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Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain

nytimes.com

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Re: Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain

#31

Post by bnewbold »

abecedarius wrote: post #23

On the claimed $800 billion dollar return on the human genome project: 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-... "The function of neural circuits is an emergent property that arises f…

At columbia.edu via scholar.google.com:

http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac%3A147969 http://academiccommons.columbia.edu/download/fedora_content/...

Re: Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain

#32

Post by tgflynn »

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.

Re: Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain

#33

Post by PeterisP »

keypusher wrote: post #15

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.…

From what I see in the EU project, while it's stated goal is to simulate an "e-brain", still a big portion of the money and manpower of it is going to (a) the mapping of biological brains that seems to overlap with this proposal, and (b) biochemistry and neurotransmitter basic research.

I mean, a mandatory prerequisite in any serious 'brain project' is some progress in almost all of the related fields, and in a sufficiently big project you try to get some leading scientists from all these areas under your umbrella.

Re: Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain

#34

Post by ihnorton »

jpwagner wrote: post #30
ihnorton wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct or not, cantastoria's criticism is that giving money to charlatans takes that money away from basic research. I don't understand who the supposed charlatans are. The basic scientists lauded by cantastoria for doing existing research are almost certainly going to get the lion's share of this new money. outline why "mapping the brain" is possible and a good use of resources. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science…

...are almost certainly going to get the lion's share of this new money. Not sure why you think that. Here's the pdf for your link (I can only guess that you find this paper convincing): http://bit.ly/Y2AXtz

  Not sure why you think that.
Because that's how grant peer-review works? Who will compose the review panels for this funding? Mostly the same people who already compose the review panels for existing NIH/NINDS/etc. funding mechanisms.

  I can only guess that you find this paper convincing.
The nanoprobe and "complex emergent properties" stuff at the beginning are a bit hand-wavy, but the concrete 5 and 10-year goals are sufficiently ambitious while certainly not outlandish.

Re: Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain

#35

Post by fluidcruft »

cantastoria wrote: post #26
keypusher wrote: post #15

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.…

Agreed about the horrible tools. Unfortunately, this is an extremely difficult market to break into. Most academics want free and open source tools and don't care how many research assistants or post-docs they have to torture to use them. Compounding the problem is that the market is so small any commercial product is going to have to be very expensive (>$1000.00) to make it worth while re: development and support co…

BrainVoyager's approaches are from the ice age and not flexible enough to handle modern protocols. Only a moron could defend using it for research. It's tranlational at best (a toy you give those clinicians that can't even figure out SPM). But it does make pretty pictures.

Re: Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain

#36

Post by Rocky_Outcrop »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #12

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.

National security wood be improved by a thorough mapping of the 'lizard brain' http://www.lookfordiagnosis.com/videos.php?title=What+is+the...

Re: Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain

#37

Post by phren0logy »

fluidcruft wrote: post #35
cantastoria wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed about the horrible tools. Unfortunately, this is an extremely difficult market to break into. Most academics want free and open source tools and don't care how many research assistants or post-docs they have to torture to use them. Compounding the problem is that the market is so small any commercial product is going to have to be very expensive (>$1000.00) to make it worth while re: development and support co…

BrainVoyager's approaches are from the ice age and not flexible enough to handle modern protocols. Only a moron could defend using it for research. It's tranlational at best (a toy you give those clinicians that can't even figure out SPM). But it does make pretty pictures.

I'm a clinician and it admittedly took me ages to figure out SPM. I still hate it, and think it is terrible to work with but useful. The state of the software is actively hampering contributions from clinicians. The problem is, as you have pointed out, that if BrainVoyager is the alternative, that's no alternative at all.

Re: Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain

#39

Post by omnisci »

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.

Re: Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain

#40

Post by simonster »

cantastoria wrote: post #26
keypusher wrote: post #15

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.…

Agreed about the horrible tools. Unfortunately, this is an extremely difficult market to break into. Most academics want free and open source tools and don't care how many research assistants or post-docs they have to torture to use them. Compounding the problem is that the market is so small any commercial product is going to have to be very expensive (>$1000.00) to make it worth while re: development and support co…

Closed-source tools are also problematic for research purposes, since at some point in your career you will almost certainly want to run an analysis that they can't perform.
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