Brain Awareness Week 2019

Policy

Brain Awareness Week, from March 11th to 17th, 2019, is the global campaign to increase public awareness of the progress and benefits of brain research. Leading up to and during this week, Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-CA-9) delivered a floor speech around the campaign, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR-3) sponsored and introduced a House resolution commemorating the campaign, a Brain Injury Awareness Day was hosted on Capitol Hill, and 500+ Brain Awareness Week events occurred around the world. SfN would like to thank the neuroscience community for their continued efforts to increase public awareness about the brain and nervous system during this exciting time of the year!

Top Scientists Call for Moratorium Blocking Gene-Edited Babies; Critics Want Action
March 13, 2019 | Discover Magazine

More than a dozen top scientists from seven countries are calling for world governments to adopt a moratorium on what scientists call heritable genome editing. They’re on a mission to make sure the world doesn’t see any more gene-edited babies — not till we’re good and ready — and they’ve got a plan to stop it. Read the original article from Nature.

Scientific Integrity Act Would Be an Important Step Forward for Science, Health
March 13, 2019 | Union of Concerned Scientists

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) introduced the Scientific Integrity Act, which would protect federal government scientists from political interference. The legislation would help to ensure that the public benefits from the best available science from government agencies, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

Trump Seeks Big Cuts to Science Funding—Again
March 12, 2019 | Scientific American

On 11 March, U.S. President Donald Trump released his budget proposal for the 2020 fiscal year, which begins on 1 October 2019. Nature’s news team reports on what Trump’s budget would mean for U.S. government science agencies.

In a First, U.S. Private Sector Employs Nearly as Many Ph.D.s As Schools Do
March 12, 2019 | Science

The job market for U.S. science and engineering Ph.D.s is about to pass a long-anticipated milestone. For decades, educational institutions have been the largest employer of Ph.D.s. In 1997, for instance, they eclipsed private sector employment by 11 percentage points, according to the U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) biennial Survey of Doctorate Recipients.

Science in the News

Taking Brain Imaging Even Deeper
March 14, 2019 | NIH Director’s Blog

Thanks to yet another amazing advance made possible by the NIH-led supported the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies^® (BRAIN) Initiative, I can now take you on a 3D fly-through of all six layers of the part of the mammalian brain that processes external signals into vision. This unprecedented view is made possible by three-photon microscopy, a low-energy imaging approach that is allowing researchers to peer deeply within the brains of living creatures without damaging or killing their brain cells.

Stanford Researchers Outline the Role of a Deep Brain Structure in Concussion
March 12, 2019 | Stanford

Concussion researchers have long suggested that damage to the corpus callosum, a thick bundle of nerves that connects the brain’s two halves, could result in some common side effects of concussion, like dizziness or vision problems. The assumption is straightforward – that damage to the corpus callosum could affect coordination between the two halves – but difficult to prove.

A Drone You Control with Your Mind is About to Hit Kickstarter
March 11, 2019 | Futurism

Have you ever jumped in fear, and then a split second later realized that a spider (or a spider-shaped shadow) was at the edge of your vision? Your brain enables different kinds of responses to visual information. There’s the conscious response to what you see, which is what allows you to read and understand words, check the weather through a window, follow a complicated movie. But you can also respond subconsciously to the visual world through instinctive reactions like jumping away from something scary.