Australia is joining the BRAIN Initiative – one of the largest and most exciting global research projects.

Australian researchers will soon join with American counterparts on the world’s most ambitious research effort – to fully understand the human brain.

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) have opened a joint funding round that will get the top local minds working on the United States’ Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative.

There are few things more important, complex and yet unknown as the human brain.

Just as the Human Genome Project brought international experts and facilities together in a single aim – in that case, sequencing the first full human genome – the BRAIN initiative seeks to focus massive scientific resources on creating a complete image of the human brain’s many elements and intricacies.

But it is not just an intellectual folly - the underlying causes of most neurological and psychiatric conditions remain largely unknown, because scientists and clinicians do not fully understand the multitudinous parts of the brain and the many ways that they interact.

It is hoped that research conducted through the BRAIN Initiative will lead to more effective treatments and methods of prevention for brain conditions such as dementia, autism, epilepsy, depression and Parkinson’s disease.

Details on many of the groundbreaking finds from the project so far can be seen on the offical YouTube channel. 

NHMRC CEO Professor Anne Kelso said there was great potential underlying the agreement.

“Both the NIH and NHMRC believe that the ambitious goals of the BRAIN Initiative can best be attained by collaborating across both disciplinary and geographic boundaries,” Professor Kelso said.

“Australia and the US have a long history of successful collaboration in research. Indeed over the past four decades Australian researchers have collaborated more with researchers in the US than in any other country.”

“I am very pleased that NHMRC is able to help foster Australia’s contribution to this exciting project and I look forward to the results of this new partnership.”

More information, including how to apply for funding, is available at the NHMRC website.