# Presentation: 022767

**Neuroscience at NSF**
**Status and Prosepctives**

**Rae Silver**
**Senior Advisor**
**OIA/OD**
**November 16 2006**
**ENG Advisory Committee**

## Why Now 

**The 2006 OMB-OSTP memo calls for more research in complex biological systems – systems that are non-linear, multi-scale, and difficult to predict**

## Why NSF

**NSF is the one agency** that can bring to bear the necessary scientific, mathematical  and engineering disciplines to explore “**complex biological systems – systems that are non-linear, multi-scale, and difficult to predict”**
**Opportunity Potential**
- Instrumentation and computational tools
- Education

##  Planning process: Neuroscience at NSF

| Instrumentation
    -development
    -purchase |  |  |  |  |  |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| behavioral and physiologic measurement 
 |  |  |  |  |  |
| data analysis, modeling, and informatics 
 |  |  |  |  |  |
| conceptual and theoretical approaches |  |  |  |  |  |
| building brain-like devices and systems |  |  |  |  |  |

- BIO	CISE 	GEO 	ENG 	MPS 	SBE

## Our Challenge

**Articulate future research opportunities**
- new scientific directions
- broader benefits to society
**Develop a series of workshops to identify transformative opportunities**
- research
- education

## Workshop recommendations
BIO SBE July 06
Promising work in cognition & neuroscience
Adaptive Plasticity, Conflict and Cooperation, Spatial knowledge, Time, Language, Causal Understanding
http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/grand_chall.pdf 

CISE ENG MPS August 06
Identified 4 broad areas of opportunity
Instrumentation and Measurement
Data Analysis, Statistical Modeling, Informatics
Conceptual and Theoretical Approaches
Building Brain-like Devices and Systems

**BIO SBE July 06**
**Promising work in cognition & neuroscience**
**Adaptive Plasticity, Conflict and Cooperation, Spatial knowledge, Time, Language, Causal Understanding**
- _[http://](http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/grand_chall.pdf)__[www.nsf.gov/sbe/grand_chall.pdf](http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/grand_chall.pdf)_
**CISE ENG MPS August 06**
**Identified 4 broad areas of opportunity**
**Instrumentation and Measurement**
**Data Analysis, Statistical Modeling, Informatics**
**Conceptual and Theoretical Approaches**
**Building Brain-like Devices and Systems**

## Timing & Time measurement “Talk about engineering principles!” 

- A central master clock in the SCN.
- Many cells in different organs throughout the body have clocks, each of which have a circadian cycle in gene expression for large number of genes
- Similar to motor system – loops within loops – exactly how one should build a complicated engineered system.
- It’s a bit like how computers are coordinated over the internet in terms of time – each computer has a local clock, and they can be coordinated overall using the NNTP (network time protocol).

**Partha Mitra ColdSpringHarborLab**

## Circadian Body Clocks

*1972 Daily clock located in hypothalamus-SCN*
*1*971 Clock mutants in flies
- 1982 Cloning of fly clock gene (*Period) *
- 1997-98 *Period* gene in mammals
*Discovery of ****cell ****based circa-dian clock*

**DAY**

**NIGHT**

## Brain Computer Interfaces:

- _Biomimetic Microelectronics as Implantable Neural Prostheses_

- _Problem_:  Integration of Brain and Computing Systems
- _Multi-Disciplinary Components_:
- Biomimetic modeling of neurons and neural systems (neuroscience, mathematics, biomedical engineering)
- Hardware implementation (VLSI) of neural models for parallelism, rapid computational speed, and miniaturization (computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering)
- Multi-site electrode recording/stimulation arrays to interface devices with the brain (material science, physics, chemistry)

**long-term memory**

**short-term memory**

- Ted Berger Aug 06

## ITR: High-Resolution Cortical Imaging of Brain Electrical Activity. Bin He, U Minnesota

**Mechanisms of cognitive processes and brain functions**

**ITR: High-Resolution Cortical Imaging of Brain Electrical Activity. Bin He, U Minnesota**

## Implementation: Workshops

**BIO+SBE: Mind and Brain: Strategies and Directions for Future **July 18-19, 2006
**CISE+ENG+MPS: Brain Science as a Mutual Opportunity for the Physical & Mathematical Sciences, Computer Science & Engineering** 21-22 August 2006** **
**BIO+CISE+ENG+MPS+SBE ****March 5-6 **