Why Obama wants to map the human brain

The White House is set to reveal an ambitious, groundbreaking plan to unravel the inner-workings of the mind

"Every dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 to our economy — every dollar."
(Image credit: Photo composite by Elena Scotti/Charles Dharapak-Pool/Getty Images/ThinkStock)

Of all the ideas mentioned in President Obama's State of the Union address last week, one that stood out against the rest was his mention of an ambitious plan to roadmap the entirety of the human brain — the mysterious, messy tangle of neurons and synapses firing between your ears this very second.

"Every dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 to our economy — every dollar," said Obama, referring to the decades-long Human Genome Project, a groundbreaking international effort to map our DNA, which this new project is being silhouetted against. "Today our scientists are mapping the human brain to unlock the answers to Alzheimer's. They're developing drugs to regenerate damaged organs, devising new materials to make batteries 10 times more powerful. Now is not the time to gut these job-creating investments in science and innovation."

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Chris Gayomali is the science and technology editor for TheWeek.com. Previously, he was a tech reporter at TIME. His work has also appeared in Men's Journal, Esquire, and The Atlantic, among other places. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.