Subcommittee Examines Critical Neuroscience Research Initiative
(Washington, DC) – Today, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology held a hearing titled, “The Frontiers of Human Brain Research” to learn about the challenges and potential of neuroscience research and to review of the Administration’s BRAIN initiative.
The BRAIN Initiative was announced in April as a “grand challenge” effort by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), as well as several private entities, to accelerate research on the brain, and in particular to accelerate the development of new tools and technologies to better map brain function. NIH, as well as DARPA-supported researchers were invited by the Majority to participate in the witness panel. NSF was not invited to testify. Witnesses and Democratic Members discussed the important brain research being conducted by all three agencies and the critical role of NSF in contributing to a foundation of basic research that enables NIH and DARPA to develop advances in diagnosis and treatment for brain disorders and injuries. They also discussed the importance of studying diverse animal models and of integrating social and behavioral scientists into the BRAIN Initiative in order to connect what’s happening at the molecular and cellular level with actual human behavior – a concept known as “integrating across the scales.”
Ranking Member Dan Lipinski (D-IL) said in his opening statement, “As we take a broad look at federal support for neuroscience research in general, and the BRAIN Initiative in particular, I believe that it is valuable for the Members of this Committee to hear from experts who can speak to the roles of all key agencies, including DARPA and NIH. However, the only BRAIN Initiative agency wholly within this Committee’s jurisdiction is the National Science Foundation. It is unfortunate that NSF was not invited to participate on today’s panel, but I am especially grateful to Dr. Robinson for being here to help us better understand NSF’s unique and important role in supporting neuroscience research. As the one agency that funds basic research in all fields of science and engineering, including the social and behavioral sciences, integrating across scales is one of the strengths that NSF brings to the BRAIN Initiative.”
In a statement submitted for the record, Full Committee Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) also addressed the importance of basic research conducted at universities around the country. “In my hometown of Dallas, the Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas at Dallas is doing important research on brain disorders and injuries and contributing to the Administration’s BRAIN Initiative. Before I entered public service, I was a psychiatric nurse at the VA Hospital in Dallas. This was at a time when many of our young men were returning from Vietnam seemingly whole on the outside, but suffering from acute and long-term mental health challenges that we only recently came to understand as post-traumatic stress disorder. Today, because of the life-saving measures that we have been able to implement in the field, thousands of young men and women have survived serious injuries in Afghanistan and Iraq and returned to their families. But many of them, and many more without visible scares, suffer terribly from traumatic brain disorder and PTSD.”
Minority witness Dr. Gene Robinson, Director of the Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois, remarked in his opening statement, “It is necessary to understand how healthy brains work in order to cure the many devastating brain disorders that afflict our society. We are fortunate that the diversity of animal life on the planet provides us with many potential models for aspects of human behavior, so long as we have the knowledge to recognize and take advantage of them. This approach of exploring and capitalizing on the resources provided by nature falls perfectly within the mission of NSF. NSF supports a wide scope of basic science on brain and behavior that provides the breadth of knowledge necessary for continued advancement of the field of neuroscience.”
Testifying before the Subcommittee were: Dr. Story Landis, Director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institute of Health; Mr. Michael McLoughlin, Deputy Business Area Executive for Research and Exploratory Development at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University; United States Air Force Master Sergeant Joseph Deslauriers Jr., who demonstrated to members the results of neuroscience research as a decorated combat amputee now able to control a prosthetic arm; Dr. Marcus Raichle, Professor of Radiology, Neurology, Neurobiology and Biomedical Engineering at Washington University; and Dr. Gene Robinson, Director of the Institutes for Genomic Biology and Swanlund Chair of Entomology and Neuroscience at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
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