Will Obama’s New $100m Brain Mapping Project Be Open Access?

On Tuesday President Obama unveiled a new $100 million research initiative to map the human brain.

The BRAIN (Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) initiative will “accelerate the development and application of new technologies that will enable researchers to produce dynamic pictures of the brain that show how individual brain cells and complex neural circuits interact at the speed of thought”.

As well as trying to vastly improve scientific understanding of “the three pounds of matter that sits between our ears”, it is hoped that this research will enable new forms of prevention and treatment for conditions like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, autism and epilepsy.