Australian Brain Alliance

Neuron, 2019

Neuron, 2013

The “Human Brain Project” (HBP) is a large-scale European neuroscience and information communication technology (ICT) project that has been a matter of heated controversy since its inception. With its aim to simulate the entire human brain with the help of supercomputing technologies, the HBP plans to fundamentally change neuroscientific research practice, medical diagnosis, and eventually the use of computers itself. Its controversial nature and its potential impacts render the HBP a subject of crucial importance for critical studies of science and society. In this paper, we provide a critical exploratory analysis of the potential mid- to long-term impacts the HBP and its ICT infrastructure could be expected to have, provided its agenda will indeed be implemented and executed to a substantive degree. We analyse how the HBP aspires to change current neuroscientific practice, what impact its novel infrastructures could have on research culture, medical practice and the use of ICT, and how, given a certain degree of successful execution of the project’s aims, potential clinical and methodological applications could even transform society beyond scientific practice. Furthermore, we sketch the possibility that research such as that projected by the HBP may eventually transform our everyday world, even beyond the scope of the HBP’s explicit agenda, and beyond the isolated ‘application’ of some novel technological device. Finally, we point towards trajectories for further philosophical, historical and sociological research on the HBP that our exploratory analysis might help to inspire. Our analysis will yield important insights regardless of the actual success of the HBP. What we drive at, for the most part, is the broader dynamics of scientific and technological development of which the HBP agenda is merely one particularly striking exemplification.

Medicine Studies, 2009

The neurosciences seem to thrive on the constantly postponed promise to herald a definitive understanding of the human mind. What are the dynamics of this promise and its postponement? The long and fascinating history of the neurosciences offers ample material for looking into the articulation of neuroscientific research and contemporary culture. New tools and research methods, often announced as breakthroughs, brought along new representations of brain activity. In addition, they shaped the way of conceptualizing the brain's mode of operation even where they failed to meet the high expectations initially kindled. Rather than arriving at a definitive and final understanding of human nature by solving the riddle of the human brain, the neurosciences appear to operate as active interfaces mobilizing human societies to ever new research endeavors.

Poiesis & Praxis, 2006

The articles gathered in this focus section are based on presentations which their authors contributed to an international expert workshop held in Brussels on April 7th/8th, 2005. This workshop was part of an interdisciplinary research project on ''Intervening in the Psyche. Novel Possibilities as Social Challenges'' that is currently run by the Europa¨ische Akademie GmbH. As its title suggests, the project deals with new techniques of intervening in the human psyche whose development has been facilitated and accelerated by the wealth of insights into the brain's functioning that neuroscience has gained during the last few decades. The project aims to review these scientific and technological advances, indicate future developments, and discuss ethical and legal concerns raised in the public debate on these innovations. To achieve this, medical experts who have got firsthand experience of applying the techniques at issue teamed up with philosophers and law experts for a total period of 2.5 years. 1 On occasion of the aforesaid workshop in Brussels, the members of this project group [which happens to be chaired by one of us (R.M.) and coordinated by the other (T.G.)] invited the authors of the following papers to discuss the whole range of the issues covered by their project. 1 The results of this collaboration presumably will get published by the end of this year as volume no. 29 of the Europa¨ische Akademie's book series Wissenschaftsethik und Technikfolgenbeurteilung.

National or intra-national research programs (like FP7 or H2020, in EU zone) foster and reinforce specific ways to do research, selecting the best proposals to implement next researches thanks the provided funds. Very frequently, these programs are based on beliefs about the reliability and best chances of becoming successful researches. We analyse how EU flagship Human Brain Project (henceforth, HBP) was overestimated as a successful innovative project and, on the other side, how other innovative ways to work on neuroscientific research (fMRI, statistical data analysis) have led the discipline to important dead-end epistemological results. Other flaws into new methodological implementations offer an insight to the complexity of research field advances. The keys of the guidance and orientation in scientific innovation are, thus, revised under the light of these phenomena.

BioSocieties, 2015

Journal of Responsible Innovation

Dialogue between diverse publics and scientists is essential to ensuring that fast-moving research such as neuroscience delivers knowledge and technologies that meet society's needs, and align with its values. In Australia, neuroscience engagement programs typically promote brain research to the publics, rather than seek their input. We argue for a shift to Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)-type engagement, where scientists share their knowledge, and non-scientists share their attitudes, needs, insights and expectations, starting early in the technologydevelopment pathway. This would allow the developmental pathway to be modified to meet society's needs and mores. We have developed a prototype RRI engagement program for neuroscience, adapted to local Australian conditions, called The Brain Dialogue. Our preliminary results suggest it is possible to alter developmental pathways. Here, we describe its components: knowledge sharing; structured issues-driven activities that include diverse stakeholders; and social research and policy development responding directly to end-user needs. To help others set up similar programs, and the development of the RRI field, we offer a detailed, warts-and-all analysis of The Brain Dialogue's Strengths and Weaknesses, and the Opportunities and Threats it faces.

Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2015

The evolution of the field of neuroscience has been propelled by the advent of novel technological capabilities, and the pace at which these capabilities are being developed has accelerated dramatically in the past decade. Capitalizing on this momentum, the United States launched the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative to develop and apply new tools and technologies for revolutionizing our understanding of the brain. In this article, we review the scientific vision for this initiative set forth by the National Institutes of Health and discuss its implications for the future of neuroscience research. Particular emphasis is given to its potential impact on the mapping and study of neural circuits, and how this knowledge will transform our understanding of the complexity of the human brain and its diverse array of behaviours, perceptions, thoughts and emotions.

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2018

The BRAIN Initiative® arose from a grand challenge to "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." The BRAIN Initiative is a public-private effort focused on the development and use of powerful tools for acquiring fundamental insights about how information processing occurs in the central nervous system. As the Initiative enters its fifth year, NIH has supported over 500 principal investigators, who have answered the Initiative's challenge via hundreds of publications describing novel tools, methods, and discoveries that address the Initiative's seven scientific priorities. We describe scientific advances produced by individual labs, multi-investigator teams, and entire consortia that, over the coming decades, will produce more comprehensive and dynamic maps of the brain, deepen ...