Australian Brain Alliance

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A proposal for an Australian Brain Initiative (ABI) is under development by members of the Australian Brain Alliance. Here we discuss the goals of the ABI, its areas of research focus, its context in the Australian research setting, and its necessity for ensuring continued success for Australian brain research.

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History and Purpose

The Australian Brain Alliance (ABA) is an initiative of the Australian Academy of Science with a vision to coordinate and boost strategic brain research across Australia. The goal is to lead paradigm-changing research into the brain and its disorders, in collaboration with global brain initiatives. Since its establishment in February 2016, the ABA has successfully united researchers across the breadth of Australia’s neuroscience and behavioral science communities, with early involvement of both the Australasian Neuroscience Society and the Australian Psychological Society, and the support of over 28 member organizations engaged in brain research. This alliance has developed an integrative brain research agenda that builds on Australia’s strengths, with the aim of revolutionizing our understanding of the brain through a coordinated and collective effort.

The ABA’s vision is to create a program with broad appeal by ensuring that research and infrastructure are developed in conjunction with government, funding agencies, industry, and philanthropic organizations. The goal is to secure investment in an Australian Brain Initiative (ABI), with a mission of creating an innovative and healthy nation by cracking the brain’s code.

Cracking the Brain’s Code

The overarching goal of the ABI is to “crack the brain’s code.” This is defined as understanding the mechanisms or “codes” that underlie how neural circuitry develops, how it encodes and retrieves information, how it underpins complex behaviors, and how it adapts to external and internal changes (see Figure 1). Discoveries in each of these areas will be essential for successfully achieving the following four grand challenges, which lie at the heart of the initiative:

• (1)
  To optimize and restore healthy brain function throughout life,
• (2)
  To develop neural interfaces to record and control brain activity to restore function,
• (3)
  To understand the neural basis of learning across the lifespan, and
• (4)
  To deliver new insights into brain-inspired computing.

As other brain initiatives have recognized, brain science is still in a discovery phase whereby understanding basic nervous system structure and function is a crucial precursor to delivering meaningful outcomes. Increasingly, it is being realized that investment in basic research, both technological and experimental, is essential for the discovery of innovative solutions in areas such as health, education, and 21^st century industries (Kosik et al., 2016). However, the widely acknowledged “valley of death” in translation is testament to the fact that basic research alone is not enough. While Australia’s recent record in moving from discovery to application is poor (Watt, 2015), we have demonstrated successes in a number of disciplines, including in the convergence of basic neuroscience with engineering (see Playing to Our Strengths, below). This is an area of focus for the ABI and one that the ABA believes can play a key role in Australia’s future prosperity.

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