Connectionists: Brain-like computing fanfare and big data fanfare

[Terry Sejnowski]

There are some misconceptions about the BRAIN Initiative that seem to be 
driving this discussion and some facts might help focus this issues.

The NIH advisory group issued an interim report that made recommendations 
to the director of NIH, which was used to issue the RFAs for FY 2014:

http://acd.od.nih.gov/presentations/BRAIN-Interim-Report.pdf

See section 5 on Page 33:
"Theory, Modeling and Statistics Will Be Essential to
Understanding the Brain"

There are many oportunities for those on this list to contribute to the 
BRAIN Initiative.  Here are a few:

p. 32: 4. The Importance of Behavior
"High Priority Research Area for FY2014: Link Neuronal Activity to 
Behavior. The clever use of virtual reality, machine learning, and 
miniaturized recording devices has the potential to dramatically increase 
our understanding of how neuronal activity underlies cognition and 
behavior. This path can be enabled by developing technologies to quantify 
and interpret animal behavior, at high temporal and spatial resolution, 
reliably, objectively, over long periods of time, under a broad set of 
conditions, and in combination with concurrent measurement and 
manipulation of neuronal activity."

p. 35:  New Statistical and Quantitative Approaches to New Kinds of Data 
"As new kinds of data become available through advances in molecular 
sensors and optical recording, equal effort must be expended to extract 
maximum insight from these novel data sets. Data analytic and theoretical 
problems are likely to emerge that we cannot anticipate at the present 
time. Resources should be available for experts from essential disciplines 
such as statistics, optimization, signal processing and machine learning 
to develop new approaches to identifying and analyzing the relevant 
signals."

p. 16: "The BRAIN Initiative will deliver transformative scientific tools 
and methods that should accelerate all of basic neuroscience, 
translational neuroscience, and direct disease studies, as well as biology 
beyond neuroscience. It will deliver a foundation of knowledge about the 
function of the normal brain, its cellular components, the wiring of its 
circuits, its patterns of electrical activity at local and global scales, 
the causes and effects of those activity patterns, and the expression of 
brain activity in behavior. Through the interaction of experiment and 
theory, the BRAIN Initiative should elucidate the computational logic as 
well as the specific mechanisms of brain function at different spatial and 
temporal scales, defining the connections between molecules, neurons, 
circuits, activity, and behavior."

p. 5: Recomendation #1. Generate a Census of Cell Types. We do not know 
how many types of neurons and glia there are. Two neurons with the same 
morphology could project to different areas and have different functions. 
Classification of cell types will depend on analyzing the high-dimensional 
transcriptome and proteome of single cells and combining this with 
anatomical and physiolgical data.  Why is this important?  Experimenters 
need to label and manipulate each cell type to discover its function. 
There are deep issues of what constitutes cell identity that need to be 
settled, which will depend on analyzing the distribution of heterogeneous 
data in high-dimensional spaces.

p. 50 8d. Establish Platforms for Sharing Data
The goal of the BRAIN Initiative is not to create big data sets.  This is 
already happening in neuroscience, as it is in every area of science. One 
of the recommendations is to make it easier for neuroscientists to share 
their data so others can analyze them.

This is an interim report.  The final report, due in June 2014, will have 
more specific priorities, milestones and goals for each of the 
recommendations.

Note also that there are 3 agencies involved in the BRAIN Initiative. 
NSF has not yet announced its program. DARPA has announced 2 BAAs:

http://www.cccblog.org/2013/12/02/darpa-announces-two-programs-as-part-of-white-house-brain-initiative/

Finally, new money for the BRAIN Initiative was set aside in the budget 
that was recently passed by Congress.

Terry

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