US President Barack Obama is to announce his $100 million initiative to map the human brain today, the New York Times reports. A senior administration scientist likens the initiative, called the Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies or BRAIN, to the Human Genome Project.
The AP notes that Obama mentioned the project in his State of the Union address to Congress in February. "Every dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 to our economy. Every dollar," Obama said then. "Today, our scientists are mapping the human brain to unlock the answers to Alzheimer's."
The project, the Times adds, will involve a number of agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. A so-called "dream team" of researchers led by Rockefeller University's Cori Bargmann and William Newsome from Stanford University will be developing a specific plan and goals for the project.