As brainy gatherings go, it takes some beating. Neuroscientists are to agree on a global mission to understand the workings of the human brain and how to fix it when something goes wrong.
The lofty aim of the Coordinating Global Brain Projects meeting is to unify worldwide efforts to study the brain, in the same way that international collaborations have spurred on astronomy, physics and genetics.
鈥淣euroscience is coming of age, and it鈥檚 now ready for big science,鈥� says at Columbia University in New York, who organised today鈥檚 meeting with at Rockefeller University, also in New York. 鈥淭his is the first real meeting with all the players in the same room together,鈥� says Yuste.
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Among those invited are representatives from charities, private companies and national brain research initiatives. The Global Brain Initiative they want to develop will decide which projects and goals to prioritise, as well as how they should be funded.
鈥漌e hope to learn what all the active and planned brain projects are around the world,鈥� says Bargmann. 鈥淎nd we want all leaders of these projects to meet in person, so there鈥檚 a human connection for future collaboration,鈥� she says. Yuste hopes that the meeting will establish a standing committee made up of representatives from all the main players. <
Many big, long-term brain research projects have been established worldwide in recent years, including the $6 billion US BRAIN Initiative, and Europe鈥檚 鈧�1 billion Human Brain Project.
Different priorities
Other regions are now entering the fray, with China and Japan both launching major initiatives earlier this year that seek to understand the human brain by studying monkeys. 鈥淐hina is the big player that hasn鈥檛 yet put its cards on the table,鈥� says Yuste.
Reconciling these programmes鈥� priorities and methods may prove a challenge. There is vociferous opposition to research on primate research in several Western nations, where neuroscientists now tend to work with flies, worms, mice and fish instead. But in China and Japan, research is more focused on primates, our closest animal relatives.
China鈥檚 top priority is to discover the basis of human cognition, with new medical treatments and spin-off benefits for computing as secondary goals. The US BRAIN Initiative, by contrast, is focused firmly on providing better resources and tools for experiments, rather than dictating research priorities.
Whatever the differences, the imperative to come together is strong, says of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, who will wrap up the meeting later today. 鈥淲e need to unite behind a coordinated international brain project bringing together the world鈥檚 best and brightest scientists and engineers,鈥� he says.
