In an effort to advance our understanding of the human brain, the Obama administration is planning a decade – long major undertaking for studying the human brain, according to a news published at New York Times. It is expected to be the equivalent of the Human genome Project done in genetics field, which paved the way for many advances in the field later and has considerably improved out understanding on the subject as a whole.

The project will be orgnized by Office of Science and Technology Policy, and will involve many US Federal Institutions such as DARPA, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Private Foundations and research organizations, companies like Microsoft and Google, not to mention a great number of scientists. One of the project’s outcome can also be improved therapies for Alzheimers, Parkinsons, Schizophrenia, Autism, but of course it has a great potential for contributing to our goal of building Artificial Intelligence.

The project will be presented at the budget proposal this month. According to Obama, every dollar which had spent on the Human Genome project had a return of $140. Human genome project, which had cost $3.8 billion, with the goal of mapping the entire Genome of a human, had been completed ahead of time in 2003 and over the years it had brought $800 billion to the economy, by facilitating so many developments and work. He cited the importance of investing in big ideas.

Human brain so far still remains as one of the biggest mysteries of Science, but it is also the most attractive field to invest as a research project nowadays as there is the imminent need of developing Artificial Intelligence for the fast approaching robotics revolution.

For more details, please see the NY Times article.

  brain reverse engineering, human brain, obama