Google engineers are building tools and developing infrastructure to analyze petabytescale datasets generated by the BRAIN Initiative:

Google is working closely with the Allen Institute to develop scalable computational solutions to advance scientific understanding of the brain and with Janelia Research and several academic partners. Google is building the software tools and supporting infrastructure needed to analyze petabyte-scale datasets generated by the BRAIN Initiative to better understand the brain’s computational circuitry and the neural basis for human cognition.

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Background

The BRAIN Initiative Fact Sheet 9/30/14

Google engineers are building tools and developing infrastructure to analyze petabytescale datasets generated by the BRAIN Initiative:

Google is working closely with the Allen Institute to develop scalable computational solutions to advance scientific understanding of the brain and with Janelia Research and several academic partners. Google is building the software tools and supporting infrastructure needed to analyze the datasets generated by the BRAIN Initiative to better understand the brain’s computational circuitry and the neural basis for human cognition.

“Two hundred million years ago, our mammal ancestors developed a new brain feature: the neocortex. This stamp-sized piece of tissue (wrapped around a brain the size of a walnut) is the key to what humanity has become.

Now, futurist Ray Kurzweil suggests, we should get ready for the next big leap in brain power, as we tap into the computing power in the cloud.”

Video

YouTube Page  Published June 2, 2014

TED page   Filmed March 2014 at TED2014

Transcript

0:11

Let me tell you a story. It goes back 200 million years. It’s a story of the neocortex, which means “new rind.” So in these early mammals, because only mammals have a neocortex, rodent-like creatures. It was the size of a postage stamp and just as thin, and was a thin covering around their walnut-sized brain, but it was capable of a new type of thinking. Rather than the fixed behaviors that non-mammalian animals have, it could ...

“As an expert on cutting-edge digital displays, Mary Lou Jepsen studies how to show our most creative ideas on screens. And as a brain surgery patient herself, she is driven to know more about the neural activity that underlies invention, creativity, thought. She meshes these two passions in a rather mind-blowing talk on two cutting-edge brain studies that might point to a new frontier in understanding how (and what) we think.”

Filmed March 2013 at TED 2013 Uploaded to YouTube on March 3, 2013 by TED 

TED Talks webpage

Lead, Google Life Sciences Division Former Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Formerly Co-chair, BRAIN Initiative Multi-Council Working Group (MCWG)

Thomas R. Insel, M.D., was former Director of NIMH, the component of the National Institutes of Health charged with generating the knowledge needed to understand, treat, and prevent mental disorders. His tenure at NIMH had been distinguished by groundbreaking findings in the areas of practical clinical trials, autism research, and the role of genetics in mental illnesses.

Web Information

Wikipedia page: wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_R._Insel

NIMH Webpage:  nimh.nih.gov/about/director

Blog: nimh.nih.gov/about/director/

Twitter:  @NIMHgov

Contact Information

Email: thomas.insel@nih.gov

Biosketch

Prior to his appointment as NIMH Director in the Fall 2002, Dr. Insel was Professor of Psychiatry at Emory University. There, he was founding director of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, one of the largest science and technology centers funded by the National Science Foundation and, concurrently, director of an NIH-funded Center for Autism Research. From 1994 to 1999, he was Director of the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta. While at Emory, Dr. Insel continued the line of research he had initiated at NIMH studying the neurobiology of complex social behaviors. He has published over 250 scientific articles and four books, including the Neurobiology of Parental Care (with Michael ...