/ News
The Brain And Behavior Research Foundation: Making A Difference In Mental Health Research
The Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, an organization which funds cutting edge mental health research, announced important discoveries of 2013 funded by its NARSAD grants.
NARSAD is an acronym for the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, the former name for the now Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.
According to Jeffrey Borenstein, M.D., President and CEO of the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, NARSAD grants help to fund research that provides new insight into the mysteries of the brain and potential treatments for people with depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, PTSD and panic disorder.
NARSAD grants are focused on three specific areas of attacking mental illness: basic research, new technologies, and next generation therapies. Different levels of economic support are offered ranging from NARSAD Young Investigator Grants ($30,000/year), NARSAD Independent Investigator Grants ($50,000/year) to NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Grants (100,000/year).
As Borenstein explains, the discoveries in basic research, new technology, next generation therapies and early intervention ranged from findings showing the brain adds 1,400 new neurons a day throughout a person’s lifetime to the identification of brain activity that predicts whether people with serious depression will respond better to antidepressants or psychotherapy.
The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, which funded 225 NARSAD Grants with $17 million in 2013, raises money to fund cutting-edge research for the understanding, early detection, treatment, prevention and cure of mental illness. It has awarded over $300 million in NARSAD Research Grants to more than 3,700 scientists around the world since 1987. Since its inception, the Foundation has been supported by private donations.
“We are entering the golden age of brain research,” said Borenstein, noting that 2013 was a year of highly significant advances.
“The top 10 findings of 2013”, Borenstein proclaims, “highlight the kind of scientific work that will help us understand, treat and cure the mental illnesses that affect one in four people.”
The mission at the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, however, is quite unique in relation to funding mental health research.
“We are able to fund cutting edge research that the government wouldn’t fund because often they [the government] will fund research that already has some level of evidence in place,” offers Borenstein.
“We are able to fund the preliminary work that then allows our scientists that we fund to go on and get further federal funding”, explains Borenstein. “The government is much more risk averse so the opportunity for real advances comes from the type of funding that we provide.”
According to Borenstein, after tracking those investigators who have achieved funding through the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, “for every dollar that we have provided in funding, they have ultimately received on average of 10 dollars from governmental funding subsequently.
As Borenstein sums up, “Because federal funding for research is steadily declining, private funding is required to drive the kind of high risk, high reward research that changes lives.”
Borenstein theorizes that there has been a decline in federal funding for mental health research essentially because “there is still prejudice against mental health issues, specifically how it is portrayed in the press creating a stigma–which in some ways affects funding for mental health”.
“The overall economic situation and government tightening combine to make private funding more important than ever”, added Borenstein. “The paradox is that we are really at a point in time of tremendous opportunity.”
Borenstein concludes that “if we were to then accelerate the amount of funding it would tremendously advance where we are in terms of treatment for these conditions that affect so many people. “Everybody has a loved one or friend affected by one of these conditions.”
Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2014/02/04/the-brain-and-behavior-research-foundation-making-a-difference-in-mental-health-research/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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