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THE FRONTIERS OF 

HUMAN BRAIN RESEARCH 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2013 

Serial No. 113–45 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming 

DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY WEBER, Texas 

CHRIS STEWART, Utah 

VACANCY 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

DAN MAFFEI, New York 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts 

SCOTT PETERS, California 

DEREK KILMER, Washington 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC VEASEY, Texas 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

MARK TAKANO, California 

ROBIN KELLY, Illinois 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

HON. LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana, Chair 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas 

CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming 

DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

FEDERICA WILSON, Florida 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SCOTT PETERS, California 

AMI BERA, California 

DEREK KILMER, Washington 

ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut 

ROBIN KELLY, Illinois 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Wednesday, July 31, 2013 

Page 

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2 

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3 

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Larry Bucshon, Chairman, Subcommittee on 

Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, 

U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................................ 7 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 8 

Statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking Minority Member, 

Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, 

and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ............................................... 8 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 9 

Statement by Representative Steve Stockman, Subcommittee on Research 

and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House 

of Representatives ................................................................................................ 10 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 11 

Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .... 50 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 51 

Witnesses: 

Dr. Story Landis, Director of National Institute of Neurological Disorders 

and Stroke, National Institutes of Health 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 12 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 16 

Mr. Michael McLoughlin, Deputy Business Area Executive, Research and 

Exploratory Development at Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins 

University 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 27 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 29 

U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant Joseph Deslauriers Jr. 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 35 

Dr. Marcus Raichle, Professor of Radiology, Neurology, Neurobiology and 

Biomedical Engineering, Washington University 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 35 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 38 

Dr. Gene Robinson, Director, Institute for Genomic Biology, Swanlund Chair, 

Center for Advanced Study Professor in Entomology and Neuroscience, 

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 42 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 44 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 49 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Dr. Story Landis, Director of National Institute of Neurological Disorders 

and Stroke, National Institutes of Health ......................................................... 62 
Page

IV 

Dr. Marcus Raichle, Professor of Radiology, Neurology, Neurobiology and 

Biomedical Engineering, Washington University .............................................. 69 

Dr. Gene Robinson, Director, Institute for Genomic Biology, Swanlund Chair, 

Center for Advanced Study Professor in Entomology and Neuroscience, 

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign University ...................................... 73 

Appendix I: Additional Material for the Record 

Submitted statement by Representative Lamar Smith, Chairman, Committee 

on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ................ 76 
(1) 

THE FRONTIERS OF HUMAN BRAIN 

RESEARCH 

WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2013 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 11:06 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Larry Bucshon 

[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 
2 

LAMARS.SMITH, T_ CHAlIlMAill 

Itongrcss of tht 'linittd ~tatt5 

ilWuJlt of 'lR£prtSt11tIItiOtJI COMMITIEE ON SCIENCE. SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

2321 RAYBURN House OFl"lCE BUILDING 

WASHINGTON. DC2D615-63D1 

(202) 225-6371 WIWO'.scIsno::ll.hQUlle.EI"" 

Subcommittee on Research and Technology 

The Frontiers of Human Brain Research 

Wednesday, July 31, 2013 

11:00 am: to 1:00 p.m. 

2318 Rayburn H?use Office Building 

EDOlf SelNICeJOHNSON. Tenr RANKING MEMBER 

Dr. Story Landis, Director a/National Institute (1jNeurological DiJordef'a and Stroke. National Institutes 

o/Health 

Mr. Michael McLoughlin. Deputy Business Area Executive. Research and Exploratory DeVelopment at 

Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, and U.S. Air Force-Moster Sergeant Joseph 

Deslauriers Jr. 

Dr. Marcus Raichle, Professor of Radiology. Neurology, Neurobiology and Biomedical Engineen'ng, 

Washington University . 

Dr. Gene RofJwon, Director, Institute for Genomic Biology, Swanlund Chair, Center for Advanced 

Study Professor in Entoma/ogy and Neurosc,ience, University ofnlinois, Urbana~Champaign 
3 

1. Purpose 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH 

HEARING CHARTER 

The Frontiers of Human Brain Research 

Wednesday, July 31, 2013 

11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 

2318 Rayburn House Office Building 

On Wednesday, July 31,2013, the Subcommittee on Research and Technology will hold 

a hearing to understand the frontiers and challenges of brain science research, including its 

potential and limitations for curing brain diseases and rehabilitating those with brain-related 

injuries and disorders. The hearing will also aim to understand any policy implications from this 

research, including any implications for the America COMPETES reauthorization. 

2. Witnesses 

Dr. Story Landis, Director, National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) 

at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) 

Michael McLouglin, Deputy Business Area Executive, Research and Exploratory Development, 

Applied Physics Laboratory at lohns Hopkins University and U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant 

Joseph Deslauriers Jr. 

Dr. Marcus Raichle, Professor of Radiology, Neurology, Neurobiology and Biomedical 

Engineering, Washington University in St Louis 

Dr. Gene Robinson, Professor in Entomology and Neuroscience and Director of the Institute for 

Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

3. Hearing Overview 

Understanding the human brain remains one of the most complex tasks facing the 

medical sciences community. Throughout the 19th and 20th century, much progress was made by 

breaking the brain down into various components, with individual neurons viewed as the 

fundamental unit for human brain activity. The number of these neurons is roughly a hundred 

billion; the number of contacts between neurons is a hundred trillion. The brain is a complex 

organ that processes and receives electrical, chemical and mechanical inputs and outputs. The 

average neuron receives thousands of distinct inputs, with each neuron connecting to many other 

neurons; however the exact physical "circuitry" of these individual components is unknown. 

Taxpayer funded research in neuroscience, the scientific field that studies the nervous 

system, has been crucial to advancing our understanding into the workings of the brain. During 
4 

FY 2013, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) spent over $5.6 billion in supporting 

neuroscience-related research. Brain science is an inter-disciplinary field, with important 

contributions from fields as diverse as electrophysiology, imaging, molecular biology, 

biochemistry, physics and applied mathematics. Each of these disciplines has enriched our 

understanding of the brain, thereby allowing researchers to move towards an integrated picture of 

the brain's behavior through translational research and medicine. 

Attempts to map the brain into distinct areas, each with its specific function, is a 

scientific approach that has existed for over a century. In the mid-1800s, brain science focused 

on discovering and "mapping" the functions of the cerebral cortex using a variety of methods and 

techniques that were available at that time. This field is called phrenology, and the mapping 

paradigm of localizing cerebral functions within the brain was its primary focus. Today, one of 

the main challenges is moving from a static to a more dynamic view of the brain. Other 

challenges include finding accurate and repeatable medical tests for diagnosing brain disorders.] 

The experimental tools available to the biological sciences are rapidly growing, with 

many in the brain research community viewing them as the key to unlocking the next 

breakthrough. This evolving experimental and computational toolkit, much of it funded by 

federal science agencies, is addressed at understanding the brain at various time and length 

scales. This includes the Human Connectome Project, a $30M NIH-funded endeavor to map 

long-distance neural pathways in the brains of 1,200 healthy adult humans using functional 

magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Other advances include two-photon functional imaging 

and next generation brain-machine interface using integrated neurophotonics and nanoparticles. 

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has recently been funding 

research projects that aim to diagnose and develop therapeutic responses for brain and spinal 

cord injury. In particular, DARPA has sponsored the development of robotic arms that are 

allowing returning veterans, who have lost limbs, to lead functioning lives. For example, sensors 

on the skin can detect the brain's signals from the nerves and use those signals to control a 

robotic arm, without an invasive surgical procedure. Other neuro-prosthetic technologies include 

implanting sensors inside the human brain to control remote robotic appendages with only a 

person's thoughts. 

Economic Impact 

The economic implications for this research are significant. The monetary cost of 

dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, in the United States ranges from $157 billion to $215 

billion annually. Dementia is more costly to the nation than either heart disease or cancer? As 

our nation's population grows older, the costs of dementia related diseases could double by 2040. 

In a 2008, Dr. Thomas Insel, the director of the National Institute for Mental Health, estimated 

that the total cost of serious mental illness in the US exceeds $317 billion per year. 3 These 

annualized costs include: an estimated $193 billion in lost earnings, roughly $100 billion in 

direct health care costs, and another $24 billion in disability benefits. This estimate ignores other 

major factors that increase the cost burden to our nation, including: homelessness, incarceration, 

substance abuse and other addictions, all of which are associated with mental illness. The US 

1 http://www.npr.orglblogs/healthl2013/07 108!l98086616/MENT AL-ILLNESS-BIOMARKERS 

2 http://www.rand.orglnews/press/2013/04/03.httnl 

3 http://ajp.psychiatryonline.orglarlicle.aspx?articleid=99862 

2 
5 

National Bureau of Economic Research has estimated that 38 percent of all alcohol, 44 percent 

of all cocaine, and 40 percent of all cigarettes are consumed by people with a mental iIIness.4 

BRAIN Initiative 

In April, the Obama Administration announced the Brain Research through Advancing 

Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative prior to presenting his FY 2014 budget 

request; this is ajoint research program between federal science agencies- NSF, NIH, and 

DARPA -and private sector partners in research of brain disorders ranging from Alzheimer's 

and Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, autism, and injuries. The initiative has been met with some 

skepticism by the research community for its intent and how it might divert funds from other 

research.s While the NSF's FY 2014 budget presentation to the Committee did not highlight the 

Foundation's contribution to the Administration's BRAIN Initiative as a priority, $14 million in 

additional spending is requested for Cognitive Science and Neuroscience. The NIH and Defense 

Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will each receive $40 million and $50 million in 

funding respectively. Private organizations are also involved with this program, including $60 

million from the Allen Institute for Brain Science, $30 million from the Howard Hughes Medical 

Institute, $28 million from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and $4 million from the 

Kavli Foundation. 

Supporters of the BRAIN Initiative have compared the project to the Human Genome 

Project, whose main benefit has been the development of technologies to quickly and accurately 

screen the genomes of individual clients. However, the actual benefit from the Human Genome 

Project has been limited so far in that no diseases have yet to be cured as a result of the human 

genome map. Critics of the BRAIN Initiative have mentioned that this investment needs more 

specific goals or end-points. The central question is not about the technology, but whether what 

the BRAIN initiative's goal of "mapping the human brain" provides an accurate reflection of 

how the brain works, and whether brain-mapping is a valid or outmoded paradigm to make 

progress in the field. Further, advocates for the BRAIN Initiative need to communicate the longterm nature of such promising research and when they can reasonably expect certain 

breakthroughs, especially given the level of public investment. 

European Commission's Human Brain Project 

There is world-wide interest in understanding the brain. The Human Brain Project has 

been officially selected as one of the European Commission's two Future and Emerging 

Technologies Flagship Projects. The goal of the EU's Human Brain Project is to consolidate 

existing knowledge about the human brain and to reconstruct the brain using a combination of 

modeling and computational simulations; the project will rely heavily on the use of 

supercomputers. The models offer the prospect of a new understanding of the human brain and 

its diseases and of completely new computing and robotic technologies. The Human Brain 

Project is planned to last ten years (2013-2023). 

4 http://www.nber.orgidigest/aprOZfw8699.html 

5 http://www .npr.orgl20 13f04/05fI76303594/researchers-question-obamas-motives-for-brain-initiative 

3 
6 

Issues for Consideration 

The hearing will examine the latest developments in the area of brain science research, and stress 

the interdisciplinary approach that is necessary for understanding the complexities of the human 

brain. Witnesses have been invited to give demonstrations of their technologies and discuss the 

future of brain science research. They will also comment on current and future federal initiatives 

in the area of brain science research. 

4 
7 

Chairman BUCSHON. The Subcommittee on Research and Technology will come to order. 

Good morning. Welcome to today’s hearing entitled ‘‘The Frontiers of Human Brain Research.’’ In front of you are packets containing the written testimony, biographies, and truth-in-testimony 

disclosures of today’s witnesses. 

I now recognize myself for an opening statement. 

I would like to welcome everyone to today’s Research and Technology Subcommittee hearing on the frontiers of human brain research. As a doctor, I know firsthand there are many complexities 

surrounding the human body and understanding the human brain 

is one of the most challenging problems facing the scientific and 

medical communities. This problem will likely require an interdisciplinary and multifaceted approach with the right scientific 

questions being asked and debated and clear goals and endpoints 

being articulated. The creative drive of American science is the individual investigator, and I have faith they will continue to tackle, 

understand, and contribute original approaches to these problems. 

We are hopeful that brain research will have important policy 

implications. Brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, autism, epilepsy, dementia, stroke, and traumatic brain injury have 

an enormous economic and personal impact for the affected Americans. For example, Alzheimer’s disease, a severe form of dementia 

and the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, affects 

the 5.1 million Americans that have the disease along with their 

friends and family who watch their loved one suffer from its effects. 

And my best friend from high school’s grandmother was one of 

those people. 

I want to stress the personal effect of this research, which to me 

is much more important as a medical doctor but cannot be easily 

quantified. During my visits to Walter Reed Medical Center and 

subsequently Bethesda after Walter Reed closed, I have met with 

many brave young men and women who unfortunately have suffered traumatic brain injury as well as lost limbs because of their 

service to our country in Iraq and Afghanistan. Technologies, like 

the ones we will hear about today, will allow these young men and 

women to transition to the workplace, enabling these individuals to 

lead productive, independent, and fulfilling lives. This is why I 

think it is so important to continue to support research. 

I want to stress my support for brain science research, in particular understanding neurological disorders and diseases from an 

interdisciplinary perspective. As our witnesses will testify today, 

brain science has benefited enormously from fields as diverse as 

applied mathematics, computer science, physics, engineering, molecular biology, and chemistry. More importantly, basic science research results from NSF-funded research will be the future experimental tools for hypothesis-based, data-driven research for brain 

science researchers. 

I see this as an important opportunity for continuing interdisciplinary work between the various Federal science agencies, including NSF, NIH, and DARPA and I hope to see more collaboration and productive research opportunities. 

Our witnesses today reflect the wide spectrum of research in 

brain science and the richness in this field. I would like to thank 
8 

the witnesses for being here today and taking the time to offer 

their perspectives on this important topic. At this point, I also 

would like to thank Ranking Member Lipinski and everyone else 

for participating in today’s hearing. 

And I will now recognize Ranking Member Lipinski for his opening statement. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bucshon follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

CHAIRMAN LARRY BUCSHON

I would like to welcome everyone to today’s Research and Technology Subcommittee hearing on the frontiers of human brain research. 

As a doctor, I know firsthand there are many complexities surrounding the 

human body and understanding the human brain is one of the most challenging 

problems facing the scientific and medical communities. This problem will likely require an inter-disciplinary and multifaceted approach with the right scientific questions being asked and debated and clear goals and endpoints being articulated. The 

creative drive of American science is the individual investigator, and I have faith 

they will continue to tackle, understand and contribute original approaches to these 

problems. 

We are hopeful that brain research will have important policy implications. Brain 

disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, autism, epilepsy, dementia, stroke, and 

traumatic brain injury have an enormous economic and personal impact for affected 

Americans. 

For example, Alzheimer’s disease—a severe form of dementia and the sixth leading cause of death in the US—affects the 5.1 million Americans that have the disease along with their friends and family who watch their loved one suffer from its 

effects. The average annual cost of care for people with dementia over 70 in the US 

was roughly between $157 and $210 billion dollars in 2010. 

More importantly, I want to stress the personal effect of this research, which to 

me is much more important as a medical doctor, but cannot be easily quantified. 

During my visits to Walter Reed Medical Hospital, I have met many brave young 

men and women who have unfortunately lost their arms and legs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Technologies, like the ones we will hear about today, will allow these 

young men and women to transition to the workplace, enabling these individuals 

to lead productive, independent, and fulfilling lives. This is why I think it’s so important to continue supporting this research. 

I want to stress my support for brain science research, in particular understanding neurological disorders and diseases from an interdisciplinary perspective. 

As our witnesses will testify today, brain science has benefited enormously from 

fields as diverse as applied mathematics, computer science, physics, engineering, 

molecular biology, and chemistry. More importantly, basic science research results 

from NSF funded research will be the future experimental tools for hypothesis-based 

data-driven research for brain science researchers. 

I see this as an important opportunity for continuing interdisciplinary work between the various federal science agencies, including the NSF, NIH and DARPA and 

I hope to see more collaboration and productive research opportunities 

Our witnesses today reflect the wide spectrum of research in brain science and 

richness in this field. I’d like to thank the witnesses for being here today and taking 

time to offer their perspectives on this important topic. I’d also like to thank Ranking Member Lipinski and everyone else participating in today’s hearing.Before I conclude today’s hearing, I would like to recognize and thank Melia Jones. I appreciate 

your work on this Subcommittee for the last 2 years, and wish you all the best in 

your future endeavors. We hate to lose you, but Texas will gain a good friend. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Chairman Bucshon, for holding this 

hearing and to all the witnesses for being here today. And I thank 

you for your flexibility in moving this hearing back an hour. 

I don’t think there is anyone in this room who hasn’t marveled 

at the complexity of the human brain. I know opening up with that 

sentence lends itself to a lot of jokes about Congress, so you can 

insert your own joke here, but what we are really concerned about 

are brain diseases especially that befall so many people. And we all 
9 

know it may one day wreak havoc on our own lives, in addition to 

that, obviously other brain injuries that occur. And especially as 

lawmakers, we are responsible for making sure our returning servicemen and women are taken care of after they have so bravely 

risked their own lives, especially we worry about the thousands of 

returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and previous conflicts with 

traumatic brain injury and long-term mental distress. 

In April of this year, President Obama announced the BRAIN 

Initiative, an interagency collaboration between DARPA, NIH, and 

NSF to accelerate what we know about human brain function and 

its connection to behavior. Each of these agencies has important research activities that it can bring to the table. The NSF, for example, will help further research developing probes on a molecular 

scale that can map the activity of neural networks. They can also 

bring computer scientists to the task as well to help understand 

the functions of the estimated 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion 

connections within the human brain. 

As we take a broad look at Federal support for neuroscience research in general and the BRAIN Initiative in particular, I believe 

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. Three of the witnesses are highly qualified to 

speak to NIH’s role. Mr. McLoughlin has long been funded by 

DARPA. 

However, the only BRAIN Initiative agency wholly within this 

Committee’s jurisdiction is the National Science Foundation. It is 

unfortunate that the NSF was not invited to participate on today’s 

panel, but I am especially grateful to Dr. Robinson for being here 

today to help us better understand NSF’s unique and important 

role in supporting neuroscience research. And I know that Chairman Bucshon had duly noted the important role of NSF in his 

opening statement. 

The idea of connecting what is happening in our brain at the molecular level with how we feel, think, and remember and act is 

known as integrating across scales. We can bring to the neuroscience table all the smart computer scientists, engineers, and 

mathematicians we can find, and we do need them, but if we don’t 

also have the behavioral experts there to validate brain function 

models with what we know about actual human behavior, those 

models might not be worth the laptops they are written on. 

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. 

While none of the witnesses were asked to address educational 

needs and opportunities in neuroscience, this is also an area in 

which NSF leads the way. And I have some questions related to 

STEM Ed, and I suspect some of my colleagues will as well. 

Thank you again to Chairman Bucshon for holding this hearing 

and I look forward to the testimony and the discussion. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lipinski follows:] 
10 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

RANKING MINORITY MEMBER DANIEL LIPINSKI

Thank you Chairman Bucshon for holding this hearing and to all of the witnesses 

for being here. 

I don’t think there’s anybody in this room who hasn’t marveled at the complexity 

of the human brain. With that wonder also comes worry about the brain diseases 

that befall so many people, and that we all know could someday wreak havoc on 

our own lives. And as lawmakers responsible for making sure our returning servicemen and women are taken care of after they have bravely risked their own lives, 

we worry about the thousands who have returned from Iraq, Afghanistan, and previous conflicts with traumatic brain injury and long-term mental distress. 

In April of this year, President Obama announced the BRAIN Initiative, an interagency collaboration between DARPA, NIH, and NSF to accelerate what we know 

about human brain function and its connection to behavior. Each of these agencies 

has important research activities that it can bring to the table. The NSF, for example, will help further research developing probes on a molecular scale that can map 

the activity of neural networks. They can also bring computer scientists to the task 

as well, to help understand the functions of the estimated 100 billion neurons and 

100 trillion connections within the human brain. 

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. Three of the witnesses are highly qualified to 

speak to NIH’s role, and Mr. McLoughlin has long been funded by DARPA. 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. 

The idea of connecting what’s happening in our brain at the molecular level with 

how we feel, think, remember, and act is known as ‘‘integrating across scales.’’ We 

can bring to the neuroscience table all of the smart computer scientists, engineers, 

and mathematicians we can find. And we do need them. But if we don’t also have 

the behavioral experts there to validate brain function models with what we know 

about actual human behavior, those models might not be worth the laptops they’re 

written on. 

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. While none of the witnesses 

were asked to address educational needs and opportunities in neuroscience, this is 

also an area in which NSF leads the way. I have questions related to STEM education and I suspect some of my colleagues will as well. 

Thank you again Chairman Bucshon for holding this hearing and I look forward 

to the testimony and discussion. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you. 

I now recognize Mr. Stockman. 

Mr. STOCKMAN. I just want to thank the Chairman, Mr. Bucshon, 

for doing this. And as I mentioned to you earlier, I took care of my 

father for eight years who had Alzheimer’s, and, as you know, some 

say that disease is hereditary, so hurry up and do your work. 

And the other thing is that I was listening to National Public 

Radio which commented on the President’s Initiative, and I hope 

that it is more than just window dressing that we have here and 

that we have real research. I appreciate you coming out today and 

I really appreciate the Ranking Member and the Chairman for having this hearing. I yield back. Thank you. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you. If there are Members who wish 

to submit additional opening statements, your statements will be 

added to the record at this point. 

At this time I am now going to introduce our witnesses. 
11 

Our first witness today is Dr. Story Landis. Since 2003, she has 

been the Director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Prior to her appointment at NINDS for short, 

she was a Professor and Chairwoman of the Department of Neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 

Cleveland, Ohio. She has made many fundamental contributions to 

understanding the developmental interactions required for synapse 

formation. I understand that but many in the room may not. But 

she is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and 

Sciences and the Institute of Medicine for the National Academy of 

Sciences. 

Our second witness today is Dr. Michael McLoughlin who is a 

Deputy Business Area Executive for the Johns Hopkins University 

Applied Physics Laboratory Research and Exploratory Development—in the exploratory development area. In addition to this position, Mr. McLoughlin teaches both program management and systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of 

Engineering. In 2009 he assumed leadership responsibilities for 

DARPA’s revolutionizing prosthetics program and is leading efforts 

to transition use of these technologies to human subjects. Mr. 

McLoughlin is a graduate of the University of Delaware where he 

received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. 

Also with him is Air Force Master Sergeant Joseph Deslauriers, 

an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician who also will be giving 

a short testimony on how some of these technologies have impacted 

the quality of his own life. He earned the Silver Star for Gallantry 

in Action while serving in Afghanistan on September 23, 2011. 

Our third witness is Professor Marcus Raichle, who is currently 

the Professor of Radiology, Neurology, Neurobiology and Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Professor Raichle has led world-class efforts to define the frontiers of 

cognitive neuroscience through the development and use of functional brain imaging techniques. He has also pioneered the concept 

of the default mode of brain function and has invigorated studies 

of intrinsic functional activity. Professor Raichle is a member of the 

U.S. Academy of Science, the American Academy of Arts and 

Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine. 

And our final witness is Professor Gene Robinson, who received 

his doctorate degree from Cornell in 1986, and since 1989 has been 

on the faculty of the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign 

where he is the University Swanlund Chair and the Director for 

Genomic Biology. He has pioneered the application of genomics to 

the study of behavior. He is the author or co-author of over 250 

publications. Professor Robinson is a member of the U.S. National 

Academy of Science and the American Academy of Arts and 

Sciences. In addition, he received the National Institute’s Pioneer 

Award. 

Thanks again for all of our witnesses for being here this afternoon. It is a very distinguished panel. I am looking forward to your 

testimony. 

As our witnesses should know, spoken testimony is limited to 

five minutes after which the Members of the Committee will have 

five minutes each to ask questions. 
12 

I now recognize Dr. Landis for five minutes to present her testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. STORY LANDIS, 

DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INSTITUTE 

OF NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS AND STROKE, 

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH 

Dr. LANDIS. Good morning, Chairman Bucshon, Ranking Member 

Lipinski, and embers of the Subcommittee. I want to thank you 

very much for your opportunity to provide testimony today on the 

frontiers of human brain research. This is an incredibly exciting 

area of research with profound implications for our basic understanding of the brain and also for treating brain disorders. 

So as you have heard, many people regard understanding how 

the human brain works as the last great frontier in biological and 

biomedical sciences. The brain is an extraordinary organ that allows us to see, hear, reason, remember. The best estimates are that 

these functions and many others are performed by somewhere between 80 and 100—100 billion nerve cells that are connected with 

each other, each nerve cell, neuron, making more than 1,000 connections with other neurons. 

Now, it is not just chaos in the brain. These neurons are organized in neural circuits. You could almost think of them as living 

modifiable circuit boards which process and integrate different 

kinds of information to control behavior, mental and physical. And 

in fact, if you think about the brain, basically the brain is the 

organ that controls all kinds of behavior. 

In the past decade we have made extraordinary advances in developing tools to visualize brain circuits and to dissect their function. One of these tools is diffusion magnetic resonance imaging, 

and this reveals medium to long-range connections between brain 

regions and therefore provides a wiring diagram of the human 

brain. And NIH is currently funding the human brain Connectome 

Project to create a publicly available database of wiring diagrams 

for 1,200 people, which will serve as a resource for scientists 

throughout the world. If I could have the slide please. Can you 

make it rotate? 

[Slide.] 
13 

This is one piece of the human Connectome that was obtained as 

part of the Connectome Project. Each of those different-colored fibers reflects a different set of connections. This is only a subset of 

the connections and it is focused primarily on the connections that 

actually wire together different parts of the cortex. In other studies, we have learned how to actually manipulate the function of 

neurons, specific populations of neurons and circuits and to define 

their particular roles. 

Now, neuroscience, the study of the brain, has from its very earliest origins been multidisciplinary. Neuroanatomy and 

neurophysiology and creating that image that you just saw required physicists, engineers, mathematicians, statisticians, as well 
14 

as a neuroscientists. And just as the science is multidisciplinary, 

support for brain science is provided by multiple agencies as appropriate for their mission. 

So consistent with the NIH’s mission to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness, NIH funds brain research from the very most basic 

like ion channels and how neurons get generated during development, how you turn stem cells into neurons to Phase III clinical 

trials. 

Now, my Institute, NINDS, funds research on a large number of 

neurological disorders, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—Lou 

Gehrig’s disease—Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. 

These are inexorably progressive disorders that take away our ability to move, reason, and remember. And we also fund research on 

a host of rare diseases. We are making progress. Stroke prevention 

and treatment reduced death from stroke by 40 percent between 

1999 and 2009. We have treatments for multiple sclerosis that actually slow progression. We have symptomatic treatments for Parkinson’s and many effective drugs that stop seizures. 

The NINDS works closely with many other NIH institutes to ensure that we are an aggregate making the best possible investment 

in brain sciences. There are also strong and effective collaborations 

between NIH and other agencies. Nine NIH institutes and seven 

NSF directorates support an innovative grant program, collaborative research, and computational neuroscience, and this grant 

program requires a wet bench experimentalist working with someone who is a theoretician. 

So progress in understanding how the human brain works and 

addressing diseases that affect the brain will require the development of new tools to allow us to get a dynamic picture of how the 

brain works in real time, how the individual cells and complex neural circuits interact, and how do they do it at the speed of thought? 

And we simply don’t have the tools to know how to do this. That 

is the goal of the BRAIN Initiative, brain research advances 

through innovative neurotechnologies. 

Thank you very much for your attention. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Landis follows:] 
15 

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH 

The Frontiers of Human Brain Research 

Testimony before the 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

Subcommittee on Research 

Story C. Landis, Ph.D., Director 

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke 

July 31, 2013 
16 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: 

I am pleased to testify today about advances in neuroscience, the role of the National 

Institutes of Health (NIH), and opportunities to accelerate progress through the Brain Research 

through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, which the President 

announced as part of his Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 Budget. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF NEUROSCIENCE RESEARCH 

Diseases of the brain and nervous system impose an enormous burden on individuals, 

families, and society. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, an independent research 

center, estimates that brain disorders (neurologic, substance abuse, and mental and behavioral 

disorders) are the number one source of disability globally from all medical causes in those aged 

15 to 49 years. I The costs of dementia alone-by one recent estimate at $159 billion to 

$215 billion in the United States for 2012-already rival those of cancer and heart disease, and 

could rise dramatically in coming decades witb a growing elderly population. 2 

Although the burden of nervous system diseases is daunting, the complementary efforts of the 

NIH and the private sector are making real progress. For example, the age adjusted death rate 

for stroke fell by 70 percent over the last 50 years, and by approximately 37 percent just from 

1999 to 2009. 3 NIH research contributed to this progress by identifying risk factors, determining 

through many clinical trials which preventive measures are most effective for people with 

specific risk profiles, and developing tbe only effective emergency treatment for stroke. New 

treatments are also available or in testing for many other brain diseases, including Alzheimer's 

disease, Parkinson's disease, and epilepsy. For example, 20 years ago there were no effective 

drugs for multiple sclerosis, and now there are nine that slow progression of the disease. 

I Global Burden of Disease Compare, http://www.healthmetricsandevaluation.org/gbd/visualizations/country. 

2 New England Journal of Medicine 368: 1326,2013 

3Circulation 134:e6-245, 2013. 

2 
17 

ADVANCES AND OPPORTUNIES IN NEUROSCIENCE 

NIH supports neuroscience research to reduce the burden of brain disorders, from basic 

research to understand how the brain and nervous system work and what goes wrong as a result 

of disease, through translational and clinical research to develop and test candidate therapies in 

the laboratory and in human trials. Many NIH Institutes and Centers support neuroscience 

research, as appropriate to their missions. Basic neuroscience research, which is my focus today, 

is an especially critical aspect of the NIH mission because the outcomes and applications of basic 

research are often too far upstream and high-risk to attract substantial private investment. Basic 

studies lay the foundation for the development of better diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of 

neurological and mental health disorders by uncovering disease mechanisms and identifying 

potential targets for intervention. This research is inherently interdisciplinary and spans multiple 

levels of analysis, from the intact human brain to single cells, genes, and molecules. 

Until recently, the living human brain was largely inaccessible to direct study. 

Neuroscientists inferred how the human brain works from animal studies and from indirect 

observations of the human brain, including behavioral experiments, electrical recordings of brain 

activity from outside the skull, and the consequences of disease and injury to particular parts of 

the brain. Over the last two decades, advances in brain imaging, which build on developments in 

physics, engineering, mathematics and other disciplines, have revolutionized both clinical care 

and neuroscience research. Dr. Marcus Raichle, a pioneer in brain imaging, will testify at this 

hearing about how brain imaging allows increasingly detailed studies of structure, function, 

connectivity, and even biochemistry in the living human brain. 

Basic neuroscience research focused on molecules, genes, and single cells has also made 

remarkable progress. Studies at the resolution of single atoms reveal how ion channels control 
18 

the flow of electrical currents in nerve cells and how receptor molecules on cells sense chemical 

signals. Just last year, a Nobel Prize recognized the importance of research on a broad class of 

receptors, called G-protein coupled receptors. Many drugs now in use target these receptors and 

ion channels, and understanding their structures informs better drug design. The discovery of 

hundreds of gene defects that cause disease has led to faster diagnoses for families confronting 

rare neurological disorders. Findings from genetics also lead to better understanding of 

mechanisms of disease and to rational strategies for the development of therapies by NIH and the 

private sector. In one dramatic example that may be a harbinger of the future, researchers using 

"next generation" sequencing methods, which rely on advances in computational analysis, 

decoded the entire genome of twins with a rare form of dystonia, a movement disorder 

characterized by abnormally sustained muscle contractions. With insight from this analysis, the 

research team quickly discovered that a known drug dramatically improved the twins' lives. 

Understanding how brain circuits function resides in a middle ground between research on the 

living human brain and studies of molecules and single cells, and is at the core of some of 

neuroscience's greatest challenges and opportunities. A unique aspect of the brain, compared to 

other organs, is the importance of precise connections between brain cells that influence one 

another's functional output. By one estimate, the human brain has more than 80 billion neurons, 

each of which may form thousands of synapses (functional connections), with other cells.4 We 

perceive, think, and act through the computations performed by these networks of cells, and all 

but the simplest reflex behaviors in mammals require the concerted activity of many thousands 

of neurons. Our understanding of how synapses between pairs of nerve cells transmit 

information has advanced greatly, but research on brain circuits has faced challenges because of 

the difficulty of monitoring activity in many cells at once. The complete wiring diagram of 

4 Ann. Rev. Neurosci.l988. 11 :423-53 

4 
19 

neuronal connections has been mapped in one organism, a nematode worm with 302 neurons, but 

anatomical mapping in mammalian brains has been limited to specific pathways and small parts 

of circuits. It is as if neuroscientists studying circuits have been trying to watch an HDTV show 

by observing a few pixels at a time rather than seeing the entire picture at once. 

In the last few years, however, new techniques for studying brains in laboratory animals have 

made mapping the structure and function of brain circuits one of the most exciting and promising 

areas of neuroscience. Historically, neuroscience has applied advances from multiple 

disciplines, so it is not surprising that these transformative advances arise from a convergence of 

neurobiology, genetics, optics, computer science, chemistry, engineering, and other fields and 

are the products of long term investments by the NIH, the National Science Foundation (NSF), 

and others. Breakthrough microscopy methods, together with fluorescent indicators that sense 

specific ions or detect voltages, can simultaneously monitor the activity of thousands of 

individually resolved cells deep in the brains of living experimental animals. In some 

experiments, researchers have monitored activity in the same cells for weeks at a time as animals 

explore their environment and learn. A complementary technique, optogenetics, has 

dramatically improved researchers' ability to control the activity of specific types of neurons in 

experimental animals. This method uses genetic engineering to install light-sensitive switches 

into identified nerve cells, enabling researchers to turn cells' electrical activity on or off with 

precisely timed light pulses and has quickly become an important tool for neuroscientists 

exploring neural circuits. For example, a decade ago scientists discovered that adult brains, even 

in 60 year old people, generate new nerve cells. This year optogenetics revealed that these new 

cells readily adjust the strength of their synapses and lay down new memories in mice. 

Optogenetics has also advanced understanding of brain circuits in animal models of Parkinson's 
20 

disease, post-stroke epilepsy, and the generalization of fearful memories, a process relevant to 

post-traumatic stress disorder. 

New techniques for tracing connections between neurons are also providing unprecedented 

anatomical maps of the brain's architecture. "Brainbow," for example, labels individual nerve 

cells and fibers with approximately 1 00 different colors so that researchers can follow the paths 

of intertwined nerve fibers through the brain. Another technique called CLARITy5 renders 

brain tissue completely transparent, allowing scientists to observe complete trajectories of 

labeled cells and fiber pathways in the intact brain. 

BRAIN INITIATIVE 

Although these tools represent remarkable advances, they are not yet adequate to capture the 

behavior of complete brain circuits functioning in real time in the living human brain. To 

improve our knowledge and understanding of brain functioning, the President announced the 

BRAIN Initiative as part of his FY 2014 Budget. Through this initiative, researchers will build 

on emerging insights from multiple disciplines to develop, disseminate, and apply new tools and 

technologies that will allow scientists to generate a dynamic, real time picture of entire 

functioning brain circuits. The BRAIN Initiative will involve the coordinated activities of the 

NIH, NSF, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Office of Science 

and Technology Policy (OSTP), and private organizations, including the Howard Hughes 

Medical Institute, the Allen Institute for Brain Science, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, 

and the Kavli Foundation. Coordination across NIH will be facilitated by the NIH Blueprint for 

Neuroscience, which brings together sixteen institutes and centers, and across Federal agencies 

5 According to the developer'S paper (http://www.nature.com/nature/joumal/v497/n7449/full/nature12107.html), 

"the term was an acronym to describe the Clear Lipid-exchanged Acrylamide-hybridized Rigid 

ImaginglImmunostainingiln situ hybridization-compatible Tissue-hYdrogel." However, due to tbe length of the 

actual phrase and because the method actually goes beyond the original acronym, we did not provide the phrase in 

the text above. 

6 
21 

through the Interagency Working Group recently formed under the auspices of OSTP. In 

addition, the President also directed his Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues to engage 

with the scientific community and other stakeholders to identify proactively a set of core ethical 

standards both to guide neuroscience research and to address potential ethical dilemmas raised 

by the application of neuroscience research findings. The President formally charged the 

Commission with this task on July 1, 2013, and the Commission will begin to deliberate the 

request at its public meeting on August 20,2013. 

The BRAIN Initiative can take many lessons from the success of the Human Genome Project, 

including the importance of computational sciences and sharing data widely, with appropriate 

privacy protections. High-resolution activity recordings and large-scale anatomical circuit 

reconstruction produce vast quantities of data, and making sense of multidimensional datasets 

generated through the BRAIN Initiative will be an enormous challenge. By one estimate, the 

human brain can produce in 30 seconds as much data as the Hubble Space Telescope has 

produced in its Iifetime. 6 A joint NIH-NSF initiative on "Big Data Science" is underway, which 

will be important in addressing these data challenges. Furthermore, we do not understand the 

"neural code" through which the rate, timing, and patterns of activity in populations of brain 

cells represent and transform information. NIH and NSF have collaborated for almost a decade 

in computational neuroscience, which is essential to take on this challenge. Human brain 

imaging, including information from the ongoing NIH Human Connectome Project, will also 

complement the goals of the BRAIN Initiative. 

To develop a blueprint for NIH's role in the BRAIN Initiative, NIH has established a group of 

18 highly qualified external advisors, including 3 ex officio members from the Federal partner 

agencies. They have wide ranging expertise, including contributing to the development of 

6 Nature 499:274,2013. 

7 
22 

several of the transfonnative new techniques described today. This working group of the 

Advisory Committee to the NIH Director is expected to present interim recommendations to the 

Director late this summer and final recommendations are anticipated in the summer of2014. 

The group is already interacting extensively with the NIH research community to develop a more 

complete scientific plan, anticipated next summer, that will: I) identify high priority investments 

(e.g., improving current tools, identifYing new directions); 2) develop principles for achieving 

the goals (e.g.. the balance between small groups and large consortia); 3) suggest collaborations 

with foundations, industry, other agencies, and international programs; and 4) deliver time lines 

and milestones. 

In basic neuroscience, as in other areas of research, NIH emphasizes investigator-initiated 

research, which engages the wisdom and ingenuity of the research community. Tool 

development empowers the research community by providing better, cheaper technologies and 

open-access databases. We are confident that the BRAIN Initiative will have a catalytic effect 

on neuroscience research in the coming years. In addition to the BRAIN Initiative, NIH will also 

continue to support research across the full range of basic and applied neuroscience. 

There are excellent reasons for our confidence in the importance of the BRAIN Initiative as a 

critical aspect of research addressing brain disorders. Foremost, many diseases of the brain, 

including autism, dystonia, epilepsy, and schizophrenia, are fundamentally disorders of brain 

circuitry; and others, such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease, cause symptoms by 

disrupting the perfonnance of circuits as brain cells degenerate. Even with our limited 

understanding of brain circuits and the relatively imprecise technologies for interventions, 

therapies that compensate for malfunctioning brain circuits already produce remarkable results 

for some people. Deep brain stimulation, which uses chronically implanted electrodes, has 

8 
23 

proven to have long tenn benefit in clinical trials for Parkinson's disease and dystonia, and has 

shown promise for Tourette's syndrome, depression, epilepsy, obsessive compulsive disorder, 

chronic pain, and several other disorders. Cochlear implants send coded auditory signals that 

brain circuits can interpret to restore useful hearing to thousands of people, visual prostheses 

have restored rudimentary sight in pilot studies, and brain computer interfaces that monitor 

signals from the movement control circuits of the brain have enabled people with paralysis to 

move a robotic ann, using only their thoughts. Decades of pioneering NIH interdisciplinary 

research and, more recently, extensive cooperation with DARPA, have been critical to these 

advances in neural prostheses, some of which you will hear more about today. These advances 

provide a glimpse of the future. Better understanding of brain circuits would not only improve 

the sophistication of stimulation-based interventions and prosthetics, but also infonn 

development of treatments for the full range of brain diseases that affect circuits. Looking more 

broadly, unanticipated benefits willlike1y flow from the BRAIN Initiative beyond neuroscience, 

just as the Human Genome Project had entirely unexpected benefits. History has shown that the 

most important outcomes of the BRAIN Initiative may well be those we have yet to imagine. 

9 
24 

Department of Health and Human Services 

National Institutes of Health 

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke 

Story C. Landis, Ph.D. 

Dr. Story C. Landis began her appointment as the Director of the National Institute of 

Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) on September I, 2003. A native of New England, 

Dr. Landis was awarded her B.A. degree in Biology, with highest honors, from Wellesley 

College (1967), and her M.A. (1970) and Ph.D. (1973) degrees from Harvard University. After 

postdoctoral work at Harvard University studying transmitter plasticity in sympathetic neurons, 

she served on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School's Department of Neurobiology. 

In 1985, Dr. Landis joined the faculty of the Case Western Reserve University School 

(CWRU) of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, where she held many academic positions, including 

Professor and Director of the Center on Neurosciences, and Professor and Chairman of the 

Department of Neurosciences, a department that she was instrumental in establishing. Under her 

leadership, the CWRU Department of Neurosciences achieved worldwide acclaim and a 

reputation for excellence. In 1995, Dr. Landis was appointed as the NINDS Scientific Director, 

and was responsible for the direction and re-engineering of the Institute's intramural research 

program. Beginning in 1999, in conjunction with the leadership of the National Institute of 

Mental Health (NIMH), she spearheaded a movement to bring a sense of unity and common 

purpose to the numerous laboratories, in multiple NIH Institutes, that conduct leading edge 

clinical and basic neuroscience research, which increased research cooperation and collaboration, 

and resulted in the construction of the new NIH Neuroscience Research Center, Phase II of 

which will be completed this fall. Since early 2007, Dr. Landis has also been Chair of the NIH 

Stem Cell Task Force. 
25 

Throughout her research career, Dr. Landis has made many fundamental contributions to 

understanding the developmental interactions required for synapse formation, and has garnered 

many honors and awards. In 2002, she was elected President of the Society for Neuroscience, 

and served as President-elect until her appointment as the NINDS Director in September 2003. 

Dr. Landis is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the 

American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Institute of Medicine of the 

National Academy of Sciences. 

2 
26 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you very much. 

Now, I recognize Mr. McLoughlin for his testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF MR. MICHAEL MCLOUGHLIN, 

DEPUTY BUSINESS AREA EXECUTIVE, 

RESEARCH AND EXPLORATORY DEVELOPMENT 

AT APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY, 

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 

Mr. MCLOUGHLIN. Chairman Bucshon, Ranking Member Lipinski, Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity 

to come and talk to you today and to tell you about some of the 

progress that we have made in the area of brain-controlled prosthetics. 

This program was initiated in 2005 by DARPA to provide enhanced capabilities for soldiers who had experienced upper extremity amputations. We have also since included patient populations 

that are affected by spinal cord injury or other neurodegenerative 

conditions which prevent them from using their natural limbs. 

The objective of this program was to develop—is to develop a 

prosthetic limb that really has all the capability of our natural limb 

system. And so the challenge is to provide a level of functionality 

that begins to rival that of what was lost due to the amputation. 

In conducting this work, we have had to work with—had the fortune to work with multiple government agencies, including the 

NIH, who you just heard from, as well as a team of researchers 

across this country that have totaled over 30 different organizations that range from research groups doing basic research to very 

applied engineering and to work across those groups in order to 

solve this challenge. 

So in other words, basically four major challenges that we are 

addressing here, the first one was to develop a prosthetic limb, as 

you see here, and that Sergeant Deslauriers is wearing that can 

mimic the function of the natural arm. And we had to do that in 

a form factor that matches the natural limb, so tremendous set of 

engineering challenges here. 

The second challenge was to be able to control the limb. So we 

all do very complex things with our arms and we do it very naturally. We don’t even think about it. For a prosthetic user, these become very difficult, requiring tremendous concentration. And yet 

our brains do it every day without thinking. So the major focus of 

our programs has been looking at direct interfaces with the brain 

in order to control the limb system. 

The third area then is to provide sensation from the limb. So we 

can all utilize our limbs without looking at them. So I can reach 

out and grasp an object. I know where my arm is. I know what it 

is touching. A prosthetic user cannot do that. So what we are investigating is ways that we can feed information back to the brain 

to provide sensory perception. 

We have already demonstrated that for amputees, that stimulation of the residual sensory nerves can provide very vivid sensation 

to the level of the patient will actually say I feel my finger, okay. 

I am not—I don’t feel where you are touching it; I feel my finger 

that was lost. We are beginning now to explore how do we provide 
27 

that same level of capability to somebody that has a spinal cord injury that we can directly input that information into the brain. 

The last area is to provide a fundamental research capability 

that can live beyond just what we are doing in this program. It will 

provide a set of tools that can be used by researchers and developers of new medical devices, rehabilitative devices, in order to 

push the field of neuroscience forward. 

I would like to now show a quick video. 

[Video.] 

This is Tim Heans at the University of Pittsburgh, one of our research participants. He was the first person to drive this limb 

using just a brain computer interface. Tim was injured in a motorcycle accident and is paralyzed from the neck down, and he is controlling his arm strictly by thinking about where he wants it to go. 

And so this is after about actually just about a day of working with 

the arm. And here you see him reaching out to one of the members 

of the research team, and when his girlfriend saw this, she said I 

want to try this. And so she got up and for the first time since his 

injury, Tim was able to actually reach out and physically interact 

with another human being. And this was a tremendous impact to 

Tim and to his girlfriend. And Tim, when you hear him talk, will 

actually say I will reach my arm out to touch her. So it gives you 

a sense of the meaning to these patients. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McLoughlin follows:] 
28 

Statement to the Subcommittee on Research and Technology 

Mr. Mike McLoughlin, Deputy Business Area Executive 

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory 

July 31, 2013 

Chairman Bucshon, Congressman Lipinski, and Members of the Subcommittee. 

Thank you for inviting me to provide my views on the revolution in prosthetics. I 

will provide you my opinions and a short demonstration of what technology can 

provide for those who have lost a limb. The opinions stated are my own and do not 

necessarily reflect those of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory 

or the Department of Defense. 

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency initiated the Revolutionizing 

Prosthetics program in 2005 to provide expanded prosthetic options for Warriors 

who experienced traumatic upper-extremity amputations during contingency 

operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. After APL was awarded its contract to support 

the Revolutionizing Prosthetics program in 2006, we learned that many upper 

extremity amputees chose to either wear a body-powered split-hook or no 

prosthesis at all. The split-hook technology, which has not changed much since it 

was patented in 1912, and the other prosthetic arm components available in 2006, 

offered very little natural arm and hand function. Our task at APL was to develop a 

neurally-integrated yet modular anthropomorphic arm system with near-natural 

control. Today, I am happy to report we have met that challenge and have prototype 

systems that are providing great hope to people with arm amputations and to those 

that have lost the ability to control their limbs due to spinal cord injury, stroke, or 

neuro-degenerative diseases. 

In addition to support from DARPA, we have been fortunate to collaborate with 

several government agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, Walter 

Reed National Military Medical Center, Uniformed Services University of the Health 

Sciences, Veterans Health Administration, US Army Medical Research and Materiel 
29 

Command and the Food and Drug Administration. This collaboration has been 

integral to the success of the dedicated team led by the Johns Hopkins University 

Applied Physics Laboratory and comprised of researchers from the Johns Hopkins 

University, the California Institute of Technology, the University of Southern 

California, Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, the University of 

Pittsburgh, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the University of Chicago, 

Northwestern University, Hunter Defense Technologies, Blackrock Microsystems, 

and the University of Utah. 

Our team strove to accomplish four major goals. First, we developed a prosthetic 

arm that was able to mimic the natural arm. The Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) is 

capable of articulating 26 joints, enabling it to do almost anything the natural arm 

can do. Unlike most current prostheses, the MPL is a completely integrated system 

that can be separated into three modules, full-shoulder, humeral or radial 

configuration; each including the wrist joint and hand. The MPL can be easily 

adapted for use wi~h conventional body attachments. Many users have stated that 

the natural motion of the MPL is an extremely important aspect of the MPL resulting 

in a feeling of embodiment. 

Our second objective was to provide a means for the user to naturally control the 

arm. To attain this level of control, the APL team initially explored peripheral nerve 

control options and showed that interfacing with muscles and nerves in the residual 

arm of research participants with an amputation allows them to achieve remarkable 

functional improvements with prostheses. Since 2010, we have focused on direct 

brain interfaces that have demonstrated amazing control capabilities for our 

research participants with tetraplegia. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies 

show that even years after an amputation or onset of paralysis, the areas of the 

cortex associated with motor control are still activated by the thought of moving a 

lost limb. The team's challenge was to access and interpret these brain signals in a 

way that would enable the research participant to move the MPL as they would 

move their natural arm. 
30 

Third, we are seeking to restore natural sensation via sensors on the prosthetic 

limb. The ability to perceive physical interactions with objects" and sense the 

position of our natural limb without seeing it allows us to walk into a dark room and 

not fall or to reach into a handbag and grasp an object without seeing it. Just like the 

brain remembers how to move a lost limb, research suggests the areas of the brain 

involved in perceiving sensation are still active and capable of perceiving sensation. 

While much less is known about generating sensory perception, we do know that 

stimulation of sensory nerves years after an amputation can produce vivid 

sensations that are associated with the missing limb. Rehabilitative surgeries, such 

as Targeted Muscle Reinnervation (TMR), have provided the ability to stimulate 

peripheral nerves in residual limbs based on inputs from the MPL hand sensors; 

amputees have stated they can feel sensations in their phantom fingers as a result of 

these stimulations. In addition, research participants have stated they experience 

great relief from phantom limb pain after their TMR surgeries. With over 100 

embedded sensors in the MPL, we have only begun to explore the possibilities of 

restoring lost perception and the sense of touch. 

The final goal was to create a foundation of achievements that could be leveraged 

into future efforts to advance the capabilities of neuroprosthetics for the benefit of 

people with unique rehabilitation and restoration needs. This required a systems 

approach to integrating advances across multiple disciplines including: 

neuroscience, neurosurgery, biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, and 

mechanical engineering. It was through the systematic integration of all these 

advances that we were able to translate neuroprosthetic technologies into practical 

applications that met the Revolutionizing Prosthetics program goal of functional 

restoration. 

During the course of the Revolutionizing Prosthetics program, we have made 

significant advances and learned important lessons. We developed advanced 

algorithms that can decode a paralyzed person's intent to move their arm and hand 

from their neural brain Signals. As a result, research participants have the ability to 
31 

move the MPL in a very intuitive way, often stating that they are just thinking about 

moving their own arm or simply thinking about manipulation of a target object. 

This control extends to the ability to form mUltiple grasps, an achievement that 

realizes the goal of dexterous prosthetic arm and hand control. Our TMR efforts 

have provided neurosurgery insights that include the benefit of preserving the 

nerves in the residual limb to provide the possibility of using signals from those 

nerves to control prostheses and provide sensory feedback to the user. These new 

surgical approaches could eliminate the need for secondary surgeries to address 

phantom pain. Another important advance was the development of miniature 

motors. Customized motors in the joints of the MPL allow for near-natural 

movements and deliver the high torque required for human-like strength in a small 

lightweight package. 

In addition to advancing these engineering and clinical capabilities, APL created a 

virtual reality version of the MPL for use when a physical limb system is not 

available. The Virtual Integration Environment (VIE) is completely interchangeable 

with the MPL, providing the research community with a low cost means of testing 

brain computer interfaces. The VIE is being used to test novel neural interface 

methods, study phantom limb pain, and serves as a portable training system. We 

have already provided the VIE to multiple research groups at universities across the 

United States at no cost. By extending this open platform approach we can stimulate 

other research teams and foster increased interdisciplinary collaboration. 

It is my experience that the technologies developed under the DARPA 

Revolutionizing Prosthetics program have had a profound positive impact on the 

research participants. Whether due to amputation or a spinal cord injury, users of 

the MPL system have had very positive reactions to being able to move a limb for 

the first time since their injury or illness. We have seen individuals with limb loss -

often years after their injury - learn to move the prosthetic arm in minutes. Johnny 

Matheny, who lost his arm to cancer, underwent TMR surgery and tells of being able 

to feel his hand again and about relief from phantom limb pain. Air Force Master 
32 

Sergeant Joe Deslauriers, lost both legs and his left arm in Afghanistan, and has 

demonstrated how advanced control algorithms enhanced his ability to use a 

prosthetic arm. Research participants with paralysis have been able to physically 

interact with others via the MPL driven by their brain signals. For the first time in 

the seven years since his accident, Tim Hemmes, an individual with tetraplegia, was 

able to hold his girlfriend's hand using the MPL. Similarly, Jan Scheurmann was able 

to feed herself without assistance for the first time in over ten years using the MPL. 

These, and other research participants, have become integral members of the team; 

and their bravery and dedication is an inspiration to the rest ofthe research team. 

While the team has accomplished much since 2006, many opportunities lie ahead of 

us to provide greater independence and quality ofHfe to people with disabilities and 

the elderly. By using advanced algorithms to control robotic devices, I believe we 

can significantly reduce cognitive burden for those using assistive devices to 

accomplish everyday tasks. I believe it is essential to continue efforts to develop 

neuroprosthetic devices that will allow for natural control of replacement limbs. 

While today we are focused on research participants with amputations and 

paralysis, the insights we are gaining promise to help the elderly and those that 

suffer from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), stroke, multiple sclerosis, and 

traumatic brain injury. Finally, I feel it is important for these efforts to lead to the 

development of a clinical standard of care that is viable for transition to the home 

and workplace, enabling individuals with disability to lead more productive and 

independent lives. 

Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to inform Congress on the 

practical benefits that are coming out of the long-term Federally-funded research on 

advanced prosthetics and related fields, and I look forward to answering your 

questions. 
33 

Michael P. McLoughlin 

Deputy Business Arell Executive, Researcll IIl/{i Exploratory Development 

EXPERIENCE 

Mike McLoughlin is the Deputy Business Area Executive (DBAE) for the Johns Hopkins University Applied 

Physics Laboratory (JHU/ APL) Research lind Kr:plorlltory Developmellt Busilless Area. He leads worldclass teams with a broad range of disciplines to develop, integrate, and transition innovative systems using 

advanced biomedical technologies to meet the needs of the military. In 2009. Mike assumed leadership 

responsibilities for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Revolutionizing Prosthetics 

Program (RP) at JHUlAPL and is leading efforts to transition use of neutrally integrated RP technologies to 

human subjects. His technical experience includes development of rapidly emerging technologies and sensor 

systems, technology transfer, program management, signal processing, applied engineering and technology 

development, aerosol science research, and microbiological laboratory analysis. 

Mike began his career at APL in 1985, where he has held progressively responsible line and program 

management positions (Deputy BAE, Branch Manager, Program Manager, and Systems Engineer). During his 

tenure at APL, he has had significant roles in the Biomedicine and Homeland Protection Business areas; 

established and managed new programs, and built the technical organizations required to support these fast 

growing enterprises. In addition, Mike teaches both Program Management and Systems Engineering at the 

Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering. 

EDUCATION 

Bachelor of Electrical Engineering, University of Delaware, 1983 

Master of Electrical Engineering, University of Delaware, 1984 
34 

Mr. MCLOUGHLIN. I am very fortunate today to have with me 

Master Sergeant Deslauriers, who has been one of our research 

participants, and I would like to give him a moment to tell you 

about his experiences working with the arm. 

TESTIMONY OF U.S. AIR FORCE MASTER SERGEANT 

JOSEPH DESLAURIERS JR. 

Sergeant DESLAURIERS. Again, Chairman, I would like to echo 

my thanks for the opportunity to speak with the panel today. 

It has been about a year since I have been working with the limb 

after my injury on September 23, 2011. When you lose three limbs 

at once, it is very difficult to figure out how you are going to interact with the world around you now. I was—I am a husband, I am 

a father. How am I going to hold my child? How am I going to 

interact? And when the opportunity came up to work with the gentleman from Johns Hopkins University, I kind of jumped at the 

chance to aid in the research of the arm, and it was an honor for 

me to help with the advancement of prosthetics for upper limbs. 

Working with the arm, it has been amazing because the limbs 

that we have now for upper extremities are not very versatile. They 

don’t have many degrees of movement. I will get a wrist turn and 

maybe a pinch, but with this, I can open my hand. I can rotate my 

wrist. I can grab something. And it is amazing to have something 

that you can manipulate with your residual limb and eventually 

with your brain. It gives you that confidence and that independence to get back into the work field and continue to serve your 

country in whatever manner be so. Thank you. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you very much. And thank you again 

for your service to your country. It is very much appreciated. 

I now recognize Professor Raichle for five minutes to present his 

testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. MARCUS RAICHLE, 

PROFESSOR OF RADIOLOGY, NEUROLOGY, 

NEUROBIOLOGY AND BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING, 

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 

Dr. RAICHLE. Chairman Bucshon, Ranking Member Lipinski, and 

Members of the Committee, thank you so much for inviting me to 

participate in this hearing to discuss future prospects for neuroscience research. 

Having been involved in neuroscience research for the past 45 

years, and must say that I am—my life has been—I have been very 

fortunate to experience an absolute revolution in the way we think 

about and look at the human brain. And this of course came about 

in the 1970s when x-ray computed tomography, CT, the CAT scan 

was introduced. It not only changed the world of neurology in 

which I work, but also it promoted thinking along the lines of other 

ways in which to obtain images of organs of the body and particularly the human brain. 

The first to appear on the scene was positron emission tomography or the PET scan which was invented in our laboratory in the 

early 1970s and followed thereafter by the development of magnetic 

resonance imaging. And both of those techniques have matured tre-
35 

mendously over the intervening years and are providing us with 

spectacular information on the human brain and health and disease across the lifespan from premature infants to the end of life, 

valuable insights that were unanticipated when I got into this business. 

This of course is—involve the efforts of a wide range of highly 

skilled technical people in areas of physics and engineering and 

chemistry and computer science. But to me one of the great advances in all of this was creating the interface of this technology 

to the study of the human brain. And therein it called upon and 

benefited enormously from an understanding of how to describe 

human behavior. This is no mean task and it involved people at the 

outset beginning to study issues of language and linguistics and 

cognitive psychology and it was instrumental in the development of 

the field of cognitive neuroscience, which I think is a marvelous 

demonstration of integration of talent across multiple levels that is 

necessary if you are going to make any progress in this endeavor. 

Much of the imaging that one sees in the now—something on the 

order of 17,000 papers in the world literature on fMRI and another 

14,000 involving PET, what one sees is often traditionally a way 

of looking at the brain, of asking you to do something and comparing it to you are not doing it and seeing what lights up. And 

so you can see this in scientific journals in Newsweek and Time 

magazine and probably on TV on occasion. 

And this dominated the story for quite some period of time and 

is still an important part of this, but there came a realization along 

the way that these changes that we observe, that which is occurring in my brain as I talk to you and in your brain as you listen 

to me, are small changes in the background of enormous activity. 

Your brain on average is about two percent of your body weight 

and yet it consumes 20 percent of the body’s energy budget. So if 

you are just being a neural economist, you would say we better find 

out about what this is all about. 

And how this has evolved has been quite remarkable in the sense 

that this ongoing activity is noisy, and for a long time we just 

threw it away. Scientists like to get rid of noise in their data. And 

then there came the realization that this noise is deeply interesting, and from it, we can determine remarkable insights in terms 

of how the brain is organized in carrying on its activity regardless 

of whether you are sitting here in this room sleeping, driving your 

car, or whatever. 

So this has been a paradigm shift in the way we operate and 

think about this, this whole idea of intrinsic activity, and its importance is, I think, immense in terms of understanding the diseases 

of the nervous system because if you are going to do that, you are 

going to have to understand what the nervous system is actually 

doing and what it is devoting its efforts to. 

Now, what—much of what I have said and which I think about 

of course is of great interest to neuroscientists writ large, but, as 

was posed to me in the questions for this committee, what about 

the man in the street, the person that is concerned about a disability, a history of Alzheimer’s and their family? And it is incredibly prevalent in mine. And what I can say is that from this work 
36 

what has emerged is the ability to predict the onset of disease because what can’t be replaced must be prevented. 

So in the case of Alzheimer’s, the ability to anticipate the onset 

of the disease by many years using imaging materials which, if I 

had had more time, I would love to show you, but I think the issue 

of using these biomarkers of disease to anticipate the onset of 

symptoms by years allows us to think creatively about preventing 

the disease before it take its toll. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Raichle follows:] 
37 

TESTIMONY 

of 

Marcus E. Raichle, M.D. 

Washington University School of Medicine 

St Louis, Missouri 

to the 

Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

Subcommittee on Research and Technology 

U.S. House of Representatives 

31 July 2013 

Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity 

to provide testimony on the frontiers and challenges of human brain research, including its 

potential and limitations in curing brain diseases. My name is Marcus Raichle. I am a 

neurologist and the director of the Neuroimaging Laboratories in the Mallinckrodt Institute of 

Radiology at Washington University in St Louis where I am Professor of Radiology, Neurology, 

Neurobiology, Psychology and Biomedical Engineering. I am a member of the National 

Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Scienees 

and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

Human brain research has advanced tremendously over the past 40 years beginning with the 

introduetion of X -ray computed tomography or CT in 1973 by Godfrey Hounsfield, an English 

electrical engineer working at EMI, Ltd. CT obtains its information by passing X-ray beams 

through the brain at many different angles to measure its density. CT not only revolutionized the 

way we look at the brain by providing the first true 3D brain images in living subjects but also 

stimulated the development of two other imaging techniques that together have provided 

unprecedented images of the anatomy and function of the human brain in health and disease. 

The first of these was positron emission tomography or PET which allows us to measure brain 

function in terms of its chemistry, circulation (i.e., blood flow) and metabolism using unique, 

cyelotron-produced radioisotopes. The other technique, introduced shortly after PET, is magnetic 

resonance imaging or MRI which provides superb anatomical images of the brain as well as 

measurement of its ongoing function. MRI obtains its information by measuring the properties of 

atoms in a strong magnetie field. The technology behind each of these techniques is most 

remarkable and continues to evolve particularly in the case of PET and MRI. 

While technological developments involving physicists, engineers, chemists and computer 

scientists have been critical to the development of PET and MRI for human brain research the 

success achieved in using these techniques to image the human brain in health and disease has 

required extremely important input from elinical and basic neuroscientists as well as behavioral 

scientists schooled in techniques required to quantitatively measure human behaviors. A prime 

example of the collaborative nature of this work was the first major study oflanguage 

organization in the normal human brain obtained with PET in 1988. This was the culmination of 

1 
38 

over 15 years of work by a multidisciplinary team of investigators whose talents ranged from 

computer science and image processing to linguistics and cognitive psychology. 

Growth in functional imaging research of the human brain has been exceptional. Since its 

introduction in 1993, functional MRl or fMRl as it is best known has accounted for over 17,500 

in the world's scientific literature along with an additional 14,000 papers using PET. The thirst 

for information about the brain, particularly the human brain, is universal and imaging for better 

or worse has been used by many as a medium for the discussion. 

Functional brain imaging has followed a long tradition in neuroscience: studying neuronal 

rcsponses to stimuli and during task performance. The resulting images, which now appear in 

thousands of scientific papers as well as in the popular press, routinely show areas of the brain 

which 'light up' as tasks are performed. These images represent the difference between 

performing a task and/or viewing a stimulus, and a control eondition, which eould be as simple 

as lying quietly in a scauner with your eyes closed. While the changes that are observed in these 

difference images have been immensely valuable in showing us the complex network of brain 

areas involved in particular tasks they obscure the fact that most of the activity of the human 

brain is ongoing at all times regardless of what one is doing. This has come to be known as the 

brain's intrinsic activity. How do we know this? 

This discovery of the importance of the brain's intrinsic activity arose from a consideration of 

the cost of brain function. As adults we invest 20% of our body's energy budget in brain 

function, an organ that represents only 2% of our body weight. This means that the cost of brain 

function is 10 times that expected on the basis of its weight. When comparisons were made 

between this enormous ongoing cost of brain function and the additional cost of task 

performance it was realized that the latter was a trivial addition, usually just a few percent locally 

and not detectable when looking at the overall cost. From this work it became apparent that if 

we were to understand normal brain function in health and disease it will be critical to increase 

our understanding what the brain was really doing as represented by its intrinsic or ongoing 

activity. 

fMRl has been invaluable in opening the door to an understanding of the brain's intrinsic 

activity. When one examines the brain with fMRI what is striking, but for a long time ignored, 

was the fact that the images contained a great deal of 'noise' (Le., seemingly random signal 

changes). What scientists often do in the presence of noise in their data is to average across 

many data points thereby eliminating the noise. For many years this is exactly what was done 

with fMRl data until it was realized that this 'noise' contained a remarkable amount of 

information about the ongoing organization of the brain. In fact, this discovery has been so 

remarkable as to cause a paradigm shift in the way in which functional brain imaging is used to 

study the human brain. So-called 'resting state' studies where subjects simply lie quietly in an 

MRl scauner with their eyes closed have become a standard component of imaging research. It 

is not only important in revealing the large scale organization of the human brain but also a 

valuable tool in studying the effect of disease where task performance can sometimes be difficult 

if not impossible for patients. 

Human brain imaging as it is now being performed with MRl and PET is providing an 

increasingly detailed understanding of the human brain: how its component parts are organized 

2 
39 

into a functioning system, how they develop and change with age, how the brain is wired 

together, how the metabolism of the brain varies with the needs of its component parts and how 

all of these aspects of the organization and function of the brain are affected by disease. The 

pursuit of this broad agenda of research is exemplified by the recently initiated, NIH sponsored 

Human Connectome Project. 

One of the great challenges for neuroscience is now making sense of this enormous influx of new 

data. Lurking beneath the surface of the fascinating new images of the human brain is the need 

to make sense of the brain signals that generate these images. How do changes in brain 

circulation and metabolism, the basis of our imaging signals, relate to changes in brain electrical 

activity? Traditionally, brain electrical activity, particularly the spiking activity of neurons, has 

been considered the primary signal of brain activity. It is now clear that the spiking activity 

alone is insufficient to understand brain function. Other electrical activity occurring in the 

membranes of brain cells, both neurons and supporting cells, contribute to brain function and 

brain imaging signals. Furthermore, the complex metabolic machinery within brain cells of all 

types is setting the stage for functional brain activity that is being programmed at very basic 

levels by the genes expressed within brain regions and with specific cells types and their 

processes. We must, therefore, invigorate a dialogue among scientists across levels of analysis 

from cell biology, genetics and neurophysiology to human brain imaging. This will challenge the 

comfort level of many but is necessary if we are to make progress. Schooling young 

investigators to think broadly and in new ways will be essential to progress. New tools will, of 

course, aid in this endeavor just as CT, PET and MRI created a revolution in the way we view 

the human brain. But tools alone, in my estimation are not sufficient if not aecompanied by an 

integrated sense of how we should approach our understanding of brain function in health and 

disease. 

Much of what I have said relates to how neuroscientists are thinking about brain function but 

what about the average American who has or worries about someone aillicted by a brain-related 

disease? In providing an answcr to this question it is appropriate to say that anticipating brain 

disease is critical. No better example exists thim in the case of Alzhcimer's disease where 

biomarkers derived from imaging will playa critical role in understanding the disease years in 

advance of symptoms and evaluating therapies before symptoms appear and irrevocable damage 

has occurred. When damage has occurred, such as in stroke, understanding why some recover 

and other do not, an active area of imaging research, will lay a much better foundation for 

rational approaches to rehabilitation. Finally, in diseases such as depression and Parkinson's 

disease imaging has provided critical information about the circuits involved and has allowed 

neurosurgeons to place stimulating electrodes in the brain that greatly reduce otherwisc 

intractable symptoms much as cardiac pacemakers aid in correcting abnormal heart function. 

Finally, it must be said that fascination with how the brain works captures the imagination of 

scientists and lay persons alike and in so doing enriches discussions of how we behave has 

human beings. 

Thank you for your attention. 

3 
40 

Marcus E. Raichle, a neurologist, is a Professor of Radiology, Neurology, 

Neurobiology and Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St Louis. He 

is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, The Institute of Medicine and the 

American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the American Association 

for the Advancement of Science. 

He and his colleagues have made outstanding contributions to the study of human 

brain function through the development and use of positron emission tomography 

(PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Their landmark study 

(Nature, 1988) described the first integrated strategy for the design, execution and 

interpretation of functional brain images. It represented 17 years of work developing 

the components of this strategy (e.g., rapid, repeat measurements of blood flow with 

PET; stereotaxic localization; imaging averaging; and, a cognitive subtraction 

strategy). 

Another seminal study led to the discovery that blood flow and glucose utilization 

change more than oxygen consumption in the active brain (Science, 1988) causing 

tissue oxygen to vary with brain activity. This discovery provided the physiological 

basis for subsequent development fMRI and caused researchers to reconsider the 

dogma that brain uses oxidative phosphorylation exclusively to fuel its functional 

activities. 

Finally seeking to explain task-induced activity decreases in functional brain images 

they employed an innovative strategy to define a physiological baseline (PNAS, 2001; 

Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2001). This has led to the concept of a default mode of 

brain function and invigorated studies of intrinsic functional activity, an issue largely 

dormant for more than a century. An important facet of this work was the discovery 

of a unique fronto-parietal network in the brain that has come to be known as 

the default network. This network is now the focus of work on brain function in health 

and disease worldwide. Of particular interest is the fact that this newly-discovered 

network is a primary target of Alzheimer's disease. 

In summary, the Raichle group has consistently led in defining the frontiers of 

cognitive neuroscience through the development and use of functional brain imaging 

techniques. 
41 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you very much. 

I now recognize Professor—Dr. Robinson for five minutes to 

present his testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. GENE ROBINSON, 

DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR GENOMIC BIOLOGY, 

SWANLUND CHAIR, CENTER FOR ADVANCED STUDY 

PROFESSOR IN ENTOMOLOGY AND NEUROSCIENCE, 

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 

Dr. ROBINSON. Good morning, Chairman Bucshon, Ranking 

Member Lipinski, and Members of the Subcommittee. I would also 

like to thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony today on 

the frontiers in human brain research and the importance of an 

interdisciplinary and interagency approach to neuroscience. 

Today, I will use an example from my laboratory’s research on 

honeybees to address the importance of basic research on brain and 

behavior. It is necessary to understand how healthy brains work in 

order to find treatments for the many devastating brain disorders 

that afflict our society. This involves basic research on animal models, the type of science that is championed by the National Science 

Foundation. From this work, we can generate hypotheses for what 

changes occur in a dysfunctional system and then test possible 

interventions for these disorders. 

If I may have the first image, please? 

[Slide.] 

Honeybees are famous for their highly structured division of 

labor. Some bees take care of the baby bees while others forage 

outside for nectar and pollen. In addition to this highly structured 

organization, there is also a great deal of flexibility. Bees can 

switch between jobs according to the needs of their colony. This 

raises the question how can a brain that is the size of a grass seed 

produce such complex behavior? What does this say about our 

brains? 

To address this question, we developed a couple of new research 

tools. One is a new system of tracking bees with radiofrequency ID 

tags developed in my laboratory by retired businessman and current citizen scientist Paul Tenczar to help us study behavioral activity. 

The second tool is a device to study brain activity that comes 

from genomics, which is a new science that studies the assemblage 

of all of our genes. We suspected that switching from one job to another might involve reprogramming the bees’ brains for the new 

job. This led us to interdisciplinary research from behavior to 

genomics with funding from NIH and USDA to sequence the bee 

genome. We were surprised to find that the way this reprogramming occurs is that the genome actually is very sensitive to the environment and in a very dynamic way. 

When a bee responds to events in the hive, thousands of genes 

in the brain change their activity and then the behavior changes. 

It is as if the genes are blinking on and off like Christmas lights, 

changing the amount of the brain’s proteins that they make. It 

turns out that in addition to bees, other species, including birds, 

fish, mice, and humans also have dynamic genomes in their brain. 
42 

Last year, I co-chaired a special meeting of the National Academy of Sciences and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research 

to explore the human health implications of this discovery of the 

dynamic genome. The conference imagined a new interdisciplinary 

collaboration among psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, 

neuroscientists, and geneticists to understand how the experiences 

of childhood adversity affect the brain and predispose for certain 

types of brain disorders. The lesson here is that an insight from 

basic animal research is helping to address the critical question in 

human health. 

It will take the integration of a variety of types of research on 

both animals and humans to reach a complete answer, including 

research funded by the NSF Directorate for Biological Sciences and 

the NSF Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences. 

The BRAIN Initiative similarly needs to commit to an effective 

blend of basic and applied research to provide more opportunity for 

transformative discoveries. 

The bee story also illustrates that some animals are ideally suited for the pursuit of very specific questions, sometimes even better 

than the traditional workhorses of the laboratory, the fruit fly or 

the mouse. Neuroscientists actually have known this for a long 

time. The humble squid essentially launched the modern era of 

neuroscience because its nerve cells are so big that their activity 

could be studied even with the primitive techniques of the 1940s. 

The research undertaken as part of the BRAIN Initiative should 

likewise benefit from a broad research agenda of model animals 

and model behaviors. 

Understanding how the brain works represents a formidable 

challenge to our collective ingenuity and dedication. With this challenge comes great opportunity to increase our understanding of 

brain and behavior to improve our health and the functioning of 

our society. We must remember that basic science research is 

called basic not because it is simple but because it provides the 

foundation for innovation. 

Through the united and creative efforts of biologists, mathematicians, engineers, physicians, and other explorers of the brain, big 

brains or little brains, we must and we will find the answers that 

we need. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Robinson follows:] 
43 

TESTIMONY 

of 

Gene E. Robinson, Ph.D. 

Swanlund Chair of Entomology and Neuroscience 

Director of the Institute for Genomic Biology 

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

to the 

Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

Subcommittee on Research and Technology 

U.S. House of Representatives 

July 31, 2013 

Good morning, Chairman Bucshon, Ranking Member Lipinski, and members of the 

Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony today on the frontiers in 

human brain research and the importance of an interdisciplinary and interagency approach to 

neuroscience. My name is Gene E. Robinson and I am the Swanlund Chair of Entomology and 

Neuroscience and the Director of the Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois 

at Urbana-Champaign. I am a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and currently 

serve on the Advisory Council of the National Institute of Mental Health. 

Today I will address three topics: first, the importance of basic research on brain and behavior; 

second, the wisdom of studying a diverse set of animal models; and third, the power of 

interdisciplinary research, which is essential for building new tools to study the human brain. 

A few years ago, the National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored a workshop that I chaired to 

address the challenges of 21 st century biology. Our report, published in 2010 in BioScience, 

concluded that, "Addressing the challenges of 21 st century biology requires integrating 

approaches and results across different subdisciplines of biology ... as well as technologies, 

information, and approaches from other disciplines ... " This applies to many areas of biology, 

including neuroscience, and in particular, the recently announced Brain Initiative, that is, the 

Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative. The BRAIN 

Initiative needs to develop a broad and inclusive agenda that funds basic research on brain and 

behavior, both in humans and in a variety of animal species. 

Why is a broad approach necessary? What are the benefits of studying a wide array of species in 

our efforts to understand the human brain? One of the goals of the BRAIN Initiative is to 

understand how the brain produces human behavior, with all of its complexity and potential for 

disorder. 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. 
44 

It is necessary to understand how healthy brains work in order to cure the many devastating brain 

disorders that afflict our society. This involves basic research on animal models-the type of 

science championed by the NSF. The role of NSF in meeting societal challenges is to support 

basic research-research that examines how a healthy system functions and adds to our 

knowledge of how living things work. This knowledge makes it possible to generate hypotheses 

that describe what changes occur in a dysfunctional system, and to propose and test possible 

interventions for those disorders. The process is interconnected, interdisciplinary, and 

progressive. Let me give you one example from my own research to illustrate the benefits of 

integrating research on the brain with research on behavior in an interdisciplinary manner, as 

well as the synergy between basic science and its sometimes unexpected applications. 

I study social behavior, specifically how it arises in nature and what mechanisms govern it. I use 

honey bees to address these questions. The reason I use honey bees is that they live in one of the 

most complex societies on the planet, with tens of thousands of individuals involved in intricate 

forms of communication and division of labor. Intriguingly, they produce all this complex social 

behavior with a brain the size of a grass seed! How can such a tiny brain produce such complex 

behavior and what does this say about our own brains? 

One question my laboratory has addressed is how do bees know what job to perform in their 

hive. There are about a dozen different jobs that bees perform, including feeding the baby bees, 

foraging for nectar and pollen from flowers, and turning nectar into honey. Bees divide labor in a 

very organized fashion, with different groups specializing in the different jobs. But bees don't do 

these jobs like little robots; rather they adjust their behavior to the needs of the whole group. 

When a hive of bees loses some of its foragers, others will drop what they're doing and start to 

forage. Thanks to a new system of tracking bees with Radio Frequency ID tags developed in my 

laboratory by retired computer entrepreneur and current citizen scientist Paul Tenczar, we can 

now automatically detect these adaptive behavioral shifts, enabling us to more easily explore the 

underlying neurobiological questions. 

One intriguing aspect of job-switching in bees is that they do it without receiving commands 

from centralized control. Neither the queen nor any other individual directs the actions of the 

rank and file worker bees, but everyone in the beehive does what needs to be done. Each bee is 

able to synthesize information about the environment inside and outside the hive, along with 

internal cues about its physiological state, to appropriately direct its own behavior. We suspected 

that this might involve reprogramming the bee's brain to perform the different job, but we 

needed new tools to monitor brain activity. 

In the early 2000s, with the advent of more advanced genome sequencing technology, we pushed 

to sequence the honey bee genome, the assemblage of all the genes, in order to develop powerful 

new tools for brain analysis. Fortunately the NIH's National Human Genome Research Institute 

at the time was considering additional species for sequencing in order to better understand the 

human genome and the honey bee was selected because of its compelling social behavior. The 

United States Department of Agriculture also contributed to this effort because of the vital role 

bees play in pollinating our nation's food and fiber crops, contributing approximately $20B per 

year to our economy. 

2 
45 

With new tools in hand we obtained a grant from the NSF Frontiers of Science program, which 

was designed to promote interdisciplinary research. My laboratory performed a series of 

experiments that explored the relationship between job shifts in the beehive and changes in brain 

gene activity, which leads to changes in how much of the brain's proteins are produced. 

We found that the brain of the bee is indeed reprogrammed to perform a different job, but the 

way this reprogramming occurs was a big surprise. Not only does the genome provide a script 

for building and operating the brain; when it comes to behavior, the genome also improvises-it 

is sensitive to the environment and alters the activity of genes in a dynamic way. When a bee 

detects a decrease in the number of foragers in its hive, thousands of genes in its brain change 

their activity, and this causes the bee to start to forage. The bee's experience is embedded in its 

genome in the brain so that it can change its behavior appropriately. 

It tums out that bees are not the only ones with dynamic genomes in their brains. Birds, fish, 

mice, and other animals also have been found to exhibit dynamic brain genomes. In addition, as 

expected when a feature of biology is similar in many different organisms, humans also appear to 

exhibit the same dynamic brain genome. It is much more difficult to study this phenomenon in 

humans than in animals, and it likely never would have been done without animal discoveries 

paving the way. 

Last year I co-chaired a special meeting of the National Academy of Sciences and the Canadian 

Institute for Advanced Research to explore the human health implications of this discovery. 

Social scientists have carefully documented the developmental and health consequences of early 

exposures to adversity, and now they badly want to know how the experiences of childhood 

adversity get "under the skin," into the body's systems that influence vulnerability and resilience. 

The conference imagined a new "science of adversity," with a new partnership among 

psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, neuroscientists and geneticists. 

The question of biological embedding-how social influences are perceived, processed, and 

ultimately transformed into signals inside brain cells--is one of the most important questions in 

neuroscience, with profound health and public policy implications. It is clear that early adversity 

changes behavior, learning capacities, and social functioning, but how this happens -how the 

brain develops differently under adversity--can only be studied in animals in a basic research 

framework. Our research on honey bees helped initiate this line of research, but it will take the 

integration of this and many other research efforts to reach a complete answer, including 

research on animals funded by the NSF Directorate for Biological Sciences and research on 

humans funded by the NSF Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences. 

My laboratory's research on honey bees shows the value of combining the power of new 

technology with knowledge derived from basic research on both brain and behavior. The BRAIN 

Initiative similarly needs to commit to an effective blend of basic and applied research, to 

increase the opportunity for transformative discoveries. The initiative will likewise benefit from 

the selection of experimental models and behaviors that provide illuminating contexts in which 

to apply them. However, neuroscientists are increasingly relying on the study of just a few 

species to understand behavior and brain function. These classic model organisms, including the 

fruit fly and mouse, do offer experimental advantages. They are easy to breed in the laboratory 

3 
46 

and they are easy to use for many types of genetic experiments to learn the functions of different 

genes. As attractive as these advantages are, the use of only a few model organisms is 

unnecessarily limiting. Many aspects of biology are the same across species, but each species has 

unique characteristics as well; to distinguish between these two possibilities, multiple species 

must be studied and compared. The unique features of some organisms offer research 

opportunities that more traditional study organisms do not, often because they represent an 

extreme of a biological property of interest. Studies that make strategic use of well-chosen, and 

diverse, animals models can have tremendous impact on a field. Neuroscientists have long 

known this-the lowly squid essentially launched the modem era of neuroscience because its 

nerve cells are so big that their activity could be studied even with the primitive techniques of the 

late 1940s. Because an increasing number of species have had their genomes sequenced over the 

past few years, there are more choices than ever before for high-powered molecular analyses of 

the brain. 

Our 21 st century biology report also concluded that, "biologists need devices to continuously 

record the activity of cellular components as they interact naturally in living cells." This 

recommendation has been embraced by the BRAIN Initiative, and future technological 

innovation will be central to uncovering the workings of the human brain. Here, again, NSF's 

contributions will be vital because of its tradition of encouraging and facilitating interdisciplinary 

approaches to integrate engineering, computer science, physics and chemistry. The new tools to 

record brain activity are most easily developed by individuals who combine knowledge of 

physics or math, or expertise in the applied skills of computer science or engineering, with 

understanding and appreciation of the challenges and technological needs of biology. The 

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign provides an excellent example of an environment 

that fosters this type of interdisciplinary work. Modem research institutes such as the Institute for 

Genomic Biology and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology bring 

together top engineers and biologists in a spirit of open communication and collaboration. This 

atmosphere has led to remarkable innovations. For example, an NSF-sponsored partnership 

between the University of Illinois and the Cray Corporation built Blue Waters, one of the world's 

most powerful supercomputers, the computational capacity of which will vastly improve our 

ability to model the most complex biological systems, including the human brain. 

Understanding how the brain works represents a formidable challenge to our collective ingenuity 

and dedication. It is important that we consider carefully how to best direct our efforts and 

resources to meet this challenge, united by our common interest in improving the health and 

structure of our society. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today with you and the committee 

to discuss this important topic. We must remember that basic science research is called "basic" 

not because it is simple, but because it provides the foundation for innovation. I am confident 

that this initiative will bring great improvements to our understanding of the human body, the 

brain, and our health by promoting the continuation of impressive work in our university 

research centers and government laboratories, in partnerships with private organizations, and 

enabled by funding from government agencies. Through the united effort of biologists and 

mathematicians, engineers, physicians, and other explorers of the brain, both big brains and little 

brains, we must -and we will-- find the answers we need. 

4 
47 

Gene E. Robinson obtained his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1986 and joined the faculty 

of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989. He holds a University Swanlund 

Chair and is also the director of the Institute for Genomic Biology and director of the Bee 

Research Facility. He served as director of the Neuroscience Program from 2001-2011, 

leader of the Neural and Behavioral Plasticity Theme at the Institute for Genomic Biology 

from 2004-2011, and interim director from 2011-2012. He is the author or co-author of 

over 250 publications, including 26 published in Science or Nature; pioneered the 

application of genomics to the study of social behavior, led the effort to gain approval from 

the National Institutes of Health for sequencing the honey bee genome, and heads the 

Honey Bee Genome Sequencing Consortium. Robinson serves on the National Institute of 

Mental Health Advisory Council and has past and current appointments on scientific 

advisory boards for companies with significant interests in genomics. Dr. Robinson's honors 

include: University Scholar and member of the Center of Advanced Study at the University 

of Illinois; Burroughs Wel\come Innovation Award in Functional Genomics; Founders 

Memorial Award from the Entomological Society of America; Fulbright Senior Research 

Fellowship; Guggenheim Fellowship; NIH Pioneer Award; Fellow, Animal Behavior Society; 

Fellow, Entomological Society of America, Fellow, American Academy of Arts & Sciences; 

and member of the US National Academy of Sciences. 
48 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you very much. 

And thank you all for your testimony. It is fascinating. I am really going to be interested in seeing where the questions lead us 

today. It is going to be a fascinating discussion. 

I want to remind mebers of the committee that the rules limit 

questioning to five minutes. And at this point I will recognize myself for five minutes. 

There was a study, Dr. Raichle, in National Geographic about 

caffeine. I don’t know if you saw that one about people waking up 

in the morning just as a sideline and studying the brain flow—colored brain flow of people that are decaffeinated and people that 

have caffeine, and it is true you do need your cup of coffee in the 

morning if you are chronically a caffeine user. It showed that. 

Dr. RAICHLE. Fortunately, I had mine. 

Chairman BUCSHON. There you go. It was a fascinating, fascinating study. 

Along the similar line, you mentioned that if we could image diseases earlier in lives, we may predict what might be the future. I 

mean we have diseases like Huntington’s chorea, for example, and 

we do know genetically what will happen. Has that disease or any 

other like that been helpful? And anyone else that wants to comment can also. Dr. Raichle? I mean is there—is that what you are 

talking about? 

Dr. RAICHLE. Not Huntington’s in particular. The one that stands 

out in my mind, of course, is Alzheimer’s because of the enormous 

effort to look at the changes early on realizing that they do occur 

15, 20 years before the onset of symptoms. 

In a slide that I was hoping to show you but didn’t the project 

known as the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer’s Network, which is 

studying these rare genetic variations that guarantee you will get 

Alzheimer’s disease, they are rare but they enormously informative, you can predict in an individual when they are going to get 

the symptoms. So studying them 15, 20, 25 years beforehand, you 

can begin to categorize the changes in—of the pathology like 

amyloid plaques and the changes in metabolism, the brain atrophy 

that precede the onset of symptoms by many years. 

This opens up an opportunity to understand how the disease 

evolves but it also opens up the opportunity of slowing it down or 

preventing it. And in the case of Alzheimer’s, simply slowing it 

down has an enormous benefit to family and to the individual and 

to the economic cost of that terrible disease. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Do you have anything to add to that, Dr. 

Landis? 

Dr. LANDIS. In Huntington’s disease, there are longitudinal studies that have been tracking people who are known to be gene-positive, and looking both at imaging parameters and psychosocial parameters, and we now have the same kind of understanding that 

is involved in Alzheimer’s. Before the motor symptoms appear, it 

is very clear that there is quite a long prodromal period. And just 

like for Alzheimer’s, were there neuro-protective therapies that had 

been identified, you could in fact treat patients before there is 

enough destruction of neurons to actually see motor symptoms. 

Similar studies are underway for Parkinson’s disease. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you. 
49 

Mr. McLoughlin, your team is composed of engineers, medical 

doctors, surgeons, and scientists working closely together. These 

are individuals that would not normally work together. What elements are required for successful interdisciplinary approach, I 

mean, in your view? 

Mr. MCLOUGHLIN. Okay. I think there is basically four elements 

that are present here that are all very important. First of all, we 

are able to leverage decades-long basic research in the brain. And 

so we have research members on our team that have been supported by NIH and others that have spent years understanding 

how to take a set of neural patterns in the brain and understand 

what the intent was, how to form the hand. And that was a obviously very important piece of this. 

The second component of this was advances and technology outside the field of neuroscience. So, for example, in the back of the 

Joe’s hand here is a small processor which is essentially the same 

thing that most of you have in your smartphones right now. So it 

allows us to do all the very complex analysis in that very small 

package. So it can be self-contained, portable, lightweight. 

The third component then was we—DARPA recognized that 

there was a need, so I am old enough to remember Neil Armstrong 

walking on the moon and that program was driven by a singular 

objective, which is put a man on the moon and return him safely. 

And this project has a similar objective that unifies the team—a 

very diverse team. So we have basic researchers through very applied engineers that are all very much focused on the fact of developing a prosthetic arm that works like our natural arm. And it is— 

and I can state that very concisely, very simply. In everything we 

do on the program is towards that objective and it doesn’t matter 

where—you know, if you are working in a basic laboratory or you 

are doing CAT–CAM designs of mechanical devices somewhere. 

The fourth very critical element is the environment which we develop this in. So we very early on made a very conscious decision 

that we would maintain an open architecture to the system so that 

while we have our research team working on this, we have other 

research teams that are currently using pieces of the technology 

that have come out of this program, imported it into their laboratories, and have done that very, very easily. 

So we allow researchers to come in, modify the system, connect 

their own things to it so it makes a very easy, open platform so 

that researchers aren’t having to constantly reinvent things in 

order to work in this area. So we put all those things together and 

provided, you know, the environment, you know, the basic science, 

and that singular drive in order to pull this whole set of players 

together, which we have had over 30 different organizations involved in this program. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Great. That sounds like it has been a fairly 

cohesive effort towards a singular goal, and that seems like maybe 

your most important message. 

I am going to recognize now the Ranking Member, Mr. Lipinski, 

for his questioning. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to—before I 

begin, I want to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the 

opening statement by Ranking Member Johnson. 
50 

Chairman BUCSHON. Without objection. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF FULL COMMITTEE

RANKING MEMBER EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON

Thank you Chairman Bucshon. I’m really delighted to be here this morning. 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. I have taken a number of people to the 

Brain Health facility so we could talk to the researchers and learn more about their 

work. 

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 any visible scars, suffer terribly from traumatic brain disorder and PTSD. 

The research supported by federal agencies such as NSF, NIH, and DARPA is essential to increasing our understanding of the human brain. We need to better understand when things go wrong, such as in PTSD and drug addiction, so that we 

may develop more effective treatments. But it’s hard to determine when things have 

gone wrong if we don’t fully understand the normal functioning of a healthy brain. 

Because the National Science Foundation is not limited by examining specific 

pathologies or applications, it is particularly well suited to asking and answering 

fundamental questions about normal brain function. With this freedom, NSF can 

support research such as Dr. Robinson’s work on understanding the social behavior 

of honey bees. As Dr. Robinson’s work evolved from his basic questions about honey 

bee behavior, the applications to human neuroscience became evident and NIH also 

began to fund him. This is the way it should work. As we put neuroscience in context at today’s hearing by focusing on applications, we should not forget the foundation of basic research on which these advances are built or the agency that is the 

leader in supporting such basic research. 

Dr. Robinson, I’m sorry for putting you on the spot, but your work in particular 

illustrates another important point. Five years ago you published an NIH funded 

study on the Effects of Cocaine on Honey Bee Dance Behavior. If I were to look just 

at that title in order to judge the merits of your research, I might dismiss it as unworthy of taxpayer support. But I have confidence in NSF’s and NIH’s merit review 

process, a process that has become recognized worldwide as the ‘‘gold standard’’ for 

merit review. As a result, I have no doubt this is a serious study with real implications for understanding human addiction, an important issue in neuroscience. I also 

wonder about the significance of this work to better understanding honey bee colony 

collapse disorder that threatens agricultural production worldwide. I hope you will 

have the opportunity during Q&A to enlighten us on this fascinating research. 

Thank you all for being here this morning and I look forward to your testimony. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. I want to thank all of our witnesses 

and especially thank Master Sergeant Deslauriers for his service to 

our country. 

I want to start with Dr. Landis. What are the distinctive roles 

of the Federal partners in the BRAIN Initiative? And the second 

part is who is managing the program ensuring that the work is coordinated? 

Dr. LANDIS. That is an excellent question. There are three Federal partners that are currently involved: NIH, NSF, and DARPA. 

There is an interagency working group on neuroscience that has 

been set up to look at interests of many more Federal agencies in 

brain research, and they have written a report which is not yet 

public which has recognized that the BRAIN Initiative or projects 
51 

like that are a critical part not just for those three agencies but for 

all agencies. 

There are commitments that are made for Fiscal Year 2014 from 

the three agencies. NIH is in the process of planning what those 

initiatives will look like. We expect a report early in September. 

And on that committee—NIH committee sit ex officio members 

from DARPA and from NSF. NIH has been involved in the NSF 

planning. And so I anticipate that, based on the missions of those 

agencies, we will end up with a very complementary and integrated 

program. 

DARPA, as you have heard, has mission. We want to fly to the 

moon. We want to create a prosthetic arm. NIH has interests in integrative science, mammalian—not just mammalian but many 

models. And NSF has—brings to the table engineering, mathematics, and other approaches. 

So we believe that through collegial interaction and participation 

in the planning efforts that this will be a well-managed project. 

But it isn’t yet launched so we will see as it goes forward. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. All right. Thank you. I want to move to Dr. Robinson. In your opening statement you brought up how important it 

is to have an integrative approach to research topics like this, and 

you point out the considerable resources that the University of Illinois can bring to bear from neuroscience to social science to the 

computing power of the Blue Waters computer. 

So I would like to ask you for your vision of what is possible over 

the next ten years of this initiative over these disparate fields. I 

know it is a huge question but just to give us some sense of what 

types of questions you think we will be able to answer ten years 

from now that we can’t today. 

Dr. ROBINSON. I can give you one general vision and that has to 

do with an approach in science is to really understand a particular 

phenomenon. One needs to be able to do two things. One needs to 

be able to observe it under natural conditions and then one needs 

to be able to manipulate it. So a lot of the BRAIN Initiative is 

geared toward developing new tools to be able to visualize the activity of a real live active brain and see it in action when it is responding to changes in its environment, when it is called upon to 

organize a particular activity. 

And so there is a great deal of excitement about the development 

of sensors that are at the nanoscale. We have some superb engineers at the University of Illinois who are getting mobilized to 

work on these now thanks to the BRAIN Initiative, the sensors 

that work at the nanoscale that will be possible then to record the 

activity of an active brain, and then in turn to be able to use that 

same inroad into the brain to be able to stimulate particular parts 

of the brain, particular circuits to get more specific cause-and-effect 

relations. 

And then finally, tying that altogether will be really high-powered computer models, the kind that Blue Waters will be able to 

do to be able to understand the phenomena, decompose it into single-unit-level understanding, as well as the whole level. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. I understand that you did a very good job of putting out there for us what needs to come together in all this. Is 

there anything that you would expect? What kind of—you know, 
52 

just look out there and say what would you like to solve? What do 

you think we can solve? What types of questions or problems or 

issues, is there anything that you have in mind? 

Dr. ROBINSON. We spoke today. Several people mentioned how 

the brain is organized hierarchically. There is different levels of organization. You have whole brain and you have brain regions, you 

have circuits, and then there are the individual neurons. We badly 

need to understand the relationship of those units to each other, 

those levels of organization to each other. How do individual neurons orchestrate their activity to create a circuit? How do the circuits then form a brain region that is functional? And then of 

course the whole brain. 

I take inspiration in framing this question from the beehive, no 

surprise, where we have similar questions. So you have a fully 

functioning colony and we need to understand how the behavior of 

individual bees gives rise to the whole colony and how the brain 

inside the brain—how the brain inside the bee gives rise to the colony and the gene inside the brain inside the bee inside the colony. 

So it is a Russian dolls nested-level sort of approach, and that is 

exactly what any complex system has. And the challenge is to decompose into the functional levels and then understand the relationship between those functional levels. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. All right, thank you. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you very much. 

I now recognize Mr. Hultgren for five minutes. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Thank you very much. I really appreciate you all 

being here. And this is so interesting. Hang on one second. My 

phone is—Gina is taking it out. Thank you. I bumped something 

and I apologize. Bad timing. 

It is—this is so interesting for me and I really appreciate you all 

being here and want to see this as a start. And I want to thank 

the Chairman and Ranking Member for their efforts in starting 

this discussion and really figuring out where we can take this from 

here. Brain science and brain injury and illnesses impact so many 

people. We may see just the human toll through Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, but also for young people. Some of the challenges we are 

seeing there as well, even at very young ages with some educational challenges with brain science and—or brain diseases that 

we don’t fully understand. 

So I just want to thank you so much for being here. Thank you 

for your work. 

I do want to talk briefly on some issues that I am focusing on 

right now. And, Dr. Raichle, I know you mentioned our brains take 

up about two percent of our body weight but use about 20 percent 

of the energy. One of the things—and I am so thankful for Dr. Robinson and Blue Waters and what they are doing at the University 

of Illinois. 

What we have seen China now surpassed us in computing power 

and I am encouraging—we have got legislation that we have introduced to push our own abilities into exascale computing and recognizing how important computers are going to be for us to be able 

to continue brain research. And so I wanted to just get your 

thoughts on that. It is interesting. The human brain can do more 

parallel computations per second than our fastest supercomputer 
53 

while riding on the energy required for a dim light bulb, just amazing. 

But there are really incredible challenges that we face as well. 

I know that we can reduce the amount of energy needed for these 

exascale computing challenges but also some of the parallelism 

challenges are going to be there. 

So I wondered if—I know the Human Brain Project is one of European Commission’s Future & Emerging Technology flagship 

projects. The goal for that is to reconstruct the brain piece-by-piece 

using supercomputer-based models and simulations. I know these 

models offer the prospect of a new understanding of the brain and 

its diseases leading to completely new computing and robotic technologies. 

I wondered, Dr. Landis, and then also Professor Raichle if you 

could talk just briefly about the European Commission. They have 

announced this ten-year plan with funding levels of, I think, it is 

$1.19 billion. What are your thoughts on this project? Why have 

they taken this approach? And do you think if you could get some 

thoughts, do think this is the correct approach and is it something 

we can learn from here as well of planning towards the future? 

Dr. LANDIS. So the two projects, the BRAIN Initiative and the 

European Human Brain Project are actually quite different in the 

approaches that they are taking and very complementary. I just 

spent the last two days at a planning meeting, an NIH planning 

meeting for the BRAIN Initiative. And what became very clear at 

that meeting was that in order to come up with reasonable models 

of how brains function, you really need to have data about the system itself and that models in the absence of the data about how 

the brain works really are not going to be terribly useful. 

So you can think of our BRAIN Initiative as producing tools that 

would allow us to collect those data and that the Europeans will 

be going ahead trying to create models perhaps in the absence of 

all the data that they need. 

Now, China has also—is also embarking on a brain project that 

seems to be the next big thing, and of course you have mentioned 

the concerns about Chinese investments in computers. We in the 

States, I think, in the neuroscience community are concerned about 

investments that other countries are making in neuroscience and 

other biomedical disciplines and about brain drain. And it is hard 

not to have young scientists see opportunity where funds, investments are going up instead of down. 

Mr. HULTGREN. We do this. I am going to run out of time. And 

so I do want to follow up with all of you if that is all right. I have 

a lot of other questions and things, but I want to just spend my 

last minute or so with Master Sergeant. 

First of all, thank you so much for your service. I was just struck 

as you are talking of your commitment to continue to serve in new 

ways, and I just think that is amazing. And I would just ask you, 

and Mr. McLoughlin as well, your thoughts. You talked about quality of life for our women and men who have been injured in service 

that, but I wondered also if you could talk briefly if this could potentially have application as well in areas of high danger dealing 

with explosives and things and what is happening with that and 

if you see much of a future there? Certainly, we want to help peo-
54 

ple who have been injured but the best thing would be to prevent 

the injury in the first place, and if that very dangerous job to be 

done by something—a machine like this. I wonder if you could talk 

briefly about that. 

Sergeant DESLAURIERS. Yes, sir, absolutely. Well, I am coming up 

on 16 years in February so I have been doing this long time. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Thank you. 

Sergeant DESLAURIERS. And we kind of grew into it and, you 

know, the idea where it came about, you know, since 2000—I mean 

since 9/11. So, the quality of life for us since then, I kind of have 

a perspective of both sides being an amputee and then also being 

an explosive arms disposal craftsman where I see, you know, I can 

use this on a daily basis but then I could also use that on a robot 

to take that—take it out from a vehicle, send it down range, and 

I can take apart and IED just as easily as I would be doing it with 

my own hands. 

Mr. HULTGREN. It is amazing. 

Sergeant DESLAURIERS. I just tried that one out for the first time 

today and I was amazed. And it opened my eyes up to the program 

aside from the prosthetic side and seeing the other applications of 

the MPL. So it is not only going to be for the quality of life of amputees in the future not only just military but also civilian and 

then with the application of putting it into the field for future use 

and saving lives. 

Mr. HULTGREN. Great. Well, again, my time is expired. Thank 

you, Chairman. But I just want to again thank you so much. Master Sergeant, thank you for your work on this and your continued 

commitment to see advancement in this and protect future soldiers 

as well. So thank you all so much and look forward to continuing 

the conversation and taking this forward. Thank you so much. 

I yield back. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you. 

I now recognize Mr. Peters for five minutes. 

Mr. PETERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank 

you, Master Sergeant, not just for your service but what you are 

going to help teach other people who have been similarly affected. 

And thank you for that, too. 

Two lines of questions maybe for Dr. Landis. You mentioned how 

the BRAIN Initiative can take lessons from the successful human 

genome project, which we in San Diego feel a particular connection 

to. And you include the importance of widely sharing data. So I am 

curious about what policies, including data management and access, you think are in place or need to be in place to make sure 

that the data generated from the BRAIN Initiative can be shared 

across disciplines and ultimately into the private sector? 

Dr. LANDIS. So the issue of data sharing has become increasingly 

important as scientists collect larger and larger data sets. They 

need to be available and accessible to appropriate scientists to analyze. We have excellent examples with the human genome project 

and also with ADNI, Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, 

which posts on websites for people to see as soon as the data are 

collected. The human Connectome Project is posting data quarterly. 

We anticipate that that data sharing and mechanisms to permit it 

will be an integral part of the BRAIN Initiative. 
55 

And part of the meeting that I just attended was dealing with 

what kinds of data do we need to share and what kinds of repositories do we need and how we have appropriate access? So it is 

very much on the minds of the committee. 

Mr. PETERS. Top of mind in the BRAIN Initiative. That is the 

place to be. 

Dr. LANDIS. And you do have a representative on the planning 

committee from San Diego—— 

Mr. PETERS. Right. I appreciate it. 

Dr. LANDIS. —not a Representative, a scientist from your district. 

Mr. PETERS. And then my second question has to do with the 

outputs from this in addition to the research itself, in particular 

training opportunities. Anyone—this could be anyone—training opportunities, an initiative, whether NIH has a role in training undergraduates and graduate students in other fields? And then kind 

of implications for new curricula or degree programs that we might 

want to institute for the next generation of brain scientists? And 

maybe, Dr. Landis, you could start and anyone else could respond. 

Dr. LANDIS. So for training, part of the NIH mission is not only 

to discover fundamental knowledge and apply that knowledge but 

also to train the next generation of biomedical investigators. And 

we feel very strongly at NIH that that training begins at the level 

of college. And if you want to have first-rate investigators who are 

well-trained, you need to engage their interests in college and then 

to be able to frame appropriate training programs in graduate 

school and postgraduate. So we are very much committed to that. 

In terms of the BRAIN research initiative, the discussion has 

been that if one of the most important things that we can do in the 

BRAIN Initiative is to analyze data and put together an understanding of how thousands or millions of neurons are interacting 

to create behavior, we really need to engage scientists in cross-disciplinary training that would take mathematicians, statisticians, 

and others, computational people to work hand-in-hand with investigators who are doing the wet bench work. So we talked about possible—expanding present training programs. 

And I will cede to someone else. 

Mr. PETERS. Okay. Anyone else want to comment on that? No? 

Well, I would say again, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the hearing 

and thanks to the witnesses for being here. Again, in San Diego 

this is one of the cornerstones of our economy is the relationship 

between basic science research and in particular healthcare and 

brain research. So we are excited about it and hope to be participants and beneficiaries and wish you the best. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you. 

I now recognize Mr. Collins for his questions. 

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you, Chairman. 

Dr. Landis, Buffalo, New York, is a hotbed for multiple sclerosis. 

As we know, MS is a genetically based, European-based autoimmune disease, and whether it is western New York or Australia, 

New Zealand, Europe, that is where we find it. So we are a hotbed 

for that and there has been a lot of drug development for relapsingremitting, no question about it, but when it comes to secondary 

progressive MS, which you mentioned, which is where I would like 

to go, that is debilitating and an awful situation. 
56 

You mentioned that the NIH has been working on something 

which would be, you said, slowing the progression. I am just curious. I know of one drug out there that works with a very tiny subset of secondary progressive patients. I know of another, a microparticle immune—you know, stimulant that is looking to stop the 

progression. And I am just curious. Could you give me some more 

information on what you were referring to as something that was 

slowing the progression? 

Dr. LANDIS. So I should have specified that I was referring to relapsing-remitting. We do not have treatments for progressive multiple sclerosis. And I would be pleased to get back to you with an 

answer for the record that would summarize the research in this 

area that NIH is conducting and what are the most promising avenues. We recognize that this has been an underexplored area. It is 

complicated. Not a lot of patients, but for the patients who have 

it, it is truly devastating. So I will get back to you with an answer. 

Mr. COLLINS. Well, I think it is fairly well understood that almost every relapsing-remitting patient—— 

Dr. LANDIS. Becomes eventually— 

Mr. COLLINS. —someday they will unfortunately move into secondary progressive at which point that is not a good day for them 

or their families. I do think the Fast Forward Fund, which I am 

sure you are familiar with, has worked on several. I do know there 

is one drug, MIS416, which is a microparticle immune stimulant 

that is in Phase IIB trials that has promise—— 

Dr. LANDIS. Right. 

Mr. COLLINS. —on secondary progressive MS, but everywhere in 

western New York, especially, you know, as people look out 20 

years and that is the typical relapsing-remitting time frame that 

it is not—so I am glad to hear you are working on it and I would 

very much like to know because I—— 

Dr. LANDIS. And if you would like to come and visit the intramural program, we have several investigators working on MS and 

would be pleased to have you come and meet with them and see 

the labs and some of the kind of approaches we are taking. 

Mr. COLLINS. I definitely would like to take you up on that. It 

is an important part of what is going on in western New York and 

thank you very much. 

Dr. LANDIS. Yes. 

Mr. COLLINS. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you. 

I now recognize Mr. Schweikert for five minutes. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Have you ever 

shown up at something and it turns out to be just fascinating? 

And, Master Sergeant, thanks for spending time with us. I know 

sometimes sitting down, you know, in this sort of formal body can 

be a little nerve-racking and it is truly appreciated. 

And let’s start, Dr. Landis, and this may be one for everyone. 

First off, on diseases of the brain, let’s focus on Alzheimer’s, whether it be plaque or neurons that die and there are firing issues, 

where are we in the genetic modeling? And some of this is going 

to tie back to some things Dr. Robinson was saying. Where do you 

believe we are on understanding the map? 
57 

Dr. LANDIS. So we have identified a number of genes which are 

dominantly inherited and cause Alzheimer’s. Dr. Raichle discussed 

one of them; there are several others. We have other genes which 

have been shown to increase risk. The most prominent of these is 

ApoE4. If you have two alleles ApoE4, you have a significantly 

greater risk of getting Alzheimer’s. But there are still significant 

investments that can be made in this area, and one of the major 

projects from last year’s special Alzheimer’s money was to take $25 

million of the $50 million and invest it in a better understanding 

of risk factors for Alzheimer’s. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Okay. In that line, Dr. Robinson, was I listening to you properly, that some of your research or the externality 

of your research is the ability of observing the turning on and off 

of certain genetic mapping? Am I listening properly? 

Dr. ROBINSON. Yes, that is correct. So there are tools now to be 

able to look at the activity of genes. Now, these tools are best deployed in animal models and they need increased sophistication to 

be able to be used in humans, but the initial insights can be gained 

from the animal models. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. And are you—do you tie sort of your research 

into the mapping data now? Or are you still moving mostly, you 

know, moving from bees now to the next level of animal models? 

Dr. ROBINSON. So we are collaborating in a broad network to be 

able to generalize the results from animals to the study of adversity, the program that I mentioned where we are looking at how— 

basically how the social environment, how do experiences ‘‘get 

under the skin’’ to affect biology, predispose for certain diseases. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Okay. I am going to do one bump and then 

back—Dr. McLoughlin, where are we technologically right now on 

nerve actually communicating with an interface? And where is it 

going right now and how much world and outside and private, you 

know, research are you seeing on innovation? I mean what is moving right there? 

Mr. MCLOUGHLIN. Okay. So the state-of-the-art right now is that 

we have—so we currently have two patients that have been implanted with arrays. In these are arrays that have 100 electrodes 

so, you know, we talk about trillions of neurons, so we are seeing 

very, very small populations of neurons. And so we can—with current technology we can put up a couple hundred electrodes in the 

brain right now, fairly close to the surface. And with those signals, 

we are able to do very high-level control of the arms, so reach out, 

grasp objects, do the, you know, types of things that we normally 

do. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. And where I was going—and forgive me, I 

don’t remember the reference, but earlier this year, I thought there 

was some excitement because of some nano sensors that were being 

tested? And you may have to help me out on this one. And that 

actually was the direction that that technology was supposed to go. 

Mr. MCLOUGHLIN. Yes, so I think that—so that is where we are 

today. And the challenges that we have are—today is that those 

electrodes tend to degrade over time, so after a couple of years, the 

response goes down. So the exciting thing in some of these nanotechnology arrays, use of growth factors so that the nerves will actually—rather than pulling away from the electrodes, it will actu-
58 

ally grow into the electrodes so that we will—I see within, you 

know, the next five years or so that we see next-generation array 

systems coming out that instead of working for a couple of years 

will have the potential to work 10, 20, or 30 years in the human 

brain. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Okay. And I am going to—well—— 

Dr. LANDIS. If I could just add electrode manufacture is one of 

the initiatives that has come up repeatedly in the planning sessions for the BRAIN Initiative that we need better ways to record 

from more neurons over a longer period of time with more fidelity. 

And I—we don’t know what is going to be recommended but—— 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. And are you finding research both in this country and around the world, both private and public in that area? 

Dr. LANDIS. I am—there is interest in this but it is pretty clear 

that this is a very tough area. You are talking material science, 

you are talking about connections, you are talking about radio communication of these rather than wires. And I think significant Federal investment in this area would make a huge difference in encouraging both investigators and the academic and private sector 

to engage. 

Mr. SCHWEIKERT. I am over my time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman BUCSHON. Thank you very much. 

Before I conclude today’s hearing, I would like to thank and recognize Melia Jones. Where is she? She is back there. Raise your 

hand. I thank her for her work on this Subcommittee for the past 

two years and wish her all the best with her future endeavors. The 

committee hates to lose her but our loss, I guess, is Texas A&M’s 

gain. And again, thank you very much for your service to the committee. 

I would like to thank the witnesses for their valuable and very 

fascinating testimony and the Members for their questions. The 

record will remain open for two weeks so some Members may submit some questions for a written response and additional comments. And I think we could go on for a long time on this subject. 

It is very fascinating. 

So the witnesses are excused and the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:16 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 
(59) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
60 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Story Landis 
61 

2. During the hearing we heard how nnderstanding the brain is an interdisciplinary 

endeavor. Education clearly plays an essential role in preparing scientists to study 

the brain. What can be done, both at the K-12 level and postsecondary level, to 

ensure researchers and other scientists are prepared to work and think in an 

interdisciplinary framework? 

Science education is not just important for future scientists. All of us face personal and social 

issues for which we would be better informed with an understanding of basic scientific 

principles. NIH provides many free resources for science teachers to engage students, and a 

wealth of educational material for public access on its website. NIH has contributed expertise in 

other ways as well, including close cooperation with the Smithsonian in developing an extensive 

new exhibit on the genome that opened recently. In 20 II, the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience 

issued a Request for Applications for Blueprint Neuroscience Research Science Education 

Awards after gathering suggestions from the public and from experts on what further role the 

NIH might play in developing neuroscience-related materials for K -12 education. The program 

required applicants to present innovative, creative plans for improving science knowledge and 

enthusiasm for science among students and teachers. NIH funded meritorious, peer reviewed 

proposals from eight teams of scientists and educators, each of which included plans for program 

evaluation. Those programs are now ongoing. 

At the undergraduate level, many of our best colleges and universities do an excellent job of 

engaging the natural curiosity of students about the brain, but not all students have comparable 

opportunities. For this reason, the NIH Blueprint supports the Enhancing Neuroscience 

Diversity through Undergraduate Research Education Experiences (ENDURE) program. 

ENDURE aims to raise interest and opportunities in neuroscience research for individuals who 

are typically underrepresented in the field. ENDURE forges partnerships between researchintensive institutions and institutions with a substantial enrollment of neuroscience majors from 

diverse groups. At post-graduate levels, many NIH individual and institutional training 

programs emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary training and provide opportunities for 

research experiences that will encourage this outlook. 

Across the Federal Government, NIH is also working with other agencies under the Interagency 

Working Group on Neuroscience (lWGN), established by action of the National Science and 

Technology Council (NSTC), Committee on Science, to coordinate activities in neuroscience 

research with a focus on identifying significant trans formative opportunities of national 

importance. One specific goal of the lWGN is to improve our understanding of learning and 

cognition and applying that to improvements in education and other related areas. The work of 

the IWGN is anticipated to be publicly-released later this year. 

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62 

3. I am concerned that we have reached a sitnation where there is more data being 

generated from experiments than our capacity to synthesize and understand. Could 

you elaborate on the importance of algorithms and analytical tools to help us 

understand the science of the brain? How much progress have we made in this 

area, and where should we focus limited funding resources? 

Early in the discussion about the BRAIN Initiative, many neuroscientists emphasized the 

importance of having appropriate analytical tools in place and specific testable hypotheses about 

how brain circuits work as the rate of data accumulation increases. Neuroscience has a long 

history of using computational and analytical methods to understand experimental data. These 

methods have progressed as neuroscience itself has advanced, from calculations on hand cranked 

calculators more than 50 years ago that confirmed hypotheses about how nerve cells generate 

electrical impulses, through modern computer modeling that assesses whether specific 

hypotheses of how the brain develops and brain circuits work fit the experimental data. Thus, 

NIH recognizes the importance of not just generating data, but also analysis and synthesis to 

understand data, and support for these aspects of research is integral to NIH's funding for 

neuroscience. 

The NIH BRAIN working group, a working group of the Advisory Committee to the NIH 

Director charged with developing the scientific plan for the BRAIN Initiative at NIH, is paying 

close attention to data analysis issues, and NIH has several general policies and programs that 

will be relevant to this issue as the initiative moves forward. On July 29, the NIH BRAIN 

working group held a meeting in Boston with the scientific community on "computation, theory, 

and big data," to ensure that these issues are incorporated in its final plan for the BRAIN 

Initiative. Also relevant, the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience supports the Neuroscience 

Information Framework, which enables discovery and access of public neuroscience research 

data and tools worldwide through an open source, networked environment. For several years, 

NIH and NSF have jointly supported an initiative on computational approaches to neuroscience. 

The Human Connectome Project also illustrates the NIH emphasis on sharing data and analysis 

capabilities. More generally, NIH's National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCB I) 

provides databases that are essential tools for scientists throughout the world, and NCBI's 

experience as a major force in the development of modem genetic analysis will serve the BRAIN 

Initiative well. The NIH Common Fund also supports a program in Bioinformatics and 

Computational Biology, and recently launched a new initiative on Big Data to Knowledge, as 

well as collaborating with NSF in this area. 

As mentioned above, NIH is also working with other agencies under the IWON, established by 

action of the NSTC, Committee on Science, to coordinate activities in neuroscience research 

with a focus on identifying significant trans formative opportunities of national importance. 

Another area of focus is encouraging public access to, and sharing and preservation of, 

neuroscience and related behavioral data, along with the development of relevant data 

infrastructure and analysis, visualization, and modeling tools, techniques, and methodologies. 

The work of the IWON is anticipated to be publicly-released later this year. 
63 

4. In your opinion, are there any fields of brain science research that are neglected or 

underdeveloped? In particular, are you paying enough attention to rare brain 

disorders that only affect a few individuals, but have a greater potential to inform us 

about brain science research? 

NIH places a high priority on research for rare disorders, both because of the enormous 

collective impact of these diseases on people and their families and because of what we can learn 

from rare disorders about normal biology and more common diseases. The value of studying rare 

disorders is nowhere more evident than in neuroscience, where classic studies of even single 

patients have yielded important insights that stimulate entire research areas. In the past, 

neurologists often inferred the functions of particular areas of the brain from patients with lesions 

in those brain structures. In the modem era, scientists frequently study genetic as well as 

physical lesions, that is, mutations that cause rare inherited diseases. These gene studies reveal 

information about the normal brain and common diseases, as well as about the rare disorders 

themselves. Studies ofrare inherited subtypes of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, for 

example, have revolutionized research on the common versions of these disorders, and Rett 

Syndrome is yielding valuable information about autism. Because of the importance of rare 

disease research, NIH funds these studies throughout its investigator initiated research programs 

and also through special programs targeting rare disorders, such as the Rare Diseases Clinical 

Research Network, led by the Office of Rare Diseases Research in close cooperation with the 

appropriate NIH Institutes. 

With regard to neglected or underdeveloped areas of neuroscience, the NIH system of 

investigator-initiated research engages the entire scientific community in seeking out neglected 

problems and unmet opportunities for progress. The progress of science generally and the 

availability of a plethora of new techniques to study the brain enables the scientific community 

to generate many outstanding proposals to address key questions across widely diverse areas of 

neuroscience. NIH funds as many of these meritorious proposals as resources allow. To 

supplement the investigator-initiated avenue for research, when NIH recognizes that particular 

diseases are receiving less attention than warranted by their public health impact or the unique 

scientific opportunities that they present or special opportunities arise that are not well served by 

the investigator initiated grant mechanisms, we also solicit research proposals to address those 

gaps. 

5. Do private foundations have an easier time funding high-risk high reward research 

in the area of brain science? Is it fair to say that the NIH funding mechanism is 

biased toward picking grants that are 'safer' in its aims? Please explain. 

NIH has a long record of successfully supporting high risk, high reward research, as is evident 

from the \38 NIH-supported researchers who have received Nobel Prizes. In recent years, NIH 

has been concerned that intensified competition for funding might disadvantage innovative 

research and has taken several steps to address this. Following an external examination of its 

peer review practices, NIH revised the applications and review process. Shorter proposal formats 

now reduce emphasis on detailed description of proposed methods, and reviewers score 

proposals separately on specific criteria of innovation and significance. NIH also offers smaller, 

shorter duration grants, including R21 exploratory/developmental grants that specifically 

4 
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encourage proposals with potentially ground breaking impact and less preliminary data. NIH 

also created the Pioneer Awards, New Innovator Awards, and Transformative ROls, which are 

specifically designed to support high risk, high reward research and innovative investigators. 

Neuroscientists have done especially well in competition for funding in these NIH-wide 

programs. Neuroscience institutes have also supported the EUREKA (Exceptional, 

Unconventional Research Enabling Knowledge Acceleration) Awards. Some of the pioneering 

research that undergirds the BRAIN Initiative was supported through these innovation-directed 

programs. 

NIH works closely with private organizations that support research, including innovative studies, 

but private groups cannot support the breadth of basic research and training that NIH does. 

Private organizations have used a variety of strategies to encourage high risk, high reward 

research, from goal-directed prizes to supporting investigators based on track record rather than 

for specific projects, but it is not apparent whether any of these strategies are consistently more 

effective than the NIH model. In fact, many prizes and investigator-focused awards from private 

organizations go to researchers who have received support from the NIH to develop their ideas. 

The BRAIN Initiative provides a good example of how NIH can collaborate with the private 

sector. The Kavli, Allen, and Howard Hughes foundations, and the Salk Institute, among others, 

support complementary research. With respect to disease-focused research, private disease 

organizations, especially those for rare disorders, often engage the interest of researchers and 

fund these investigators to obtain preliminary data that enables them to compete successfully for 

traditional NIH ROI grants. NIH frequently collaborates with private groups to organize 

workshops with the scientific community on particular diseases. 

6. How will you be able to quantify how well the BRAIN Initiative has achieved its 

goals aud aims? What metrics or other means will you use to judge the 

effectiveness oCthe initiative? 

NIH has charged the Advisory Committee to the Director's BRAIN working group with 

developing a multi-year scientific plan for the BRAIN Initiative, which is to include timetables, 

milestones, and cost estimates. As part of the process, members will consult the scientific 

community, patient advocates, and the general public. The working group is expected to 

produce an interim report containing recommendations for high-priority FY 2014 investments in 

September and a final report in the summer of2014. Based on these planning recommendations, 

NIH will develop metrics to judge progress. However, in crafting goals, it will be important to 

keep in mind the long term goal, which is not easily captured by quantitative metrics--

understanding how a brain circuit performs its computations is more important than, for 

example, how many nerve cells a researcher can monitor simultaneously. Historians of science 

tell us and economists have confirmed that basic research yields substantial returns on 

investment, but the most important benefits are often not predicted or easily quantifiable. 

5 
65 

7. The creative drive and engine for American Science is the individual investigator. 

This is oue of the reasons we have the peer review process at agencies like NSF and 

NIH. Why then do we need the BRAIN Initiative? If we have faith in the peer 

review system, won't these projects get funded anyway? 

The purpose of the BRAIN Initiative is not to detract from creative drive of the independent 

investigator, but rather, to enable more of these investigators to be capable of generating a deeper 

understanding of how the brain works. For this reason, the early focus of the BRAIN Initiative 

will be on the development of new tools and technologies that enable more researchersespecially individual investigators - to have access to critical resources necessary for advancing 

their own research aims. The Human Genome Project is an excellent example of how a focus on 

expanding access to better, faster, and cheaper tools can energize individual researchers and 

revolutionize a discipline, and BRAIN will follow that pattern. 

8. What are your general thoughts about "Big Science" initiatives, like the BRAIN 

Initiative? Specifically, do you think it will help everyone, including individual 

investigators that are working in fields not directly related to the aims of the BRAIN 

Initiative, or will it only help a select few scientists who have been advocating for 

this initiative? 

As mentioned, the goal ofthe BRAIN Initiative is to develop new tools and technologies that 

enable researchers to expand their understanding of brain function. Focusing on tool and 

technology development allows many more researchers to have access to tools that they might 

otherwise not be able to develop on their own. For example, optogenetics tools, which enable 

researchers to control nerve cell activity by light pulses, were pioneered about 5 years ago. 

Already perhaps as many as a thousand researchers worldwide have adopted optogenetics to 

study specific problems, and the number of investigator initiated NIH grants using optogenetics 

methods has climbed into the hundreds. The BRAIN Initiative is interacting extensively with the 

scientific community to determine what directions in tool and resource development will provide 

maximum benefit to the broader scientific community. 

9. Dr. Landis, you mention how the BRAIN Initiative can take lessons from the 

successful Human Genome Project, including the importance of sharing data 

widely. What policies, including data management and access policies, need to be 

put in place to make sure that data geuerated from the BRAIN Initiative can be 

shared across disciplines and the private sector? 

Data sharing, as appropriate, will be essential for the BRAIN Initiative, and NIH will implement 

management polices to ensure access not only to data but also to analytic tools, just as NIH has 

done throughout the Human Genome Project. The BRAIN Initiative is still in an early planning 

stage, and the specific policies that we implement will depend on the types of data researchers 

collect under the Initiative. The NIH BRAIN working group held a meeting with the scientific 

community in July on data-related issues, and NIH will develop data sharing policies and 

resources to enable access as appropriate to the Initiative as plans go forward. NIH will examine 

the successful data sharing practices from the Connectome Project, the Human Genome Project, 

and other projects as appropriate. For example, the centralized Human Genome Project 

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66 

sequencing centers made data available on daily basis, but NIH policies allow individual genetics 

investigators a set period of time before sharing some types of genetic data that they generate in 

their individual laboratories to allow them to publish on their own research. Data sharing has also 

been an important component of the Human Connectome Project, with datasets being made 

freely available to the scientific community. 

7 
67 

Responses by Dr. Marcus Raichle 

Questious for the Record 

House Committee ou Scieuce, Subcommittee ou Research aud Technology 

Hcaring on "Frontiers of Human Brain Research" 

July 31, 2013 

Prof. Marcus Raichle 

1. In the area of brain research, what assumptions from the past are we holding on to 

when looking at future research? Is our creativity being held captive by traditional 

notions of howthe brain works? 

Brain researchers are a very diverse group bringing to the task of understanding how 

the brain works very different perspectives. Traditionally, for the basic neuroscientist, 

the approach has been to understand how individual neurons work. More specifically 

how and when they create action potentials or 'spikes'. This work has generally been 

confined to work in laboratory animals where spikes from small numbers of cells can be 

recorded. We have learned much from this work about individual cells but less about 

the integrated action of the whole brain and, particularly, its dysfunction in disease. 

At the other extreme we have clinical neuroscientists (neurologists, neurosurgeons and 

psychiatrists) who examine brain function from a clinical perspective often relying on the 

presence of disease in particular parts of the brain to infer function (e.g., patients with 

stroke who exhibit a variety of specific symptom and signs depending upon the location 

of the stroke) or the effect of drugs with specific actions as in the case diseases like 

Parkinson's disease or psychiatric illnesses like depression and schizophrenia. 

And, finally, we have behavioral scientists like psychologists who examine the details of 

human behavior and infer from their observations how the brain works. 

The future as I see it involves the integration of all of the above approaches. The 

prospect of this possibility emerged dramatically in the 1970s with the introduction of xray computed tomography or CT as it is now known. Almost overnight the practice of 

medicine was changed forever. CT was followed in rapid succession by positron 

emission tomography or PET and then magnetic resonance imaging or MRI, both 

offering the possibility of examining the chemistry, metabolism and function of the 

human brain in health and disease, a promise that is being amply fulfilled. 

The challenge is achieving the integration across levels of analysis from humans to 

single cells and everything in between. It is, of course, true that at each of these levels 

new tools and significant modification of existing tools will continually emerge. But that 

should not be touted as re-establishing the primacy of any given level of investigation. 

Rather it should be viewed as strengthening the overall enterprise. However, 

convincing advocates of a particular approach is often difficult if not impossible. This 

was recognized by the James S. McDonnell Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts 

when they initiated their landmark program in cognitive neuroscience, a merger of 

cognitive psychology and human neuroscience-based imaging. The idea was to train a 

new generation of neuroscientists who understood brain science form a new 

perspective. To achieve this goal, mentorship of trainees had to be assigned to two 

individuals working at different levels of analysis, the thought being that those already 

committed (Le., senior investigators) would find it difficult to achieve this integration 

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68 

personally. The results of this initiative have been remarkable to say the least and 

should serve as a model of how we might approach the training of new neuroscientists. 

It is, I believe, the only way to avoid being captive to traditional notions of how the brain 

works. 

2. Do private foundations have an easier time funding high-risk, high reward research in 

the area of brain science? Is it fair to say that the NIH funding mechanism is biased 

towards picking grants that are 'safer'in its aims? Please explain. 

Private foundations, a unique American tradition, have brought enormous added value 

to the research enterprise of this country. While their resources and their missions vary 

tremendously they have sought to identify areas of need and unrecognized potential 

and provided funding to help establish the importance of these areas. But as has been 

said by others, the capacity to go beyond this level of support is limited. They are a 

catalyst but providing sustained support which is the bedrock of science is beyond their 

capacity. This is where NIH funding for the biomedical sciences has been critical by 

creating and supporting the most successful research enterprise the world has even 

known. The value to Americans, and more broadly, the citizens of the world, has been 

enormous. 

It is indeed true that the traditional NIH funding mechanism (Le., the investigatorinitiated grant or ROi) relies heavily on preliminary data. By that I mean, data contained 

in the grant application that indicates to some level of certainty that the research 

proposed is feasible and that the investigators have the capacity to perform that 

research. In this day of limited research funds from the NIH it is only prudent that 

research funded is likely to be successful. 

The NIH is, in my estimation, very much aware of the fact that young investigators must 

have the opportunity to 'prove' that they have the potential to be creative and productive 

investigators. They provide, therefore, funds for training and 'starter' grants to help 

these young investigators amass the necessary preliminary data. This is a critically 

important funding mechanism that must be supported and sustained if the United States 

is to maintain its preeminent position in the biomedical sciences. Private foundations 

have played a minor, albeit important, role in this. 

3, Are you aware, NIH spends more than $5.5 billion in the area of neuroscience 

research. How would the BRAIN initiative produce substantive change in disease 

outcome and better public health for the nation, compared to these existing efforts? 

Yes, I am aware that the NIH continues to generously support neuroscience research 

despite the financial constraints under which it is currently operating. In evaluating this 

level of support it must always be kept in mind the growing financial impact of 

neurological disease as the number of senior citizens continues to increase. For 

diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and other disabling conditions this impact will be 

enormous. Our support for research should always be viewed in the context of the 

magnitude of the problem. 

It is my understanding that the BRAIN initiative will add about 2% to our investment in 

neuroscience research at the NIH. As initially conceived, it focused on the development 

of new tools for the measurement of brain function. In so far as this work can inform us 

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about the work we are currently doing it will have a positive impact. For example, 

imaging of brain function in humans in health and disease is dependent on our 

understanding of the nature of the imaging signals coming from PET and MRI. While 

tremendous progress has been made in this regard we have much more to leam. Much 

of the needed information will come from our detailed understanding of how brain cells, 

not just the many different types of neurons but also the many other cells types that play 

critical roles in brain function, are operating together. The value of the proposed work 

will, I believe, be directly related to the manner in which these new data are integrated 

into a larger sense of our goals. As I pOinted out in #1 (above) an integrated 

understanding of scope and goals of neuroscience must be fully understood. Narrowly 

focused on 'my tool' is inadequate. 

4. In the brain science community today, do you agree that there is a consensus about 

what should be mapped? What about general consensus on the best approach to 

mapping the brain and on which approaches should be given the highest priority? Is the 

BRAIN initiative calling for a lot of effort and spending based on an outmoded 

paradigm? 

No, and that is part of the problem. There tends to be a somewhat Balkanized view 

depending on the level and orientation of the scientists queried. The people working at 

the cellular and molecular level see answers to pressing questions residing in their 

domain. Neurophysiologists see electricity in all of its manifestations as the defining 

characteristic of the brain and until fully understand progress will be limited. Cognitive 

neuroscientists and clinical neuroscientists see human brain imaging as the answer. 

And, finally, behavioral scientists often complain that too much emphasis is placed on 

brain science. 

From my perspective the best way forward is one of integration across levels of 

analysis. This is no easy task and requires dialogues among the experts at all levels. 

Scientists need to understand the thrill of seeing their work in a larger context that is 

more than just hand waving about its relevance to this or that disease. And, finally, the 

human brain has joined the agenda of serious neuroscience research and because 

human brain function in health and disease is a goal for all to embrace it must be 

adequately supported. 

5. The creative drive and engine for American Science is the individual investigator. 

This is one of the reasons we have a peer review process at agencies like NSF and 

NIH. Why then do we need the BRAIN initiative? If we have faith in the peer review 

system, won'! these projects get funded anyway? 

Individual initiative and creativity are critical components of any research project. But 

the questions being addressed these days in neuroscience and elsewhere often require 

the collective interaction of individuals with differing backgrounds and talents. This has 

been realized for many years at the NIH in the form of Program Projects where a 

general theme is pursued by groups of individuals working together, comparing ideas, 

addressing challenges and doing experiments in a broader context than might normally 

exist in a single investigator initiated research project. Some very important research 

lends itself to this approach other research does not. 

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70 

A great example of a collaborative endeavor is the NIH sponsored Human Connectome 

Project. This project endeavors to create a normative database of human brain imaging 

involving anatomy and function that includes a variety of information including genetiCS. 

The project involves the best investigators available in the diverse areas of expertise 

needed for this enormous undertaking. While the majority of individuals involved come 

from the United States other countries, which unique expertise resides, are included as 

well. 

While I have not followed in detail the programmatic development of the BRAIN initiative 

at the NIH, it is my understanding that focus of the work will be on new techniques and 

model systems of brain function. Much work on some of the techniques proposed is 

well underway. Other aspects such as nanoparticle sensors of neuronal function are still 

very much in the developmental phase. From my perspective, it is important to 

understand the goals of the initiative in the larger context of neuroscience research and 

its ultimate goal of understanding human brain function and behavior in health and 

disease. 

6. What are your general thoughts about "Big Science" initiatives, like the BRAIN 

initiative? Specifically, do you think it will help everyone, including individual 

investigators that are working fields not directly related to the aims of the BRAIN 

initiative, or will it only help a select few scientists who have been advocating for this 

initiative? 

The Human Connectome Project is a great example of "Big Science" that will benefit 

many investigators. This project was specifically designed to place at the disposal of all 

investigators interested in human brain function a body of normal data that would be 

difficult if not impossible for many to collect. This follows a pattern of such projects in 

areas like Alzheimer'S disease where the data from the Alzheimer's Disease 

Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) and the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer's Network 

(DIAN) provide unique data (e.g., imaging of brain anatomy, function and metabolism; 

genetics; behavior; and biomarkers). The required sharing these data with all interested 

and qualified investigators is an enormously powerful means of obtaining the maximum 

return on the research dollars invested. Given the fact that these "Big Science" 

research initiatives were funded by our tax dollars it is a means of maximizing the return 

on our investment. 

The BRAIN initiative, as a very high profile undertaking, must strive to define the 

benefits to be derived from an integrated approach to methods development. There is 

no question that methods are critical to any research enterprise. A primary example is 

imaging itself (Le., CT, PET, and MRI). It has transformed human neuroscience. Will 

these new methods and improvements in existing methods (e.g., MRI) really benefit 

from this focused approach? I am confident that individuals now concerned with the 

implementation of this initiative from the Director on down are very cognizant of the 

challenge. The other benefit to accrue from the BRAIN initiative is to focus the publics' 

attention on both the importance and excitement of brain research. As many have said, 

the human brain is the last great frontier of science and one that we ignore at our peril. 

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71 

Responses by Dr. Gene Robinson 

QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD 

THE HONORABLE ELIZABETH H. ESTY (D-CT) 

U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

Subcommittee ou Research 

The Frontiers of Human Brain Research 

Wednesday, July 31, 2013 

Questions for Prof. Gene Robinson 

Thank you, Chairman Bucshon and Ranking Member Lipinski for holding this important 

hearing on brain science research. As we have heard this morning, brain science research 

is imperative as we work to provide medical care to our aging population. In my district 

alone we have more than 99,000 seniors, and research like this is necessary to understand 

and combat neurodegeuerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. And it sounds 

like, from what we have heard so far today, that scientists have made great strides in 

battling these diseases. 

Dr. Robinson, you spoke earlier about the role of supercomputers and data collection in 

brain science research. In your opinion, what is the role of big data and supercomputing as 

we continue to explore the brain and dig deeper into brain science research? 

The human brain is an assemblage of almost 100 billion interconnected brain cells (neurons), 

whose individual activities are integrated to produce our thoughts and behaviors. To understand 

how this works, we need huge data sets that describe how different types of neurons function in 

different situations. We also need powerful supercomputers that can synthesize and make sense 

of those data sets to give us new insights into how the activities of individual neurons give rise to 

a fully functioning brain. 

The brain is an incredibly complex system, one that is dynamic on mUltiple scales-from the 

many connections (synapses) that each neuron makes with other neurons, to the ensembles of 

neurons that act together to form circuits, to the activity of the whole brain. Our goal as 

neuroscientists is to understand this system well enough to predict how the brain will respond in 

any situation, to any type of input. This can be accomplished by collecting data about how the 

brain works in different situations, and then synthesizing those data into a more general 

conceptual model of how brain activity on the level of single neurons sums to produce a whole 

brain response. However, it will take a large body of precise and accurate data to successfully 

build this model. We have some of the tools we will need to produce it-tools that let us observe 

or manipulate the brain or its component parts-while others have yet to be developed. To 

synthesize so much data from different sources and functional levels in the brain, we will also 

need to push the current limits of computing power. Blue Waters, the University of Illinois's 

NSF-funded supercomputer, is an example of the type of instrument we will need to model how 

brains work to produce behavior. 

How has the collection of big data helped to make interdisciplinary research more 

accessible? 
72 

A good example of how big data has changed the way scientists work together comes from 

genomics. When scientists first determined the sequence of the human genome, the complete set 

of human genetic material, they produced the largest biological data sets that had ever existed. 

These data sets not only invited an interdisciplinary approach, they demanded one. A genome is 

both a blueprint for the functioning of a living cell, and a historical record of the evolution of a 

species and an individual organism; there is more raw data in it than one research group could 

ever hope to make sense of. To explore all the meaning hidden inside the genome requires 

collaboration among researchers who represent biological study at every level, from molecules to 

whole organisms to ecosystems. Furthermore, the statistical methods, computational algorithms, 

and software that were once developed to work with individual genes could not handle the 

amount of data in a complete genome. Biologists needed the partnership of mathematicians, 

computer scientists, statisticians and others to help develop the requisite new tools. As DNA 

sequencing becomes ever faster and cheaper, and scientists seek new insights by determining and 

comparing the genome sequence of a broadening set of species, they will continue to need new 

and better technologies to handle the data. The CompGen Initiative, which was recently awarded 

funding from NSF, is one example of an interdisciplinary effort to address this need. In this 

initiative, University of Illinois biologists, computer scientists, statisticians, and engineers will be 

working together to create an instrument with hardware and software designed to handle the 

challenge the huge data sets that are becoming commonplace in genomics. Big data sets in any 

field create challenges that are best met with this type of interdisciplinary approach, and the 

success of data sharing and collaboration in genomics will continue to inspire more 

interdisciplinary work in other fields, including neuroscience. 
(73) 

Appendix II 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
74 

SUBMITTED STATEMENT BY CHAIRMAN LAMAR S. SMITH

Thank you Chairman Bucshon for holding this hearing. 

The brain is a fascinating subject, and one of the unknown frontiers of medical 

science. We all have a brain, but we barely understand how it works. 

But through the process of science, we have begun to understand what questions 

to ask, what tools we need and the complexities that underlie the trillions of connections between neurons. 

Developments in basic scientific research, such as those contributed by Prof. 

Marcus Raichle, have provided deep insight into how the brain is organized. 

As the witnesses will discuss today, brain science is inter-disciplinary in nature. 

Advances from applied mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer science and engineering help provide both a conceptual understanding and experimental tools. 

In my view, this is where the National Science Foundation (NSF) can play an important role towards understanding the basic science behind Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, autism, stroke, dementia, traumatic brain injury, epilepsy and many other debilitating neurological disorders. 

I believe the NSF should support inter-disciplinary research in this area because 

the results of this research will have clear and direct benefits to the American people. 

The results of this research could be the foundation of new technologies that help 

wounded warriors walk again and also improve the quality of life for many injured 

Americans. 

For example, near my district in San Antonio, the Department of Orthopedics & 

Rehabilitation at Brooke Army Medical Center provides state of the art orthopedic 

and rehabilitative care to active duty soldiers of all services. I have met many of 

these wounded veterans who deserve a better life. 

My district is also home to several brain rehabilitation centers, including the 

Texas NeuroRehab Center and Reeves Rehabilitation Center. These centers treat 

thousands of patients who look forward to leading independent and productive lives. 

Research the NSF funds in robotics, statistics, fast algorithms and computation 

can be used by medical doctors to help patients perform day to day tasks. 

This past April, the Administration announced the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative, otherwise known as the BRAIN 

initiative. While I do not think many would disagree with the goals of this initiative, 

I am concerned that this is solely a repackaging of existing initiatives. 

Any federal initiative should include stated hypotheses along with clear steps towards implementation. 

I hope this hearing serves as an opportunity to work together and look for a bipartisan solution to funding inter-disciplinary brain-related research.Thank you Mr. 

Chairman for holding this hearing, and I look forward to the witnesses’ testimony 

and questions. And I yield back. 

Æ