The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced its first wave of investments totaling $46 million to support the goals of the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. President Obama launched the BRAIN Initiative in April 2013 as a new research effort to revolutionize our understanding of the human mind and uncover new ways to treat, prevent, and cure brain disorders. The initiative is a joint program with funding through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

This first wave of investments through NIH will fund more than 100 investigators so they can develop new tools and technologies to understand neural circuit function and capture a dynamic view of the brain in action. These new tools and this deeper understanding will ultimately catalyze new treatments and cures for devastating brain disorders and diseases that are estimated by the World Health Organization to affect more than one billion people worldwide.

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), are hosting a BRAIN workshop in December that will bring together brain researchers and computer scientists for a scientific dialogue aimed at exposing new opportunities. New partnerships between computer scientists and neuroscientists could help create breakthrough technologies as a part of the BRAIN Initiative.

For more information about the BRAIN Initiative, please click here.

For the original NIH press release describing the new awards, please click here.