nsf.gov - National Science Foundation - Exploring the unknown frontier of the brain .- Explorando la frontera desconocida del cerebro

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., hemos recibido información de la Fundación Nacional de Ciencias de Los Estados Unidos, sobre la exploración de una desconocida frontera del Cerebro Humano  a cargo del Dr. James L. Olds, jefe de la Dirección de la NSF de Ciencias Biológicas y el profesor de la Universidad Shelley Krasnow de Neurociencia Molecular en la Universidad George Mason describe por qué y cómo los investigadores financiados por la NSF están trabajando para entender el cerebro sano.

James L. Olds, head of NSF's Directorate for Biological Sciences and the Shelley Krasnow University Professor of Molecular Neuroscience at George Mason University describes why and how NSF-funded researchers are working to understand the healthy brain

 

See a slide show about brain research and its benefits. Credit and Larger Version

April 2, 2015

To a large degree, your brain is what makes you... you. It controls your thinking, problem solving and voluntary behaviors. At the same time, your brain helps regulate critical aspects of your physiology, such as your heart rate and breathing.

And yet your brain--a nonstop multitasking marvel--runs on only about 20 watts of energy, the same wattage as an energy-saving light bulb.

Still, for the most part, the brain remains an unknown frontier. Neuroscientists don't yet fully understand how information is processed by the brain of a worm that has several hundred neurons, let alone by the brain of a human that has 80 billion to 100 billion neurons. The chain of events in the brain that generates a thought, behavior or physiological response remains mysterious.

Why the big mystery? The brain is the most complex known biological structure in the universe. When researchers do figure out how it works, they will accomplish perhaps the greatest scientific achievement in recorded human history.

 

The search for a theory

 

Neuroscientists all over the world are working to develop an overarching theory of how a healthy brain works. Similar to the way the Big Bang theory offers one possible explanation for the cosmos and helps guide research on the origins of the universe, a theory of healthy brain function would offer a possible explanation of how the brain and the entire nervous system work and would help guide neuroscience research.

A theory of healthy brain function may also help to explain how injuries and diseases disrupt brain function and thereby help researchers identify new directions for research on traumatic brain injuries and brain diseases.

More knowledge about healthy brain function may also help inspire the development of smart technologies that mimic some of the human brain's unparalleled capabilities. If supercomputers--which can each annually consume millions of dollars' worth of electricity as well as huge amounts of cooling water--could match the brain's energy efficiency and processing power, their massive energy consumption would plummet, and science and innovation would leap forward.

Neuroscientists have made some progress toward understanding the brain. They have identified brain regions that regulate particular functions, including speech and motor function, and they can recognize structural and functional changes that occur in the brain throughout an animal's life span.

More recently, neuroscientists have developed game-changing tools for visualizing and analyzing parts of the brain in unprecedented detail. These tools provide the first detailed glimpses of the brain and are thrusting neuroscience forward, much as the first powerful telescopes provided the deep glimpses into the universe and thrust astronomy forward many years ago.

 

BRAIN Power

 

Building on these and other recent innovations, President Barack Obama launched the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative (BRAIN Initiative) in April 2013. Federally funded in 2015 at $200 million, the initiative is a public-private research effort to revolutionize researchers' understanding of the brain.

A co-leader of the initiative, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is working to reveal how a healthy brain works. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology, bionic limbs and laser eye surgery were all grounded in early NSF-funded fundamental research, and fundamental research on the healthy brain may lead to equally profound advances.

NSF will spend about $48.48 million on awards in 2015 supporting the BRAIN Initiative, part of approximately $106.44 million in awards we will provide for all "Understanding the Brain" research across a range of neuroscience and cognitive science topics. With that support, our research teams are tackling the mysteries of the brain from varied angles.

For example, NSF is funding collaborations among:

• Computer scientists, cyberinfrastructure experts and biologists to create a cyberinfrastructure to store and manage the huge volumes of data--"Big Data”--generated by brain studies. (For some perspective, consider that if nanoscale images of one human brain were stored in a stack of 1 terabyte hard drives, the stack would reach to the moon, or beyond!)
  
• Engineers, materials experts and physicists to develop new materials needed to invent new probes for monitoring and manipulating the brain.
  
• Physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists to build models that can help reveal and predict the complex neural activities that drive thoughts and behavior.
  
• Social and behavioral scientists and physicists to improve the resolution of functional magnetic resonance imaging of the brain to help explain how social and physical environments alter the brain.
  
• Biologists, physicists, chemists and engineers to study the nervous systems of many species, from simple organisms to complex vertebrates.

In addition, NSF awarded $10.8 million in Early Concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGERs) to 36 teams--most of which are collaborative and multidisciplinary in nature--to support the development of new technologies that will help answer a critical question: How do circuits of neurons generate behaviors and enable learning and perception?

An EAGER team from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine is improving a new kind of microscope to simultaneously view individual neurons firing in two or more different regions of a brain at the same time. This microscope will enable researchers to see in detail, for the first time, how different areas of the brain team up to process information.

Taking an entirely different tack, researchers at the new $25 million NSF-funded Center for Brains, Minds & Machines at MIT are investigating human intelligence and the potential for creating intelligent machines. As researchers learn how to build those machines, they will likely also advance humanity's understanding of human intelligence.

 

Big innovations from basic research

 

If history is any guide, these and other fundamental brain-research projects will have important applications. For example, researchers around the world are currently studying diseases such as post-traumatic stress disorder, Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia with a powerful new tool called optogenetics.

Optogenetics, which was developed with partial funding from NSF, enables researchers to selectively turn on and off individual neurons in living animals by exposing them to light. The development of optogenetics was made possible, in part, by earlier NSF-funded research on light sensitivity in algae that was conducted purely out of curiosity about the survival strategies of algae and without any knowledge that it would eventually be pivotal to the seemingly far-flung field of brain research. (Optogenetics is explained in a short video, Biodiversity: A Boon for brain research.)

Viewers of the 2014 World Cup saw another important application of fundamental brain research: The first kick of the games was performed by a person with paraplegia wearing an exoskeleton. The development of this exoskeleton built upon NSF-funded research on how neurons are involved in motor learning--research that began nearly twenty years ago.

Across government and across the nation, hopes are high that additional, fundamental neuroscience research will lay the groundwork for continued advances that will help society take additional strides forward.

--	James L. Olds, National Science Foundation
--	Lily Whiteman, (703) 292-8070 lwhitema@nsf.gov

The National Science Foundation (NSF)

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

ayabaca@yahoo.com

Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

nsf.gov - National Science Foundation - From dino brains to thought control--10 fascinating brain findings

Summaries of 10 findings about the brain that involve NSF-funded researchers

Wrinkles increase the surface available for neurons. Credit and Larger Version

February 11, 2014

The human brain is the most complex and least understood biological structure in the known universe.

To advance brain science, President Obama in April 2012 announced the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, which is co-led by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Even before BRAIN, NSF invested in fundamental brain research that produced amazing discoveries related to humans and animals. Here are 10 recent findings from NSF-funded brain research, running the gamut from insights about the brains of dinosaurs and octopuses to discoveries involving Alzheimer's, brain-controlled machines and more.

 

1. Surprise! Some types of wrinkles are good

 

Our human brain is relatively large for our body size and more wrinkled than the brains of other animals. Brain size and wrinkle numbers correlate with intelligence across species.

The outer layer of the human brain is covered by wrinkles, and the more of them the better. Why? Because these wrinkles increase the surface area available for neurons (the functional units of information processing) without increasing head size--good for women during childbirth. Human brain wrinkles are thought to be almost as hereditary as human height.

 

Elizabeth Atkinson of Washington University in St. Louis recently identified chromosome segments and genes that correlate with wrinkle numbers in about 1,000 baboons, which are genetically similar to humans. The next step: Pinpointing exactly where in these genetic regions folding patterns originate, which would provide insights into the evolution of the human brain.

 

2. Dinosaurs: Not big and dumb, after all--just big?

 

A new map of a generalized dinosaur brain suggests the possible existence of a cerebrum, a brain part that controls complex cognitive behaviors in mammals. Although scientists don't know what functions dinosaur cerebrums may have controlled, their existence would suggest that dinosaurs may have performed more complex behaviors than previously believed--such as forming social groups and possibly communicating.

The map is based on inferences from the genetics and organization of crocodile and bird brains. Crocodiles pre-date many dinosaurs and are their closest living relatives, while birds post-date dinosaurs.

Because crocodiles, dinosaurs and birds form an evolutionary chain, scientists believe that these animals' brain structures shared important traits, and so key features of dinosaur brains may be deduced from crocodile and bird brains.

The brain map is also based on fossilized dinosaur skull cavities, which yield implications about the shape of dinosaur brains. Such evidence provides the best clues to the dinosaur brain in the absence of any known fossilized brain tissue from dinosaurs. The dinosaur brain map was created by a team led by Erich Jarvis of Duke University.

 

3. A possible explanation for Einstein's intelligence

 

Studies of Einstein's brain conducted in the 1980s revealed that Einstein had an unusually large number of brain cells, called glia, in his cerebral cortex, and that one type of his glia was unusually large and complexly shaped. Though lacking statistical significance, these studies helped generate interest in glia.

Glia had long been dismissed as connective tissue that doesn't contribute to learning and memory, as do neurons. This idea had become entrenched because glia don't generate electrical signals--considered to be the core of brain function--as do neurons.

Harder evidence of the glia's influence on intelligence includes a 2013 study involving the injection of human glia into the brains of newborn mice. As adults, the injected mice became faster learners than control subjects.

Also, two recent papers promoted a new consensus among leading brain scientists about the importance of glia--which may even aid learning. How? Brain imaging indicates that when people learn new skills, from juggling to playing computer games, the structure of specific brain regions changes. These changes may be due to the glia's formation of myelin, a fatty insulating substance, around axons (nerve fibers), which speeds the transmission of electrical signals from axons.

 

4. In mind-computer melds, brains still important

 

A brain-computer connection is a partnership: A human brain tells a machine what to do and the machine responds accordingly.

When this type of partnership works, a brain and machine may accomplish amazing things together. For example, in experiments, students flew model helicopters using their thoughts via special head caps equipped with sensors that decoded their brain activity. In similar setups, people with physical disabilities used a robotic arm to grab cups of coffee.

But humans often struggle to control their mechanical partners, partly because it takes significant time to learn how to do so. One way to reduce this training time may be to improve mind/body awareness--as indicated by a recent study led by Bin He, director of the Center for Neuroengineering at the University of Minnesota. His results showed that that training in mind/body awareness through practices such as yoga or meditation enabled people to master a brain-computer interface almost five times faster than untrained people did.

Even as brain-computer connections are made more user-friendly, He's results underscore the continuing importance of the human element for these systems.

 

5. Scientists may be able to predict when you'll be primed for risky business

 

Recent advances in brain imaging technology may allow researchers to predict whether someone will make a safe or a risky financial decision based on certain types of brain activity prior to deciding.

According to Brian Knutson and Charlene C. Wu of Stanford University, people who expect to win big show increased activity in certain brain regions, including the nucleus accumbens, which is associated with reward and pleasure, whereas those who expect to lose show increased activity in the anterior insula, which is linked to anxiety and disgust.

The more money at stake, the more activity is seen in those regions. But while more activity in the nucleus accumbens encouraged risk-taking, more activity in the anterior insula reduced risk taking.

These findings imply that when people are more excited, they will take bigger risks. In fact, long-shot wins (like potential lottery wins) powerfully increased both excitement and nucleus accumbens activity, encouraging people to take risks, even as they strayed from the choices of a "rational" person.

Studying people's brains while they consider their risk-taking options reveals insights about why people make certain financial decisions. These findings have implications for individual patterns of risk-taking--such as saving for a 401K--as well as for basic theories that describe group behavior.

 

6. Cell-based therapy may ultimately help beat back brain cancers

 

Brain tumors are the second-leading cause of U.S. cancer-related deaths, with 70,000 diagnoses of this invariably deadly disease made annually.

Now, Stefan Bossmann and Deryl Troyer of Kansas State University are working to improve a type of promising cell therapy that has yet to be used successfully. The researchers' therapy would work by collecting a cancer patient's blood; refurbishing selected white blood cells with "cargo holds" or closed cavities that would be filled with anticancer drugs; and then re-injecting the patient's blood to deliver drugs directly to tumors.

Previous efforts to develop this type of cell therapy produced weak, leaky medicinal cavities that killed carrier cells, not tumors. But the researchers are improving these cavities by developing a new type of material for them that forms something akin to a self-assembling artificial bubble--designed to be selectively absorbed by the right type of white blood cells, remain strong enough to hold medicine and naturally self-destruct upon reaching tumors.

Cell therapy delivers significantly more anticancer drugs to tumors than does conventional chemotherapy and nanotherapy, without damaging the body's immune system.

With preliminary experiments in mice competed, the therapy will soon be used to specifically target mice tumors for the first time, with the hope that this therapy will ultimately be able to be successfully used on human brain tumors.

 

7. The octopus: The eyes have it--literally

 

The octopus is a successful predator, partly because it has excellent eyesight--the best of any invertebrate--which enables it to visually zero in and focus on its prey.

What's more, each of the octopus's eight agile, boneless arms is equipped with about 44 million nerve cells (almost 10 percent of all of its neurons). These arm neurons are connected to the animal's brain.

When an octopus spots a tasty-looking fish, resulting visual information travels from the animal's eye to its brain. This information then travels through its arm neurons to help these soft-bodied contortionists determine how to snatch the meal.

Conversely, tactile information, such as the feel of a crab's rough shell, travels back through the octopus's arm to its brain's learning and memory centers to help these clever animals improve their hunting skills.

A team led by Clifton Ragsdale of the University of Chicago is the first to use modern molecular techniques to study how the octopus's unique nervous system processes visual information, and if the octopus's processing system significantly differs from that of vertebrates. If such differences are found, they may reveal alternative ways for brains to process visual information and learn. Resulting insights may yield important applications for robotics and image detection devices.

 

8. Birds' responses to climate change: It's all in their heads

 

Different bird species use different cues to determine when to migrate and to reproduce. Whether any particular species will be able to adjust its timing of such activities fast enough to keep up with climate change may partly depend on which cues it uses.

To varying degrees, all bird species use day length as a cue. They measure day light and anticipate seasonal changes via light-activated receptors located deep in their brains. The light penetrates their skulls without even necessarily passing through their eyes.

Because day length is unaffected by climate change, some long-distance migrators, such as the pied-flycatcher, whose main migratory cue is day length, have maintained fairly consistent arrival times at their spring breeding grounds. Yet, spring temperatures now tend to increase earlier in the year because of climate change. So such migrators now tend to arrive at their breeding grounds late relative to premature springs--and, therefore, now miss insect population peaks upon which they previously feasted. With less to eat, such migrators are now producing fewer chicks, which may cause population declines.

Some bird species augment day length cues for migrating and/or breeding with other cues, like temperature changes, which are probably also processed in their brains. Changes in the timing of the migratory activities of some temperature-sensitive bird species correlate with climate change-related temperature changes.

But most studies of the processing of day length by birds have addressed only males. Now Nicole Perfito of the University of California, Berkeley is studying how females of two bird species process day length and other cues that influence the timing of egg laying--an important factor in their potential responses to climate change.

 

9. Still wanted: A complete parts list of the human brain

 

The human brain has about 100 billion neurons. But scientists don't yet have a complete inventory of the many types of brain cells that exist and their functions. They also don't understand how electrical and chemical signals from neurons produce thoughts, behaviors and actions.

Without such knowledge, scientists cannot yet explain how traumatic injuries and neurodegenerative diseases impair brain function or should be treated. By comparison, imagine a mechanic trying to fix a car engine without a complete parts list and/or an understanding of how its engine runs!

Yet, new types of brain cells are often being identified, partly because of new brain imaging techniques that can zoom in on the brain to reveal increasing detail, just as Google Maps can zoom in on neighborhoods.

But without a universal classification system, cell types that have already been discovered may have been named and classified according to inconsistent criteria, such as shape, function or location. Therefore, some newly "discovered" cell types may really be rediscovered, renamed cell types.

To standardize the naming of neurons and create a universally accepted inventory of neuron types, Edward Boyden of MIT and others are working with the Allen Institute for Brain Science to create the first comprehensive database of types of brain cells.

 

10. Designer antibodies may ultimately help fight Alzheimer's

 

Antibodies, which are proteins traditionally made by the body's immune system in response to invaders, are already established allies in our fight against the flu virus and other harmful entities. Now, they are being engineered to treat and possibly protect us against disease-linked proteins, such as those associated with Alzheimer's disease.

Such engineering requires designing antibodies that have extreme targeting capabilities so that they can be directed to go where and do exactly what is needed. Antibodies used for therapeutic or experimental reasons are usually taken from immunized animals or enormous antibody libraries. So it's difficult to custom-order them.

Peter Tessier of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., is working to engineer antibodies that have precise properties. By placing DNA sequences of the target protein within antibodies, Tessier may design antibodies to bind to select proteins, such as beta-amyloid plaques, a protein linked with Alzheimer's. Further research may lead to the development of antibodies that recognize and remove toxic particles before they do harm.

Editor's Note: This Behind the Scenes article was first provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

--	Sarah Bates, National Science Foundation (703) 292-7738   sabates@nsf.gov
--	Lily Whiteman, National Science Foundation (703) 292-8070   lwhitema@nsf.gov

Investigators Bin He
Uri Eden
Earl Miller
Beth Stevens
Deryl Troyer
Erich Jarvis
Nancy Kopell
Brian Knutson
Claudio Mello
Edward Boyden
Peter Tessier
George Bentley
James Cheverud
Richard Fields
Stefan Bossmann
Clifton Ragsdale
Matti Hamalainen
Elizabeth Atkinson

Related Institutions/Organizations Duke University
Stanford University
University of Chicago
Kansas State University
Trustees of Boston University
Duke University Medical Center
Children's Hospital Corporation
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
University of California-Berkeley
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Washington University School of Medicine

Related Awards#0229351 Alan T. Waterman Award
#1021909 Octopus Neural Systems
#0748915 Anticipatory Affect and Financial Risk Taking
#1042134 Cognitive Rhythms Collaborative: A Discovery Network
#0920753 Neuroendocrine Mechanisms of Reproduction in Songbirds
#1242765 INSPIRE: Neutrophil Delivery of Apoptosis-Inducing Anticancer Drugs
#0933067 Neuroimaging of Motor Imagery for Brain Computer Interface Applications
#1159943 Design of conformation-specific antibodies against unfolded and misfolded proteins
#1258562 Glial Biology of Learning and Cognition, to be held in Arlington, Virginia, February, 2013
#0084357 Multiple Disciplinary Collaborative Research: Evolution of Brain Structures for Vocal Learning in Birds
#1260844 Doctoral Dissertation Improvement: The evolution and genetic basis of primate brain cortical gyrification in a pedigreed Papio population

A new map of a generalized dinosaur brain suggests the existence of a cerebrum.
Credit and Larger Version

Einstein had an unusually large number of a specialized type of brain cell known as glia.
Credit and Larger Version

In experiments, people were able to control a flying robot with their thoughts.
Credit and Larger Version

New studies could point the way to applications for robotics and image detection.
Credit and Larger Version

A pied-flycatcher.
Credit and Larger Version

A nerve cell in the human brain (a neuron).
Credit and Larger Version

the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

ayabaca@yahoo.com

Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

nsf.gov - Prying Open the Black Box of the Brain

BRAIN is designed to finally reveal how the brain records, process, uses, stores, and retrieves vast volumes of information, all at the speed of thought.
Credit: Thinkstock


President Obama greets BRAIN Inititive event attendees, including Cora Marrett, Acting NSF Director.
Credit and Larger Version

About 140 leading scientists from around the world attended NSF's BRAIN workshop.
Credit and Larger Version

NSF's BRAIN workshop followed a lively, interactive format.
Credit and Larger Version

View Video
Understanding the Brain with John Wingfield of NSF
Credit and Larger Version

View Video
Understanding the BRAIN with Fleming Crim of NSF and Tom Insel of NIH
Credit and Larger Version

The human brain is the most complex biological structure on Earth. It has about 100 billion neurons--each of which has thousands of connections to other neurons.

Moreover, brains change with time for a variety of reasons. For example, as we age, our brains lose nerve cells (neurons). In addition, the wiring of our brains is continually altered as we learn, socialize, undergo stress and encounter varied environmental conditions. That's right: Our brains are anatomically and physiologically changed by normal intellectual and physical experiences.

So each of us--continually subjected to new and different brain-changing experiences--has a unique brain. In fact, even the brains of identical twins differ from one another. What's more, brain injuries may trigger various types of changes in the anatomy and physiology of the brain to compensate for lost function and/or maximize remaining functions.

Largely because the brain is so complex and dynamic, it is still akin to a locked black box--three pounds of mystery lodged between our ears. Indeed, our understanding of the brain remains downright rudimentary compared to our understanding of other organs.

Desperately seeking a theory

Despite major technological advances in brain research during recent decades, scientists have yet to describe all of the various types of cells that comprise the brain and determine their functions. Complicating matters further, the brain is more than the sum of its parts. That is, the various components of the brain do not operate in isolation from one another; they must communicate with one another and work together to process information and produce memories, thoughts and behaviors.

But scientists still don't understand how information is processed in any organism, whether it be a lowly worm whose nervous system is comprised of only a few hundred neurons or a complex vertebrate. We simply do not know what happens in the brain when an organism thinks, maneuvers through the world, takes in sensory information or sleeps.

In other words, scientists lack a basic, overarching theory about healthy brain function that would explain how memories, thoughts and behaviors emerge from dynamic activities in the brain--any brain.

This theoretical vacuum has persisted even though molecular, cellular and neuronal activities in the brains of many species have been well studied, as has behavior in many species, including humans. Nevertheless, the relationships between these two types of phenomena and the sequence of events that translates one to the other remain mysterious.

By providing a framework for predicting how micro events in the brain produce behaviors, and vice-versa, a theory of healthy brain function would contribute as much to neuroscience as the theory of evolution contributes to the tree of life, the theory of plate tectonics contributes to geology and the theory of relativity contributes to cosmology.

But still unable to explain how a normal brain functions, scientists cannot yet explain how traumatic injuries and brain diseases, such as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, autism, and epilepsy impair function. Nor can they determine how brain injuries and diseases should be treated. By comparison, imagine a mechanic trying to fix a car's engine without a parts list and/or understanding how it runs!

It is even difficult for scientists to so much as agree on which neurological variables should be studied. Such disagreement, however, would probably be reduced by a viable theory of healthy brain function because it would likely reveal particularly promising areas of future research. It could do so by, for example, helping scientists identify important neuronal nodes that warrant more attention than do thickets of rank-and-file neurons.

The new BRAIN Initiative

Responding to the need for a comprehensive understanding of the brain, President Obama launched the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative on April 2, 2013. Led by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), BRAIN is a bold new research effort.

Extending beyond mere mapping of the brain, the BRAIN initiative is aimed at producing an array of tools that are needed to establish an integrated theory of how the healthy brain functions over an organism's life. This theory will provide a fundamental framework for interpreting new information on brain science and will change existing paradigms for explaining "who we are."

"When scientists do ultimately figure out how the brain works--however long it takes, this accomplishment will probably be considered the greatest scientific achievement in all of human history," said John Wingfield, NSF's Assistant Director for the Biological Sciences. 

NSF'S role in BRAIN

Brain processes are multidisciplinary phenomena, incorporating the principles of biology, chemistry, physics, engineering and mathematics. Therefore, efforts to understand these processes under BRAIN require multidisciplinary approaches. "The kinds of challenges we are facing in the study of neuroscience require contributions from a wide range of scientific and engineering disciplines," said Denise Caldwell, NSF's division director for Physics.

Needed basic research: Examples of the types of multidisciplinary advancements that are needed to advance BRAIN include:

• Basic studies conducted by biologists, in collaboration with physicists, chemists, mathematicians and engineers, on the healthy functioning of the nervous systems of many types of species, from those with simple nervous systems to complex vertebrates--not just on humans and organisms that have traditionally served as model organisms in brain studies. Such studies would be based on a species comparative approach.
• Theoretical and computational models created by physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists that will help reveal and predict complex neural activities in the healthy brain that drive thoughts and behavior.
• New materials developed by materials scientists and engineers that are needed to create innovative types of brain probes that can be used to monitor and manipulate the brain.
• Optical and electrical tools developed by physicists and engineers to better image the brain and brain activity.

NSF's key contributions: NSF is uniquely positioned to foster these and other types of needed innovations because the agency supports basic research across the scientific and engineering disciplines. What's more, NSF has already helped lay the groundwork for BRAIN by supporting many game-changing innovations in brain research, including the development of the following:

• Optogenetics: A bioengeering technique that enables scientists to selectively turn on and off particular neurons and neuronal circuits in living organisms so that resulting behavioral changes can be observed in real time.
  
  Optogenetics is currently being used to help identify the functions of neurons and neuronal circuits and to help identify appropriate targets for drugs or technologies that address brain dysfunction. (See an NSF article about the contributions of optogenetics to research on Parkinson's disease and an NSF article on its contributions to research on anxiety.)
  
  A crucial prerequisite to the development of optogenetics was a discovery that was produced by research on a seemingly unrelated topic: algae. Specifically, this research identified the presence and molecular structure of light-sensitive proteins in algae. Turned on by light, these proteins help algae find light that is needed by the algae to produce energy through photosynthesis.
  
  After the light-sensitive algae proteins were discovered, brain researchers found that they could impart the brain neurons and neuronal circuits of various species with light sensitivity by inserting into them the light-sensitive algae proteins. Once made light sensitive, the neurons and circuits could be turned on merely by shining a light on them, and turned off by other types of simple light manipulations.
  
  The basics of optogenetics were thus developed. This pivotal application of algae research to neuroscience underscores the importance to BRAIN of NSF-funded basic research--including basic research in seemingly far-flung disciplines.
• CLARITY: A new brain imaging technology, announced on April 10, 2013, that can be used to generate detailed, three-dimensional images of intact brains that highlight specific neuronal networks. These images can be produced without slicing the brain and disrupting its biochemistry, as previously required.

Potential applications of NSF-funded BRAIN research

By supporting additional multidisciplinary research under BRAIN, NSF will help produce a deep foundation of fundamental information of healthy brain function. This foundation will help reveal "how the car is designed, rather than just how it might be fixed." It may thereby open up entirely new avenues for NIH's research on brain diseases and DARPA's research on traumatic brain injuries.

This foundation may also offer applications to important issues that are unrelated to health. For example, this research may help explain differences in individual learning styles, reveal the origins of cultural mores, and provide insights into what makes people "tick" as individuals. It may also inspire the development of new "smart" technologies that mimic the information processing capabilities of the human brain.

NSF-funded BRAIN research may also help improve resource management. For example, this research may help scientists identify environmental conditions that promote the development of the nervous systems and metabolic systems of animals, such as fish and livestock. Resulting insights may help resource managers design aquaculture and livestock facilities to maximize the growth and productivity of their animals.

Brain studies may also help scientists figure out why many species of endangered vertebrates do not reproduce well in captivity--and explain why some species easily adapt to climate change, while other, closely related species cannot do so.

"We think that these [and other] phenomena are related to how an organism perceives its environment, which, in turn, is related to its brain function," said Wingfield. "Therefore, advancements in our basic understanding of the brain may have important implications for conservation and--by extension--our quality of life."

The kick-off of BRAIN: A meeting of the minds

NSF set the stage for producing such advancements by sponsoring the first BRAIN event: A workshop called, Physical and Mathematical Principles of Brain Structure and Function, which was held in Arlington, Va., on May 6 and 7, 2013.

The workshop drew 150 leading researchers from varied disciplines including physics, mathematics, and neurobiology. These researchers represented more than 60 institutions including NIH, DARPA, and other federal agencies; research institutions; academic journals; and the private sector.

Good timing: Physical and Mathematical Principles of Brain Structure and Function was fortuitously timed to tap into the sense of possibility generated by the coincidental release of CLARITY just weeks before the conference began, and by the recent development of optogenetics and various other new technologies for creating high-resolution images of brains with electron microscopes and for recording electrical impulses from brains.

"This conference was particularly timely because the community has realized that technologies for brain research have advanced to the point where we can now make a real leap in knowledge," said Caldwell.

Discussions about salient past and future multidisciplinary contributions to neuroscience also helped to generate an air of excitement, esprit de corps and sense of purpose at the workshop.

Developing research priorities: Various workshop activities, including presentations, break-out sessions and an invitation to participants to submit white papers, were designed to solicit input from participants on technical topics. These topics included important challenges in brain research, the types of computational approaches and tools that are most needed for advancing brain research, best practices for integrating data to produce knowledge, and methods for methods for incentivizing multidisciplinary brain research.

The workshop culminated with the development of consensus by participants on the following priorities for future neuroscience research:

• Identifying signatures in neural activity that can be used to predict complex behaviors. These signatures may be identified through studies involving large-scale recordings from representative sets of neurons in multiple species and through high-resolution studies of neuro-anatomy in many species.
• Developing theoretical and computational models that can be used to understand and analyze data produced by large-scale neural recordings.
• Promoting unprecedented levels of international sharing of data on brain research and education. Doing so will involve developing standardized cyber tools and standards for data collection, analysis and integration--tasks that require solving complex "Big Data" problems.

"This initial set of over-arching priorities will set the stage for future detailed quantitative research," said Caldwell. "Results from this future research will drive advances in theoretical understanding that will, over the coming years, bring scientists closer to achieving the ultimate goal of understanding how the brain works and using this understanding to benefit human health."

For more information: 

 To learn more about the goals of the workshop and potential follow-up activities, view the two video interviews with NSF and NIH executives that accompany this article. And to access various resources produced by the BRAIN workshop, including white papers, videos of conference presentations and the conference agenda, visit the workshop's website.

--	Lily Whiteman, National Science Foundation (703) 292-8310 lwhitema@nsf.gov
--	Abby Deift, National Science Foundation (703) 292-4934 adeift@nsf.gov

  The National Science Foundation (NSF)

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

 ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com
Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!