which is why the Fed is paying for that via debt monetization (aka QE). Throw in just a trillion per year in principle, and it becomes a sad joke. We will never, and have no plans to ever pay for the national debt. There's no scenario under which the math works out, unless our government suddenly becomes hyper disciplined and initiates an uncompromising 50 year payback plan that takes a hatchet to the entire welfare state (corporate, social, military).
abecedarius 14y ago
On the claimed $800 billion dollar return on the human genome project: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110511/full/news.2011.281.html http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110511/full/news.2011.281.ht... (It's skeptical but vague; it looked like the rest of the top hits just parroted the press release.) Anyone have access to the brain-mapping proposal? http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273%2812%2900518-1 http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273%2812%2900518-... "The function of neural circuits is an emergent property that arises from the coordinated activity of large numbers of neurons. To capture this, we propose launching a large-scale, international public effort, the Brain Activity Map Project, aimed at reconstructing the full record of neural activity across complete neural circuits. This technological challenge could prove to be an invaluable step toward understanding fundamental and pathological brain processes."
- bnewbold 14y ago
  At columbia.edu via scholar.google.com: http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac%3A147969 http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac%3A147969 http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/download/fedora_content/download/ac:147970/CONTENT/Neuroview_original.pdf http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/download/fedora_content/...
  - abecedarius 14y ago
    Thanks! On skimming it sounds well thought out as research on its own terms, though the connection to curing diseases is just as handwavey.
tgflynn 14y ago
This is great news. As skeptical as I am about the prospects for actually simulating the human brain in the near future the benefits that are likely to arise from devoting more resources to understanding it are enormous, both in terms of technology and human health. This is probably one of the best things the government could be spending research money on. I only hope that this proposal is funded at the level it deserves.
jivatmanx 14y ago
I'm skeptical, but if it's reasonable to spend over a Trillion on a manned fighter project (F-35) considering the pathetic state of that project, then the few billion for this is worthwhile a million times over
- adventured 14y ago
  How about neither. The Paul Allen brain Atlas, among many other private initiatives, is capable of pursuing this goal better than the federal government, in the same way and for the exact same reasons that Craig Venter & Co. embarrassed the human genome project.
  - muhfuhkuh 14y ago
    Actually, UC Santa Cruz and the NHGRI/NIH embarrassed Celera by publishing the human genome and setting the whole thing public domain several days before Celera could publish then patent their mappings. And, anyway, the only reason Venter went private was to draw a line in the sand about shotgun sequencing, for which he was having trouble finding public funding/support. Besides, no one got into space faster than governments, no one has managed to develop cures and vaccines for large-scale and deadly diseases than labs directly funded by the NIH and other governmental agencies, and no one has had the infrastructure to build large-scale networks like the Internet like governments. I won't even mention interstate/intercontinental highways, sewer systems, healthcare outside of the US, etc. There are simply some things that cannot be done by anyone but the uppercase-P People.
omnisci 14y ago
It's clear that the software that we are using is not sufficient, and a lot of it seems to be a lack of quality control. I've been in science now for close to 10 years and the software that we use looks like it was built in 1995. This is a serious problem with science software. The features are there (for the most part), but it seems clear that much of the software engineers are not working with the users. There is a severe lack of thought when it comes to UI and as such the learning curve is pretty steep. With that said, my first YC application was to build software (web based) to tackle some of these issues. I'm actually looking for coders to help build this product, so if you have any interest in jumping into this field, send me an email (in profile). I intend on applying to YC this summer and would love to work with a few programmers to give this project a real shot.
- JohnnyBrown 14y ago
  I've spent some time making web-based software while sitting across the lab from the scientists who use it. This looks like an interesting project, I'll email you for more info.
melipone 14y ago
How will this help "paving the way for Artificial intelligence"? We already have neural networks as a computational metaphor for the brain. I doubt we will find new metaphors. I doubt we will learn new computational tricks. Please enlight me on this issue.
- return0 14y ago
  ANNs were build with the assumption of point neurons as nodes in a network and many of their training algorithms are biophysically unrealistic. While ANNs can be good function approximators, they are a very inaccurate representation of brain neuronal neurons and networks (which have intricate dendrites and biophysics). We don't know yet how fundamental processes like memory storage work in the brain; it's one of the great mysteries of neuroscience.
etrautmann 14y ago
I'm currently working to develop neural prosthetics (computer cursor, robotic arm, etc.) and it's clear to me that the president's proposed research will have real clinical impact over the timescale of 5-10 years. Our lab and others already have paralyzed human patients controlling computers in clinical trials via a brain-machine interface, but it is hard to overstate the potential possibilities that remain hidden due to our lack of low-level understanding of low level circuits. To clear up some misconceptions in this thread, this new work is NOT focused on top-down cognition using hand-wavy tools. Instead, it's focused on understanding neural circuits starting with simple organisms and working up to primates/humans by developing new technologies that allow us to radically scale up the scope of question we can ask.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
MikeCapone 14y ago
Anders Sandberg and Nick Bostrom's "Whole Brain Emulation Roadmap" might interest some people here: http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/3853/brain-emulation-roadmap-report.pdf http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/3... Most of it is over my head, but it was an interest read and shows the kind of techniques we'd need to be able to do this.
xijuan 14y ago
I agree with the skepticism in the other comments. But I still happy to hear the news! We need more research on human brain! The more, the better! How human brain works is still pretty much a mystery..
n3rdy 14y ago
Do not let this man fool you. Our president has every intention of developing a My Little Pony MMORPG once research is finished.
- cmccabe 14y ago
  I bet you really wish HN comments allowed images.

119 points by robg 14y ago

This sounds awfully familiar (Europe's a step ahead, this time, at least in the press): http://uk.news.yahoo.com/billion-euro-supercomputer-to--simulate-entire-human-brain---120811728.html http://uk.news.yahoo.com/billion-euro-supercomputer-to--simu...

ihnorton 14y ago
Not exactly. The Obama initiative is markedly different from a recently announced European project that will invest 1 billion euros in a Swiss-led effort to build a silicon-based “brain.” The project seeks to construct a supercomputer simulation using the best research about the inner workings of the brain. Critics, however, say the simulation will be built on knowledge that is still theoretical, incomplete or inaccurate.

mtgx 14y ago

This sounds like a reactionary move after Europe announced their own. Can't complain though. Great to see they are taking this sort of research seriously. Now if they started funding international anti-asteroid systems, too (like how Russia suggested), that would be great.

contingencies 14y ago

1984: We're behind schedule.

ibuildthings 14y ago

http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/cms/lang/en/pid/56882 http://bluebrain.epfl.ch/cms/lang/en/pid/56882 Here are more details of the European project (labelled Blue Brain Project) other posters had mentioned about in this thread. Also, there is this TED talk http://www.ted.com/talks/henry_markram_supercomputing_the_brain_s_secrets.html http://www.ted.com/talks/henry_markram_supercomputing_the_br... by Henry Markram, the project director of the blue brain project.

wfn 14y ago
For anyone still curious after watching the TED talk, also see the Almaden Cognitive Computing 2006 series - these presentations are technically intense (cellular biology, beyond-pop neuroscience) but(/and) enjoyable. The second one in the series is a lecture/presentation by the same Henry Markram: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gFI7o69VJM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gFI7o69VJM NB: intros (by those other people at the start of each video) tend to be long (especially for the first presentation (which is by the way very interesting as well)), I'd maybe skip them. There are a couple of other videos from the series on youtube, but the original collection of twelve was removed from google video once that service became defunct. They are still available via somewhat obscure means from the original source: webpage (original now gone from the source for some reason) with links to original AVIs and PPTs: http://kostas.mkj.lt/almaden2006/agenda.shtml http://kostas.mkj.lt/almaden2006/agenda.shtml ; I'm redownloading those AVIs now just in case... (www.almaden.ibm.com/institute/resources/2006/Disk[1-12].avi (replace integer interval with a single integer.))
cbennett 14y ago
found these three documentaries on the progress of the project so far. worth a watch! http://bluebrainfilm.com/bb/ http://bluebrainfilm.com/bb/
etrautmann 14y ago
To be clear, there are not many similarities between Markram's project and this program. Critics of bluebrain should be very interested in the proposed approaches and technologies outlined here. Rather than starting by simulating a whole brain before understanding a functional circuit-level description of different brain areas, this program proposes to start by studying simple and accessible circuits and build up to larger systems.

monochromatic 14y ago

Politicians gonna pander. In unrelated news, the sun rose as expected this morning.

toisanji 14y ago

maybe this is the science project to unite the US and push STEM forward.

gph 14y ago

I may be way out of my depth on this, but isn't this project assuming that there is a 'normative' human brain, and that we all have the same neuron structure? I know we all have the same general brain regions, and in most of us they function approximately the same. But to go down to the neuronal-level will any single brain be able to give a map that would be useful to the population as a whole? Or are they planning on making some type of composite map from multiple sources?

keypusher 14y ago
I used to work in functional brain imaging (fMRI), so perhaps I can shed some light on this. Generally what happens is you take a group of subject, and get "structural" (anatomic) scans of their brain as well as the functional scans showing brain activity for the given task. The structural scans are then run through a statistical "normalization" procedure, which basically does some fancy bending/warping of everyone's brains such that they all line up. Once this is done you apply that normalization function to the functional scans so you can compare everyone. It is also important to note that typically neuroimaging does not go down the neuronal level, the resolution is just not that high. Typically you are looking for brain regions, or sub-regions that correlate with a given activity. Something on the order of millimeters to centimeters. However there are other ways of investigating brain activity, and some of those can go down to the neuronal level. Here is an example of common software package to do such normalization and analysis: http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/ http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/
ihnorton 14y ago
isn't this project assuming that there is a 'normative' human brain, and that we all have the same neuron structure? At a certain resolution the structure of the brain is certainly close to normative, as demonstrated by decades of dissection studies. But when you get down to the axon level, there is a huge variability in connectivity. The open question is: at what level of connectivity (and, importantly, temporal synchronicity) does cognition emerge (or otherwise, depending on your philosophical school).
etrautmann 14y ago
I'm a PhD candidate in neuroscience, I'll take a stab at that. You highlighted a critically important question in the field. We do all have the same brain structures, and neurons within those structures have similar shape and function, but the exact wiring of the circuits will not be the same for two individuals. Understanding how the structure of circuits leads to behavior, memory, cognition, etc. are the high level goals that the whole field is striving for. This project seeks to answer quite a bit more than just mapping areas in the brain. I think the name is more of a way to connote that the project seeks to be comprehensive.

cantastoria 14y ago

I was stunned reading this. It looks like the group pushing this project are just taking advantage of the president's advisers ignorance. Cognitive neuroscientists, psychologists and neurologists have been "mapping" the human brain for well over 20 years now. There's even a conference dedicated to the pursuit (http://www.humanbrainmapping.org http://www.humanbrainmapping.org) it attracts over 2500 attendees each year. Unless this project is focusing on some aspect of the brain that has yet to be studied (not very likely) it looks like this is just going to take NIH funds away from researchers who are already working in these areas. It doesn't surprise me though. Francis Collins (head of NIH) was the leader of the publicly funded half of the Human Genome Project. I guess he's trying to pull the same trick twice. It will be very interesting to see what the final proposal looks like. EDIT: Also claims that "we'll be able to cure Alzheimers!" are pretty much part of every grant proposal submitted to NIMH in one way or the other. It's just an easy way to get your "impact on public health" covered. I can't believe they're failing for it here.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
ihnorton 14y ago
Right, and people had been playing with rockets for 30 years before the Apollo project. There is something to be said for large, concerted effort toward a singular goal. There are still enough massive gaps in our understanding of the brain to justify further research. That said, this press speculation is just fluff and it's unclear to me whether it is possible to define such a focused goal. As an aside, I don't quite get all the cynicism in this thread. President: we will spend more money on science! HN: Meh?
- Rocky_Outcrop 14y ago
  It's a positive goal not related to the military. I applaud that.
- cantastoria 14y ago
  It's more like if people had been already going to the moon for 30 years in this case. There is something to be said for large, concerted effort toward a singular goal. As I said that concerted effort has been going on for quite some time now it just hasn't been funded by a narrow project that will benefit very few scientists (and apparently Google, Microsoft and Qualcomm). It's not cynicism, it's healthy skepticism. "More money on science" in this case looks more like a boondoggle that will benefit a few select scientists and corporations and will probably end up taking money away from a larger group of scientists already looking into these areas.

JoeAltmaier 14y ago

Sounds like snake oil. Too early to build a complete human brain model. Simpler brain models (cat, lizard) haven't been done yet (?) but that's not headline-worthy. How about "President announces program to solve all human suffering"? About as meaningless, but would actually be more useful if by some astronomical fluke they succeeded.

lars 14y ago
It's on the same timescale as the European Blue Brain Project (and also Kurzweil's predictions, if you put any faith in that). If you believe that this an information technology that has an exponential growth, it's not a sufficient objection that we're far off now. The same objections were raised for the Human Genome Project, which was far from completion most of its duration, but followed an exponential growth and completed on time.
- JoeAltmaier 14y ago
  Genome is a couple megabytes. Brain is terabytes. A billion times more complex. And its not all about the chemistry, its about the physical wiring. So the same techniques won't apply.
  - lars 14y ago
    Yes, but you only have to double a megabyte 30 times to get a terabyte. That's a better perspective to take when dealing with exponential growth. Of course, the genome and the brain are different things, but the point remains that if you believe this will have an exponential growth, being far away from solving it is exactly where you expect us to be right now. And even now, we do have quite good computational models for certain small parts of the brain.
    - mortehu 14y ago
      > you only have to double a megabyte 30 times to get a terabyte. It seems to be only 19.93 times according to Wolfram Alpha? http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=log%281+terabyte%2F1+megabyte%29%2Flog%282%29 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=log%281+terabyte%2F1+me...

jahewson 14y ago

I went to a fantastic talk by Microsoft Research's Stephen Emmott recently in which he referred to fMRI as "phrenology for the 21st century" and advocated the building of computational models of the brain. Mixed feelings about this announcement - some of the newer methods do look promising.

etrautmann 14y ago
The proposed research is not focused on fMRI...

keypusher 14y ago

While there has been a huge growth in brain research over the last decade or so, the methods and analysis are still immature, and results are often quite fuzzy (even if researchers would like their reviewers to believe otherwise). There also doesn't seem to be a clear goal here, other than to throw a bunch of money at some interesting questions. The Genome Project had the very clear goal of mapping the human genome. The European project aims to simulate a human brain. This just seems to be directing a lot of money at research which is already being done. That being said, I think there might be some very interesting opportunities here for talented developers. When I worked in the field a few years ago, the software used for this stuff was generally a lot of MATLAB scripts with C subroutines held together by some scripting language duct tape (Python/Bash). It was slow, it was buggy, we were basically writing documentation as we figured it out ourselves, different labs had different methods and scripts and in general it was kind of a mess. It's actually bad enough that there are research grants out there to develop better analysis software. Most of the researchers are trained in statistics, neuroscience, and psychology but have very little programming experience. If you are interested in some of the software that is out there right now, below is a partial list. Also, if you are interested in this kind of research but can't contribute code-wise, contact your local research university. They are always looking for test subjects for this kind of stuff, you usually get paid pretty well ($50-100/hour for imaging studies) and you get some cool images of your own brain out of it if you ask. http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/ http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/ http://fsl.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl/fslwiki/FSL http://fsl.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl/fslwiki/FSL http://afni.nimh.nih.gov/afni http://afni.nimh.nih.gov/afni http://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/ http://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/ http://nipy.sourceforge.net/ http://nipy.sourceforge.net/ http://www.trackvis.org/ http://www.trackvis.org/

omnisci 14y ago
Well said! I agree and you are correct that the software used for this stuff pretty much sucks. The thing is that a lot of scientists don't know that the software could be better, and they are reluctant to try new software considering it is so expensive (We just spent $5k on a licence for software that is subpar. I've seen this 91203091283 times and it's disappointing). New software will change the game. To add to that list, http://www.brain-map.org/ http://www.brain-map.org/ is a reallllllllly nice tool. I love what this company is doing in terms of automating gene expression within the brain and look forward to their software going through some revisions.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

AutoCorrect 14y ago

How about a 10 year project to pay off the National Debt? Quit wasting money on science projects that aren't needed (this is already being done).

adventured 14y ago
3% interest times $20 trillion = $600 billion per year in interest. (interest rates will not stay this low indefinitely, and even 3% would be crazy low given the actual default risk via inflation that the US poses) That interest basis alone would effectively wipe out the ability to continue Social Security (or almost the entire US military, take your pick). The national debt can never be repaid under any circumstances. We can't afford the real interest cost right now, which is why the Fed is paying for that via debt monetization (aka QE). Throw in just a trillion per year in principle, and it becomes a sad joke. We will never, and have no plans to ever pay for the national debt. There's no scenario under which the math works out, unless our government suddenly becomes hyper disciplined and initiates an uncompromising 50 year payback plan that takes a hatchet to the entire welfare state (corporate, social, military).

abecedarius 14y ago

On the claimed $800 billion dollar return on the human genome project: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110511/full/news.2011.281.html http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110511/full/news.2011.281.ht... (It's skeptical but vague; it looked like the rest of the top hits just parroted the press release.) Anyone have access to the brain-mapping proposal? http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273%2812%2900518-1 http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273%2812%2900518-... "The function of neural circuits is an emergent property that arises from the coordinated activity of large numbers of neurons. To capture this, we propose launching a large-scale, international public effort, the Brain Activity Map Project, aimed at reconstructing the full record of neural activity across complete neural circuits. This technological challenge could prove to be an invaluable step toward understanding fundamental and pathological brain processes."

bnewbold 14y ago
At columbia.edu via scholar.google.com: http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac%3A147969 http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac%3A147969 http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/download/fedora_content/download/ac:147970/CONTENT/Neuroview_original.pdf http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/download/fedora_content/...
- abecedarius 14y ago
  Thanks! On skimming it sounds well thought out as research on its own terms, though the connection to curing diseases is just as handwavey.

tgflynn 14y ago

This is great news. As skeptical as I am about the prospects for actually simulating the human brain in the near future the benefits that are likely to arise from devoting more resources to understanding it are enormous, both in terms of technology and human health. This is probably one of the best things the government could be spending research money on. I only hope that this proposal is funded at the level it deserves.

jivatmanx 14y ago

I'm skeptical, but if it's reasonable to spend over a Trillion on a manned fighter project (F-35) considering the pathetic state of that project, then the few billion for this is worthwhile a million times over

adventured 14y ago
How about neither. The Paul Allen brain Atlas, among many other private initiatives, is capable of pursuing this goal better than the federal government, in the same way and for the exact same reasons that Craig Venter & Co. embarrassed the human genome project.
- muhfuhkuh 14y ago
  Actually, UC Santa Cruz and the NHGRI/NIH embarrassed Celera by publishing the human genome and setting the whole thing public domain several days before Celera could publish then patent their mappings. And, anyway, the only reason Venter went private was to draw a line in the sand about shotgun sequencing, for which he was having trouble finding public funding/support. Besides, no one got into space faster than governments, no one has managed to develop cures and vaccines for large-scale and deadly diseases than labs directly funded by the NIH and other governmental agencies, and no one has had the infrastructure to build large-scale networks like the Internet like governments. I won't even mention interstate/intercontinental highways, sewer systems, healthcare outside of the US, etc. There are simply some things that cannot be done by anyone but the uppercase-P People.

omnisci 14y ago

It's clear that the software that we are using is not sufficient, and a lot of it seems to be a lack of quality control. I've been in science now for close to 10 years and the software that we use looks like it was built in 1995. This is a serious problem with science software. The features are there (for the most part), but it seems clear that much of the software engineers are not working with the users. There is a severe lack of thought when it comes to UI and as such the learning curve is pretty steep. With that said, my first YC application was to build software (web based) to tackle some of these issues. I'm actually looking for coders to help build this product, so if you have any interest in jumping into this field, send me an email (in profile). I intend on applying to YC this summer and would love to work with a few programmers to give this project a real shot.

JohnnyBrown 14y ago
I've spent some time making web-based software while sitting across the lab from the scientists who use it. This looks like an interesting project, I'll email you for more info.

melipone 14y ago

How will this help "paving the way for Artificial intelligence"? We already have neural networks as a computational metaphor for the brain. I doubt we will find new metaphors. I doubt we will learn new computational tricks. Please enlight me on this issue.

return0 14y ago
ANNs were build with the assumption of point neurons as nodes in a network and many of their training algorithms are biophysically unrealistic. While ANNs can be good function approximators, they are a very inaccurate representation of brain neuronal neurons and networks (which have intricate dendrites and biophysics). We don't know yet how fundamental processes like memory storage work in the brain; it's one of the great mysteries of neuroscience.

etrautmann 14y ago

I'm currently working to develop neural prosthetics (computer cursor, robotic arm, etc.) and it's clear to me that the president's proposed research will have real clinical impact over the timescale of 5-10 years. Our lab and others already have paralyzed human patients controlling computers in clinical trials via a brain-machine interface, but it is hard to overstate the potential possibilities that remain hidden due to our lack of low-level understanding of low level circuits. To clear up some misconceptions in this thread, this new work is NOT focused on top-down cognition using hand-wavy tools. Instead, it's focused on understanding neural circuits starting with simple organisms and working up to primates/humans by developing new technologies that allow us to radically scale up the scope of question we can ask.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

MikeCapone 14y ago

Anders Sandberg and Nick Bostrom's "Whole Brain Emulation Roadmap" might interest some people here: http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/3853/brain-emulation-roadmap-report.pdf http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/3... Most of it is over my head, but it was an interest read and shows the kind of techniques we'd need to be able to do this.

xijuan 14y ago

I agree with the skepticism in the other comments. But I still happy to hear the news! We need more research on human brain! The more, the better! How human brain works is still pretty much a mystery..

n3rdy 14y ago

Do not let this man fool you. Our president has every intention of developing a My Little Pony MMORPG once research is finished.

cmccabe 14y ago
I bet you really wish HN comments allowed images.