http://www.nih.gov/science/brain/
QuoteThe NIH Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is part of a new Presidential focus aimed at revolutionizing our understanding of the human brain. By accelerating the development and application of innovative technologies, researchers will be able to produce a revolutionary new dynamic picture of the brain that, for the first time, shows how individual cells and complex neural circuits interact in both time and space. Long desired by researchers seeking new ways to treat, cure, and even prevent brain disorders, this picture will fill major gaps in our current knowledge and provide unprecedented opportunities for exploring exactly how the brain enables the human body to record, process, utilize, store, and retrieve vast quantities of information, all at the speed of thought.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/04/02/brain-initiative-challenges-researchers-unlock-mysteries-human-mind
QuoteThe BRAIN Initiative is launching with approximately $100 million in funding for research supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the President's Fiscal Year 2014 budget.
Foundations and private research institutions are also investing in the neuroscience that will advance the BRAIN Initiative. The Allen Institute for Brain Science, for example, will spend at least $60 million annually to support projects related to this initiative. The Kavli Foundation plans to support BRAIN Initiative-related activities with approximately $4 million dollars per year over the next ten years. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies will also dedicate research funding for projects that support the BRAIN Initiative.
It means that the chances that the program I want to get into will still have funding by the time I apply are pretty high.
Nice!
Yeah, that's pretty sweet.
I keep thinking how I can apply SCIENCE! to my own work more substantially, and I think the brain is the way.
The mind-body thing is interesting, but I somehow doubt that the mind is capable of floating through the body like so much hysterical uterus. Even the placebo effects that are the result of massage and bodywork have to come from the brain. There has to be some kind of connection there we don't even begin to understand. For one thing the skin and connective tissue are a part of the same part of a developing human as the brain in the very early stages. There's something going on there.
It would be badass if this initiative would help me get closer to understanding that somehow.
Well, what I want to do is research how the brain works, and then explain it to laypeople in a way that is useful for them. So, with any luck, in a few years I can help you out with that.
Awesome! Brain science falls squarely in the category of sciences that I try to keep up with, but have no real edumacations in.
Quote from: Cainad on April 30, 2013, 07:26:37 PM
Awesome! Brain science falls squarely in the category of sciences that I try to keep up with, but have no real edumacations in.
:lol: I don't either. It turns out they don't let you start doing brain science until after you've done a whole lot of other stuff. Wish me luck!
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on April 30, 2013, 07:29:02 PM
Quote from: Cainad on April 30, 2013, 07:26:37 PM
Awesome! Brain science falls squarely in the category of sciences that I try to keep up with, but have no real edumacations in.
:lol: I don't either. It turns out they don't let you start doing brain science until after you've done a whole lot of other stuff. Wish me luck!
"If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't."
- Lyall Watson
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 30, 2013, 07:30:57 PM
Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on April 30, 2013, 07:29:02 PM
Quote from: Cainad on April 30, 2013, 07:26:37 PM
Awesome! Brain science falls squarely in the category of sciences that I try to keep up with, but have no real edumacations in.
:lol: I don't either. It turns out they don't let you start doing brain science until after you've done a whole lot of other stuff. Wish me luck!
"If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't."
- Lyall Watson
That's why it's the most exciting science! It actually has this component of holy shit, researching ourselves is MAKING US SMARTER. It's very meta.