Obama "Massive inituative on brain rsearch" - let's add our ideas to the mix..

U.S. President Obama has now called for a massive inituative on brain research, comparing it in importance and scope to the mapping of the genome. Sounds like he wants to buddy up to the science community and really give them a big win. To fund, and put the full power of the administration, behind brain research.

He's only proposing 100 million dollars, which to me sounds like a drop in the bucket. He's not being serious if that's all he wants to spend for this project. Give it a billion and maybe you'll get something. So......

OK, here's the game for ATS users. If the money in unlimited, and the focus and power of America's - and probably the world's - best minds work on their best ideas, can we think of something they haven't yet? If brain researchers have unlimited money, what do you want to see them accomplish? What new ideas and direction can you give them?

I'll post my ideas, if any, later. Just had the "mental or imaginative impulse" to post this as an open-ended question. Thanks.

For background, here's the article in the Washington Post on his new plan:

www.washingtonpost.com...

The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative represents one of Obama’s most ambitious efforts to do so.

Obama cited the computer chip and the Internet as projects that began with government help, and he cited Alzheimer's disease, autism and post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by American troops as afflictions that could be better understood, if not cured, through this initiative.

“As humans we can identify galaxies light years away, we can study particles smaller than an atom, but we still haven’t unlocked the mysteries of the three pounds of matter that sits between our ears,” Obama said.

IMO any money funneled to neuro research is a good thing, be it 1M or 1B. Of all the organs in the human body, I believe the brain will impossible to transplant, ever, period.

These neuro diseases, once taken hold, work fast and hard. There's little, if anything, that can be done at the moment to reverse the process, at best we can slow it a little with medication and/or various physical therapies, but other than that, we are pretty much up against a wall.

There's a double whammy here too, money invested in this field benefits health, science AND technology in equal measure, so yeah, its a good thing for sure.

Nobody? OK, I'll free associate. If the brain has so many billion neuron and synopses connected and firing off every moment, for humans to track where those originate seems like a good place to zoom in on. My "teacher" in some matters says that the signal comes in over the top of the head, and that it's felt as a crown above the head if you can get a hold on it (which is where all the crown symbolism comes in - crown charka, royalty wearing crowns, Jesus covered with a crown of thorns as a funny joke by the Roman soldiers mocking his teachings and his place in some small segments of Jewish society - the "thing" that runs us probably comes from somewhere in, or at least connects to, a part of the brain. Then it has a picture of it all. Although some research indicates the brain's abilities are holographic, yet the thing that is us "looking" at what we are doing, the consciousness, has to be created by the chemicals flowing within the brain. So what Obama wants to help do is assist the people mapping this out. So once they get an overall "map" they can see the patterns of the chemical signals, and if a portion of them create a pattern which can show where it all starts from. Probably a planck length (if that) touchstone-point which then reads out the entire thing and sets it in motion every "moment" (literally a "momen", an unmeasurable point in time).

And then make a machine that can play at those levels, and hang out with our minds, over a beer and a good conversation.

reply to post by fuserleer

What new aspects of medical research can you imagine being implemented or looked for? What would you do if you were a genie and genie-driving the focus of the research.

This knowledge about chakras could be very useful for the public if humanity was ready for it. I am very unsure that I want any politicians to know to much. They have not even implemented a social structure that do not parasite on other people and nature so that there is some kind of Mutualistic symbiosis.

But maybe there will be a great change once they figure out that chakras are real. It all depends on if they use the knowledge to become more controlling/fascist like or finally become wise instead. Imagine the potential if we could harness the power of placebo effect and synchronicity.

Metabolic issues cause most of the disturbances in the brain. Studying the interaction of food and additives on perception would be better. Identifying any metabolic deficiencies that occur because of genomics would be the first place to start. I would say this research would also help lower healthcare costs a lot also.

Never happen though, if they figured how to stop disease from happening there would be a lot of people out of work. We need to start making products we use here in America for that to work. Big business would not like that, we wouldn't be dependent on their imports anymore as a society.

With the ATS outage giving me time to think about it - I would say that Obama and other world leaders interested in this project should put hundreds of more millions in to map the brains of dolphins, all the other great apes, and a few other animals. With a database of several species, the value in comparing human brain dynamics and wiring with, say, how a dolphin and a bonobo's brain operate given the same parameters, should be a goal.

So, in short, put in another 100 mill to map a dolphin brain, another 100 mill to map a gorilla's brain, etc., at the same time that the human brain is being studied and mapped, and then they'd have something to write home about.