Brain Tech is Here
Neurotechnology Leaves the Nest but Waits for Policy Push
SOURCE: Patrick Denker via flickr.
Coordinated research can help unlock the potential for neuroscience to cure diseases and heal injuries of the brain.
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There’s no mistaking the progress. Neurotechnology—the tools to treat and understand the brain and nervous system—holds the potential to transform nearly every aspect of our lives and revolutionize our conception of the human mind.
Imagine walking into a doctor’s office where an advanced brain scanning system can detect cellular-level changes that signal the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, years before any physical or mental symptoms manifest. You and your loved ones’ quality of life could then be extended by decades with a treatment plan personalized to your specific case. Today, brain imaging technologies such as this are only just beginning to illuminate the causes of brain-related illnesses. But a wide chasm must still be crossed if we are to develop effective treatments for the nearly 100 million Americans and 2 billion people worldwide that currently suffer from brain illnesses such as Alzheimer’s.
The annual national economic burden of brain-related disorders has reached over $1 trillion (see chart) and is growing alarmingly due to an aging population. While research into the brain and brain-related illnesses is moving forward more rapidly than any other science today, our understanding of how the brain works still has many gaps and our ability to repair damage remains limited. Critical unmet medical needs exist in almost every area of brain and nervous system disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease, addiction, anxiety, autism, depression, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, obesity, Parkinson’s disease, pain, sensory disorders, spinal cord injury, stroke, schizophrenia, sleep disorders, and traumatic brain injury.
SOURCE: Neuroinsights, Office of Nat’l Drug Policy, Nat’l Institute of Diabetes, Alz Assoc., Duke University, American Psych. Association, Harvard, Nat’l Sleep Found., American Stroke Assoc., Prevent Blindness America, CDC, Journal of Clinical Psych, Epilepsy Foundation, Cost of Brain Disorders Europe
Investigation into the mechanisms and functions of the brain will lead to vastly improved understanding of brain disease and injuries, human cognition and behavior, and will give us an unprecedented ability to treat and heal those in need, as well as begin to reduce this growing burden on our economy. But all of this won’t happen on its own.
Emerging neurotech companies developing drugs, medical devices, or diagnostics for the brain and nervous system face more difficult investment requirements, research and development challenges, and regulatory milestones than other healthcare sectors. This additional complexity results in higher costs and longer time to market for many neurotech treatments. For example, it costs nearly $100 million more and takes two years longer to bring a neuropharmaceutical treatment to market than the average drug.
It is critical that the progressive traditions of American science and technology, especially our longstanding focus on the legal and ethical implications of new scientific discoveries, carry special weight as this new science matures.While some companies can get private funding to bring low-risk drugs to market, few risk-averse private investors will fund research into potentially more powerful treatments leveraging novel approaches like gene therapy for Alzheimer’s or neurostimulation for mental illnesses. Today, the potential for innovative treatments has never been higher—but brain researchers and neurotech entrepreneurs require additional support if they are to bring their ideas out of the labs and into patients’ lives.
A targeted, coordinated national effort is needed to support the development of neurotechnology across the board. It is vitally important that public infrastructure be developed to ensure that today’s neurotechnology discoveries quickly become tools to improve the human condition. Government must become a partner with the private sector to encourage the translation of brain research into treatments.
In an effort to improve national coordination and accelerate neurotech innovation, the Neurotechnology Industry Organization is spearheading the National Neurotechnology Initiative. The NNTI calls for establishing a National Neurotechnology Coordinating Office within the Department of Health and Human Services to help agencies plan joint and complementary research strategies and to serve as the unified voice of federal neurotechnology efforts. The new initiative also seeks to create an advisory panel of experts from industry, academic institutions, and non-profit organizations to inform the new office on issues including research and development priorities, technology transfer, commercial applications, and ethical, legal, and social issues.
The NNTI legislation, which is currently being evaluated by healthcare policymakers on Capitol Hill, includes $200 million in new federal funding for the first fiscal year. This funding would flow to the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and several other agencies to jumpstart new research, prepare the regulatory ground for consideration of new neurotechnology tools, and examine the ethical, legal, and social implications of this new field.
Under our proposal, the National Institutes of Health would receive funds to coordinate research and move that research out of government labs and into young innovative companies developing the next generation of neurotech treatments. The FDA would be able to hire neuroscience-related staff and develop workshops to create more robust neurotech standards to ensure the increased timeliness and safety of the neurotechnology review process.
Like previous successful models of coordinated federal investment initiatives, including the Human Genome Project and the National Nanotechnology Initiative, the National Neurotechnology Initiative will lead to a cascade of investment, discovery, applications, and benefits that can only be imagined today. At the same time, a federal research effort can help ensure the responsible development of neurotechnology by establishing ethical guidelines and policy for research, development, and applications.
By taking these steps Congress can ensure that the United States remains at the forefront of the race to uncover the workings of the mind. Huge economic payoffs will accrue to new and emerging centers of neurotechnology excellence around our nation, among them the San Francisco Bay area, Boston, San Diego, Seattle and Greater New York. The growth of strong neurotech regions will have long-lasting implications for employment, infrastructure development, and regional competitiveness.
Today the United States leads the world in neurotechnology R and D and commercialization, but the United Kingdom, China, Sweden, Japan, and Germany are all developing their own centers of neurotechnology excellence. The global expansion of knowledge in this new scientific arena is good for the United States and good for humanity. Yet it is critical that the progressive traditions of American science and technology, especially our longstanding focus on the legal and ethical implications of new scientific discoveries, carry special weight as this new science matures.
Neurotechnology applications have the potential to transform highly specialized areas of medicine, computing, and defense, and will also affect the everyday lives of Americans. How this plays out, and the benefits or consequences of these new tools, will depend on the U.S. government taking a leadership role in neurotechnology R and D. As Congress weighs our legislative proposals, we invite the broader scientific community to examine our proposal and support this important cross-disciplinary initiative.
Zack Lynch is Executive Director of the Neurotechnology Industry Organization.
Comments on this article
Excellent article! I would love to see someone actually step up and make the changes needed to support initiatives to help neuroscience advance. Cudos to you for being a part of it. Hopefully the right people will take notice of your foresight.
October 7th, 2007 at 9:15 amDear Zack
What a utopia you describe.
But for everyone of those illnesses you list – Alzheimer’s disease, addiction, anxiety, autism, depression, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, obesity, Parkinson’s disease, pain, sensory disorders, spinal cord injury, stroke, schizophrenia, sleep disorders, and traumatic brain injury. as well as cancer – hundreds or thousands of innocent citizens have been targeted for experimental research carried out remotely to protect the researcher. Many programmes seek a cure using reverse engineering, whereby the symptoms or illness are artificially manufactured, by destroying the hippocampus and therefore memory , with beamed microwaves, in order to study Alzheimer’s. And the neurotech industries have sanctioned it, exploited government secrecy, and sacrificed lives as well as brains, to make their names and their fortunes out of their innocent victims.
I think this statement by the Air Force Directorate should be widely read and assessed when this brilliant new society is invoked And as you well know, there have been unheralded advances in Neuroscience since 1996.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/vistas/vistas.htm
US Air Force Scientific Advisory Board (1996)
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/vistas/vistas.htm. (0.25 seconds)
New World Vistas Air and Space Power for the 21st Century Summary …
“Prior to the mid-21st century, there will be a virtual explosion of knowledge in the field of neuroscience. We will have achieved a clear understanding of how the human brain works, how it really controls the various functions of the body, and how it can be manipulated (both positively and negatively). One can envision the development of electromagnetic energy sources, the output of which can be pulsed, shaped, and focused, that can couple with the human body in a fashion that will allow one to prevent voluntary muscle movements, control emotions (and thus actions), produce sleep, transmit suggestions, interfere with both short-term and long-term memory, produce an experience set, and delete an experience set. This will open the door for the development of some novel capabilities that can be used in armed conflict, in terrorist/hostage situations, and in training. New weapons that offer the opportunity of control of an adversary without resorting to a lethal solution or to collateral casualties can be developed around this concept. This would offer significant improvements in the capabilities of our special operation forces. Initial experimentation should be focused on the interaction of electromagnetic energy and the neuromuscular junctions involved in voluntary muscle control. Theories need to be developed, modeled, and tested in experimental preparations. Early testing using in vitro cell cultures of neural networks could provide focus for more definitive intact animal testing. If successful, one could envision a weapon that would render an opponent incapable of taking any meaningful action involving higher motor skills, (e.g. using weapons, operating tracking systems). The prospect of a weapon to accomplish this when targeted against an individual target is reasonable; the prospect of a weapon effective against a massed force would seem to be more remote. Use of such a device in an enclosed area against multiple targets (hostage situation) may be more difficult than an individual target system, but probably feasible.
It would also appear possible to create high fidelity speech in the human body, raising the possibility of covert suggestion and psychological direction. When a high power microwave pulse in the gigahertz range strikes the human body, a very small temperature perturbation occurs. This is associated with a sudden expansion of the slightly heated tissue. This expansion is fast enough to produce an acoustic wave. If a pulse stream is used, it should be possible to create an internal acoustic field in the 5-15 kilohertz range, which is audible. Thus, it may be possible to “talk” to selected adversaries in a fashion that would be most disturbing to them.”
October 9th, 2007 at 6:43 pmWell done. Yes, there are many treatments out there for most of these illnesses but the start up companies are not getting the funding they deserve. From my research it is obvious that the discovers and cures will pose a problem to various weapons systems in development and lower their effectiveness. Thanks for sharing these statistics.
October 11th, 2007 at 6:57 pmYes, this is great and all, but what of the negative qualities neurotechnology may have?
February 26th, 2008 at 11:24 pmIt is impossible that neurotechnology will have no faults. The article only describes one side of the story-not both.
The promise that such advances in brain technologies have for medicine are not in doubt, and ethical discussions to regulate the discoveries are indeed needed.
I think that Carole Smith as well as Dr. Nick Begich have done excellent work to altert the public of the downside that advances in neuro-techologies have to society and individuals. With every advancement in the neuroscience for health, the military perhaps has already found it and exploited it for different purposes. These expolitations have gone on without oversight, and this fact is perhaps underreported. Military veterans suffering brain injuries have not benefited in significant ways from military nor medical research into neuro-technology, as the goals of such military research seem geared towards other ends. That is unfortuante.
Regulations of these technological developments, and ethical considerations regarding the uses of them calls for congressional bodies to study what the military has discovered, and this requires effort.
The following addresses this:
http://mentalthreats.wordpress.com
January 4th, 2010 at 5:11 pm