Brain Science: Draw a schematic diagram of cognition and explore "prescriptions" for brain diseases
Compared with the "Brain Project" in Europe, America and Japan, the "Chinese Brain Project" is more comprehensive.
The research on children's brain development and improvement included in the deployment is one of the most cutting-edge brain science research directions in the world.
Zuo Xinian, Professor, State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University
This year’s Spring Festival, the neatly written "Fu" and "Niu" Spring Festival couplets were posted in the Institute of Medical Engineering and Translational Medicine of Tianjin University. These Spring Festival couplets are unusual, and they all come from the "hands" of a robotic arm controlled by brain waves. "It is the neural engineering team of Tianjin University who relied on brain-computer interface technology and independently developed the "Nezha" multi-brain coordinated intelligent arm system.
The brain-computer interface is one of the cutting-edge scientific directions for humans to explore the brain.
To this day, understanding the working mechanism of the brain is of great significance for the treatment of major brain diseases, for the development, simulation and protection of human brain functions, and for seizing the technological commanding heights of international competition.
As early as 2016, the "China Brain Project"-"Brain Science and Brain-like Research" was included in the national "13th Five-Year Plan" as a major scientific and technological project.
In the latest draft of the "14th Five-Year Plan", "brain science and brain-like research" has continued to be included in major scientific and technological projects.
On January 19, the Ministry of Science and Technology publicly solicited opinions on the 2020 project application guidelines for major projects of “Brain Science and Brain-like Research” for Science and Technology Innovation 2030, which sounded the clarion call for the leapfrog development of brain science research in my country.
"China Brain Project" Layout One Two Wings
In order to speed up my country's brain science research, the Xiangshan Science Conference held in March 2014, with the theme of "my country's Brain Science Research Development Strategy Research", discussed the goals, tasks and feasibility of China's brain science research plan.
After many demonstrations, scientists in various fields have proposed the layout of the "China Brain Project" as one and two wings, that is, to study the principle of brain cognition as the "main body", and to develop new methods for diagnosis and treatment of major brain diseases and new brain-computer intelligence technologies as the "two wings. ".
In terms of the principle of brain cognition, "One Body" mainly solves three levels of problems: one is the brain's sensory cognition of the external environment; the second is the self-awareness of humans and non-human primates; the third is the language Cognition, used to study artificial intelligence technology.
"In the'Two Wings', in the exploration and treatment of brain diseases, the primary goal is to overcome autism, depression, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and other diseases." said Qiu Zilong, a researcher at the Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligent Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This kind of brain diseases has increased the burden on society and families, and most brain diseases have no effective treatment methods, and there is an urgent need for breakthroughs in diagnosis and treatment.
"The other wing is how to use brain science research to promote the development of a new generation of artificial intelligence technology, that is, brain-like science. The current brain-like science relies on two key areas, namely brain-like computing and brain-computer interface." Tianjin University Research Ming Dong, Executive Deputy Dean of the Academy, Dean of the Institute of Medical Engineering and Translational Medicine, and Director of the Tianjin Brain Science Center further introduced that the current international cutting-edge technology research of brain-like computing mainly includes brain-like chips, brain-like computing architecture, etc.; brain— The research on cutting-edge technology of computer interface is mainly high-throughput brain information sensing technology, key brain-computer coding and decoding technology, etc.
Zuo Xinian, a professor at the State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning at Beijing Normal University, said that compared with the "Brain Project" in Europe, America and Japan, the "China Brain Project" is more comprehensive.
For example, the research on children’s brain development and improvement included in the “one-piece” deployment is one of the most cutting-edge brain science research directions in the world. It faces the country’s major needs in children and adolescents’ learning, education and healthy development, and builds large-scale school-age students. The long-term tracking cohort of children reveals the general laws and promotion mechanisms of brain development.
According to the layout of the "China Brain Project", Beijing and Shanghai have launched regional plans for "Brain Science and Brain-like Intelligence", and established brain science and brain-like research centers respectively.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences has also established a brain science and intelligent technology excellence innovation center with more than 80 elite laboratories in 20 institutes, and various universities have also established brain-like intelligence research centers.
Brain Enhancement Project Will Reveal the Neuroscience Mechanism of Brain Development
With the implementation of the "China Brain Project", my country has made a number of world breakthroughs in the field of "brain science and brain-like research".
In April 2020, the main issue of "Nature" introduced the current situation, research results and industrialization of research institutions in the field of China's brain science that are booming in the "Nature Focus-Chinese Brain Science" column.
"In recent years, China has developed rapidly in terms of brain-like computing and brain-computer interfaces. In terms of brain-like computing, Zhejiang University released the second-generation'Darwin' neuromorphic brain-like chip in 2019; in 2019, Tsinghua University successfully developed The world's first heterogeneous fusion brain-like chip "Tian Movement Core"." Mingdong introduced, in terms of brain-computer interface, in 2014, Tianjin University independently developed the world's first artificial neural rehabilitation robot system "ShenGong No. 1" ; In 2015, the Tsinghua University research team designed a 40-instruction high-speed brain-computer interface system, with a single instruction output time of only 1 second; in 2019, the "Brain Talker" chip developed by Tianjin University came out, which is a non-invasive brain— The miniaturization and practicality of the computer interface opened the way.
Clinically, my country has also made some progress in the treatment and research of brain diseases.
"After epidemiological research, it was announced in 2020 that the prevalence rate of school-age children with autism spectrum disorder in China was 1/142. This is the first accurate data obtained through a large-scale survey in my country." Qiu Zilong introduced the study. The results laid the foundation for the implementation of my country's autism basic and long-term strategic planning for clinical research.
"In addition, my country is a big country with Parkinson’s disease. As an effective treatment to improve the clinical symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, my country is among the world’s top in the amount of deep brain electrical stimulation clinical operations. Tiantan Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University and Ruijin Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine The hospital has become a world-class center for neuromodulation treatment and research of brain diseases." Qiu Zilong said.
While some progress has been made in clinical research, my country's basic research on brain diseases has also gained a lot, and it continues to lead the world in the study of non-human primate models of brain diseases.
For example, in 2016, Qiu Zilong's research group established the world's first non-human primate model of autism; in 2017, the team of academician Ji Weizhi of Kunming University of Science and Technology created the first gene-edited monkey model of brain developmental disease; in 2019, the Chinese Academy of Sciences brain Zhang Hongjun and Sun Qiang’s research team from the Center of Intellectual Excellence have used gene editing and somatic cell cloning to establish a rhesus monkey model with abnormal rhythm and aging...
In the layout of one body and two wings, my country's brain improvement plan is innovative and unique.
Zuo Xinian introduced that in the early stage, my country had completed the corresponding large-scale basic data construction in the aspects of education quality monitoring and the evaluation and census of adolescents’ psychological and cognitive behaviors. Through the "Color Nest Project-Growing Up in China" and "School-aged Children’s Brain Development and Development" The advancement of “school-adapted image genetic cohort” has accumulated experience in the construction of regional brain development cohorts.
"The brain development and promotion deployment in the'China Brain Project' is based on this foundation to build large-scale basic data on brain development and reveal its neuroscience mechanism."
"Currently, Europe, the United States, Singapore and other countries have also carried out large-scale brain development studies. For example, the United States launched a 10-year large-scale'adolescent brain and cognitive development cohort' in 2015." Zuo Xinian further introduced that this study is aimed at American adolescents. Addiction and other common risky behaviors, by tracking the brain development of 10,000 9-10 year old children, reveal the scientific mechanism behind them.
The large-scale brain development cohort in my country serves the needs of children's learning and development. Follow-up surveys have been conducted on the brain development of 30,000 school-age children and adolescents (6-18 years old).
In the future, human intelligence and machine intelligence will seamlessly merge
"At present, China's research in the field of adolescent brain development and improvement has occupied the leading position in the world." Zuo Xinian believes that one of the distinctive deployments is the large-scale tracking cohort at the national level. After 10-15 years of follow-up, the results are obtained. Data on brain and cognitive development, mental health, and behavioral development from the first grade of primary school to adulthood.
"The research on the improvement of adolescents' brains is of great significance. It provides references for the education department to formulate more scientific teaching plans and education policies. It can also help parents understand the growth and development of their children, so that the children can pass adolescence smoothly." Zuo Xinian added, Children's mental health problems and mental illnesses have their early potential developmental etiological mechanisms, and the laws of brain development can provide scientific basis for their early diagnosis.
"The draft of the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan has a very clear goal for brain disease research, which is to use the three major diseases of Alzheimer's, depression, and autism as the starting point to promote the integration of clinical resources and the development of basic research." Qiu Zilong Said, “At present, around effective intervention and accurate diagnosis, various researches on these three diseases are also steadily advancing. This year the country has clarified the research direction of Alzheimer’s and depression, and next year will start clinical work on autism. We look forward to making progress in these studies during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period."
During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, my country's brain-inspired scientific research will achieve breakthroughs in core technology research and development, and achieve breakthroughs in original innovative theories and methods.
At the same time, the country will also strengthen the application and industrialization of brain-inspired intelligence related technologies to meet the ever-evolving social needs.
"Brain-like research can also promote the common development of computing systems, learning theories, and human-computer interaction, and bring impetus to the new generation of computing revolution." Mingdong gives an example, such as using computing methods to structure and process the brain's nervous system. Simulation of the mechanism is expected to break the shackles of the von Neumann architecture, and realize a brain-like computer with a structure that is close to the brain, performance far exceeds the brain, storage and processing integration, ultra-low energy consumption, and truly ultra-large-scale parallelism.
"With the development of brain-like research, the future of human-computer interaction will become closer to the natural brain-computer interaction. Human intelligence and machine intelligence will gradually achieve seamless integration, thereby achieving the advantages between biological brains and robotic brains. Complementarity will eventually form the ultimate form of human-machine symbiosis." Mingdong is confident in the future development of brain-inspired science.
Our reporter Chen Xi