BRAIN Initiative

The White House's Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is a research effort to revolutionize our understanding of the human mind and uncover new ways to treat, prevent, and cure brain disorders like Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, autism, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury.

NIH BRAIN Multi-Council Working Group Neuroethics Division

NIH has established a neuroethics division of the BRAIN Multi-Council Working Group (MCWG). In broad terms, the workgroup will recommend overall approaches for how research programs like the NIH BRAIN Initiative might handle issues and problems involving ethics. The group is charged with:

Recommend overall approaches for how the BRAIN Initiative should handle issues and problems involving ethics.
Inform the MCWG and NIH on research questions important for BRAIN that could be answered through focused Funding Opportunity Announcements.
Consider proposed funding areas for BRAIN projects for questions of ethical risk.
Examine selected projects or applications for ethical concerns and, when appropriate, provide an ethics consultation.
Draft relevant guidance documents to address critical ethical issues associated with BRAIN research.