What’s China Brain project?
The past few years have witnessed a global awareness of the importance of brain research.China Brain Project (CBP)will soon be initiated this year.
China Brain project is a 15-year project approved by the Chinese National People’s Congress in 2016, following the Human Brain Project of European Union, BRAIN Initiative of U.S. and Brain/MIND Project of Japan.
The China Brain Project covers both basic research on neural mechanisms underlying cognition and translational research for the diagnosis and intervention of brain diseases as well as for brain-inspired intelligence technology.
Source：IKMResearchLargest population and an aging society saddled with neurodegenerative diseases push China into the research of brain project. At the same time, the urgent social needs give the unique advantages to the research.
CBP has a convenient approach to get the enormous brain data. For instance, Shanghai Mental Health Center keeps continuous medical records for about 100,000 mental disease patients.
New theories and methods to improve the machine intelligence level will be developed after conquering the difficulties of brain project.
Differences of the brain projects in China, European union, U.S. and Japan
Even though all projects have similar long-term goals, there still have some unique vantage points.
Source：IKMResearch
Challenges of the project implementation
Even though china has an enormous data to fulfill the project, obstacles still buried on the road. The standard of data collection is on the way, key data may be lost artificially.
Besides, the current China neuroscience community mostly uses macaque monkey resources for the further research. Macaque monkeys have similar brains structure to human brains. However, the convention of cognition and neural circuit is complex.
Last, the current funding and evaluation system in Chinese scientific institutions does not encourage risk-taking. Innovation and groundbreaking work often require one to take a risk. Most scientists tend to do safe projects that could ensure good funding. A science cultural aspect still need to change.
