Neuroscience at NSF Status and Prosepctives

1. Net Proc Proc Proc Mem Mem Mem Bus Bus Bus Disk Disk Disk Comm Comm Comm Disk Disk Disk Comm Comm Comm Proc Proc Proc Mem Mem Mem Neuroscience at NSF Status and Prosepctives Rae Silver Senior Advisor OIA/OD November 16 2006 ENG Advisory Committee

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

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

4. Planning process: Neuroscience at NSF BIO CISE GEO ENG MPS SBE

5. Our Challenge • Articulate future research opportunities • new scientific directions • broader benefits to society • Develop a series of workshops to identify transformative opportunities • research • education

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

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

8. Circadian Body Clocks • 1972 Daily clock located in hypothalamus-SCN • 1971 Clock mutants in flies • 1982 Cloning of fly clock gene (Period) • 1997-98 Period gene in mammals • Discovery of cell based circa-dian clock DAY NIGHT

9. Brain Computer Interfaces: Biomimetic Microelectronics as Implantable Neural Prostheses Ted Berger Aug 06 • Problem: Integration of Brain and Computing Systems • Multi-Disciplinary Components: • Biomimetic modeling of neurons and neural systems (neuroscience, mathematics, biomedical engineering) • Hardware implementation (VLSI) of neural models for parallelism, rapid computational speed, and miniaturization (computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering) • Multi-site electrode recording/stimulation arrays to interface devices with the brain (material science, physics, chemistry) short-term memory long-term memory

10. Functional Neuroimaging of Information Flows within the Brain: Mechanisms of cognitive processes and brain functions ITR: High-Resolution Cortical Imaging of Brain Electrical Activity. Bin He, U Minnesota

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