You have been chosen to head up China’s new Brain Project. What is it?
It’s a huge undertaking, one of China’s top scientific priorities. It’s a 15-year project that the National People’s Congress approved in March.
What does it aim to achieve?
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The project has three components, or “one body, two wings” as we say. The body is fundamental research into the neural basis of cognitive function. We’ll be using a wide variety of techniques, from profiling gene expression in neurons to brain imaging. The wings are applied science. One will focus on conditions such as depression and addiction, as well as neurodegenerative diseases of old age, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. In an ageing population – life expectancy in Shanghai is 82 and rising – it’s becoming urgent to resist the onset of degenerative diseases. We will also look at autism.
What’s the third component?
This comes from the information technology and artificial intelligence community. They want to initiate projects that are inspired by the brain. There are two aspects to it.
One is to use brain-machine interfaces to develop medical applications, such as neuroprosthetics. The idea is to use brain signals to control machines, to help people with serious injuries.
Then there is the information technology part. Even though we don’t know how the brain works, there are many features about it that you can incorporate into artificial neural networks or AI systems to improve them. Those researching AI need brain-inspired computational methods, “neuromorphic” chips – microchips inspired by brain architecture – and devices that take lessons from the brain.
, the and already have big brain projects. What can China bring to the table?
The Chinese neuroscience community is small, about 6000 people. That’s about one-tenth the size of the US’s, for example. So we are not competing, but doing complementary work. We have some advantages, though, including our enormous population of patients, which is 10 times bigger than Europe’s. In China, 9 million people have Alzheimer’s, 2 million have Parkinson’s, 30 million have depression, 9 million have epilepsy. Much effort has already been expended, in many medical centres, to find early markers for these conditions, including genetic and molecular ones.
We’ll be searching for biomarkers that will enable early diagnosis. But it won’t be very useful until we pool all the data into a central bank of information. That will be one of the project’s tasks.
How will you use that pooled data to tackle neurological disease?
We’ll investigate early intervention. With respect to impaired cognitive functions, one can have drug-based interventions or design brain training programmes to prevent further deterioration. Or we may try physical interventions, including non-invasive methods such as transcranial magnetic stimulation. All these tools must be improved because they are not yet very precise. And many drugs are only in the early stages of development, so we need appropriate animal models, of which the best are non-human primates. That’s another advantage China has over other brain projects.
What gives China its edge with using animals?
We have lots of facilities with large numbers of research primates. For example, we’ve already produced the of autism, in which a gene related to autism in humans has been replicated in the macaque. This macaque shows autism-like behaviours in its social interactions.
We can carry out some of the tests used for humans in these monkeys, but we can also target the brain circuits affected by the condition to see how we might change those behaviours. Eventually we may have monkey models of depression. That would be very useful; nobody has been able to produce such a model yet.
Scientists often move to China because they can experiment on non-human primates more easily there. Is China ethically more lax?
In terms of the animals’ environment and care, we strictly follow the of the US National Institutes of 91ɫƬ. Some of our animals eat better than humans: we have a colony of marmosets from Germany, for example, eating imported food because we wanted to give them the food they were accustomed to. Animal rights organisations in China may eventually raise the same concerns as those in Western countries about the use of non-human primates for research, so we must educate the Chinese public on the importance of this research, and show we are treating the animals humanely. From a medical point of view, there is no question monkeys are needed, because their use saves human lives.
Still, some researchers say there are unregulated laboratories in China.
The reason China may have an image problem is there have been cases of neglect in some fields of medical research, for example the use of human stem cells for therapy in unregulated labs. The government has now imposed strict regulation on how stem cell research is done. Animal research is also regulated, and the China Brain Project can help enforce these regulations – it will give us leverage in imposing these ethical standards across the country, as we can inspect every place involved in our research to confirm these standards are met.
“In 30 years we should have effective technologies for modifying brain activity“
You take the long view in your research. Where do you expect to be 10, 20 and 30 years from now?
Ten years is short, but in terms of healthcare, I hope we will have found good early markers for several major brain conditions. We will be testing various interventions in people with early signs of these conditions. That’s a deliverable goal on that timescale.
In 20 years, the rodent models of human conditions will have exhausted their usefulness, so that’s when China’s investment in primate research will show its true contribution and value.
And in 30 years, we should have precise and effective technologies for stimulating and modifying brain activity for therapeutic reasons – and perhaps for other reasons. As a society, we will have to work out neuroethical rules to guide how such advanced technologies should be used.
What brain breakthrough would you be personally interested in?
For my own benefit, I’d like see the development of an effective interface that could stimulate the brain’s sleep centre when I need to sleep – once we find its precise location, that is.
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Mu-ming Poo is director of the and the Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai. He is chief organiser of the China Brain Project
This article appeared in print under the headline “How to get ahead in the brain game”
