Brain initiative a unique opportunity for San Diego

By Ralph J. Greenspan 4 p.m.Oct. 3, 2013

While it is no mystery to any of us why we need a brain, it remains a major mystery how the brain does what it does.

As a result, when illness or injury disturbs the brains normal activities, we are hard pressed to treat the problem effectively.

Those who have been affected either personally or through family and friends by conditions such as traumatic brain injury, autism, schizophrenia, depression, stroke or Alzheimers disease know all too well the tragedy and feeling of helplessness that comes with running up against the limitations of current treatment options. The human cost of these afflictions is staggering, and the economic cost enormous. A new national effort, the BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies), and the center launched by UC San Diego in response, the Center for Brain Activity Mapping (CBAM), are aimed at making it possible to overcome technical barriers so that we can know more about how the brain works and thus how to treat its malfunctions.

Why is this more feasible now than in the past? Thanks to research advances in neuroscience, physics, chemistry and engineering, many of which have come from the premier research institutions in San Diego and California, new possibilities have opened up for technologies that can allow us to see and know much more of what goes on inside our heads. As a result of the role that our state and region played in this research and in sparking the BRAIN Initiative, we are poised to lead the nation in the realization of this goal.

In recognition of our special place in this effort, the California Senate Select Committee on Emerging Technologies, chaired by Senate Majority Leader Ellen Corbett, will hold a hearing at UC San Diego on Friday, Oct. 4, to explore these opportunities and the potential for benefits to the state. The economic benefits of public support for basic research have yielded a surprisingly high return on investment when new technologies are involved. The best examples are the Human Genome Project and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), both of which have produced substantial returns on investment in the form of direct and indirect stimulation of economic activity.

In San Diego alone, the Qualcomm Institute, the UC San Diego division of Calit2, has helped to launch more than 10 new startup companies, fueling both economic activity and jobs. The younger Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine in San Diego, funded in part by the states California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM, also known as the stem cell initiative) and private philanthropy, has already begun to yield returns after only a few years in existence.

The kinds of new technologies that are on the verge of being developed, which are essential for success of the BRAIN Initiative, include detectors for the chemical and electrical signals exchanged by nerve cells in our brains and devices for reading out these signals. All of these technologies will have broad applications beyond the brain to make possible the monitoring of other parts of the body, such as real-time monitoring of metabolism for diabetes, or tumor response to treatment. The concepts and tools emanating from this project also will have a broad range of engineering and environmental applications, where sensitive, minuscule, intelligent systems can fulfill functions that are currently impossible with existing devices. Every new technology and diagnostic method is likely to spawn a new startup company.

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Brain initiative a unique opportunity for San Diego