In April 2013, President Obama announced the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative. During the speech, he said, “We have a chance to improve the lives of not just millions, but billions of people on this planet through the research that's done in this BRAIN Initiative alone.”

The BRAIN Initiative’s purpose is to help researchers better understand brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, depression, and traumatic brain injury. It will allow researchers to produce dynamic pictures of how the brain records, processes, uses, stores, and retrieves vast quantities of information and shed light on the complex links between brain function and behavior.

According to National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis S. Collins, “The human brain is the most complicated biological structure in the known universe. We’ve only just scratched the surface in understanding how it works—or, unfortunately, doesn’t quite work when disorders and disease occur… This is just the beginning of a 12-year journey, and we’re excited to be starting the ride.”

Many technology firms, academic institutions, and scientists, such as the NIH, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Science Foundation (NSF), have committed to advancing this initiative. The NSF has partnered with NBC Learn to produce a video series entitled “Mysteries of the Brain,” which draws on research conducted through the White House for the BRAIN Initiative. The series will discuss how the brain develops, controls emotions, and creates memories.

This eight-part video series will include the following segments:

• Searching for Answers—Discusses how new research has begun to decipher the unsolved mysteries of the brain.


• Thinking Brain—Discusses how the brain can store and process large amounts of information.


• Evolving Brain—Discusses how the basic movements of a tiny fish can teach us big ideas about how the brain's circuitry works.


• Emotional Brain—Discusses using a virtual reality room to study how the brain reacts to positive and negative emotions.


• Brain States and Consciousness—Discusses the study of a fruit fly to understand how the brain's cells communicate to control sleep patterns.


• Building a Brain—Discusses how the brains of tadpoles help us understand how neural circuits develop and absorb information from the surrounding environment.


• Perceiving Brain—Discusses how functional magnetic resonance imaging allows researchers to view the brain and determine how it distinguishes important information from every day scenes.


• Brain-Computer Interface—Discusses how devices can monitor and extract brain activity to enable a machine or computer to accomplish tasks, from playing video games to controlling a prosthetic arm.

The "Mysteries of the Brain" series is available for free viewing at NBCLearn, Science360, and the White House Blog. The National Science Teachers Association is developing lesson plans for middle and high school students, which will be available later this summer.

Did you watch the series? If so, what did you think? PAR wants to hear from you, so leave a comment and join the conversation!