Recently President Barack Obama announced a decade-long, $100-million project to map the human brain.
At Washington & Lee University, Professor Tyler Lorig, chair of the Neuroscience program, offered mixed reactions.
Lorig says while he welcomes the attention to the new announcement—he knows the money won’t go nearly as far as the public might expect. He's also concerned about misconceptions which stem from the language describing the project as “mapping”.
Lorig says another potential outcome could be understanding how the brain learns—which could lead to improvements in education. Lorig’s own research focuses on odor perception and the brain.