Obama’s Brain Mapping Project Essay

The treatment of diseases affecting the nervous system has remained a monster among many healthcare policy establishments. This has been the case in the US. For long, there has not been an eligible public healthcare policy that has ultimately defined the necessity of an establishment of brain disease treatment program.

The very rare of the programs that aim at offering solution to this mystery has more often than not been faced with insufficiency of funding and have resulted in outsourcing finances for their operations. It can be considered that the government has failed to recognize the importance of such an establishment until recently (“BBC: Obama Proposes Brain Mapping Project” Par. 2)

According to CNN, the US president has launched a $100 million funding for the establishment of a center that will consolidate research and promote understanding and foster treatment of brain diseases. The initiative has been branded “BRAIN” which stands for Brain Research through Advancing Initiative Neurotechnologies and has an objective of finding newer means of preventing, curing or treating brain diseases and disorders.

In this regard, the institute will develop new ways of managing brain diseases such as epilepsy, brain tumors, and traumatic injuries, Alzheimer’s disease among others (“PBS: Obama Reveals Brain Mapping Project” Par. 5).

According to President Obama, BRAIN will give researchers a better understanding of the brain by availing of tools and research techniques which they require. According to him, understanding of how the human brain functions i.e. how we think, remember and how we learn, is a stepping stone to helping the researchers in coming up with the very modest management procedures of these diseases (“BBC: Obama Proposes Brain Mapping Project” Par. 5).

The president remains optimistic that as he presents this budget to parliament it will be supported as it is essential. However, with the current budgetary constraints, it remains highly questionable of how much support the proposed project will get. The president is looking forward to fulfilling the promises he made of promoting research in health care facilities through uncompromised funding.

The projects main aim is to unlock the mystery of how the brain cell functions. The research will, therefore, incorporate both private and federal research institutions. This will be done through the collaboration with the National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (“PBS: Obama Reveals Brain Mapping Project” Par. 8).

The director of the Defense Advanced Research Project Policy, Arati Prabhakar argues that the Understanding of how the brain understands will remain the main objective of this project. His Counterpart, the director of the National Institute of Health, Francis Collins agrees that technological advancement may give a chance to researchers to be able to see the processes that take place in the brain.

The members of the institutes strongly believe that new technology is the only chance they have in developing health care and extending their research finding to the patients (“PBS: Obama Reveals Brain Mapping Project” Par. 9).

Members of the public are as well concerned with the advances and the contributions of the president in trying to avail the very best of healthcare services to the citizens. The president over the last few years that he has been in power has tried to enforce strong policies and funding to uplift the general standards of health care.

It is the hope of the citizens therefore that the parliamentarians accord the president the necessary support on the proposed research project in accordance with its objectives. Even with the budgetary constraints, many feel that the priority of this project proposal remains in the hearts of many.

Works Cited

BBC: Obama Proposes Brain Mapping Project 2013. Web. 16 April. 2013. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22007007>.

PBS: Obama Reveals Brain Mapping Project 2013. Web. 6 April. 2013. <http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2013/04/obama-reveals-new-brain-mapping-project.html.>