Research

The vision of the IBI is to catalyze and advance neuroscience through international collaboration and knowledge sharing, unite global ambitions, and disseminate discoveries for the brain health and wellness.

The Declaration of Intent to establish the International Brain Initiative was announced on 8 December 2017 at a meeting of representatives from some of the world’s major brain research projects, supported by The Kavli Foundation and hosted by the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra.

The Declaration, made by representatives from Japan, Korea, Europe, the United States of America and Australia, is designed to speed up progress on ‘cracking the brain’s code’. Other member nations now include China and Canada.

ASPIRATIONS:

Promote coordination and leadership

• Among scientists: Leverage resources and expertise available in different countries to provide the best value for investment, minimise duplication of effort, maximise reproducibility of results, and standardise data collection and sharing.
• In large-scale research programs: Identify areas of greatest potential global impact and coordinate large-scale and interdisciplinary research program. As new capabilities arise, articulate and help resource large-scale equipment and facilities to be utilised by groups around the world.
• In innovative funding solutions: Promote strategic investment in global initiatives and leverage private foundation projects and their interaction with public sectors to maximise global efforts.

Transcend borders

• Between countries: Support an interface between countries to promote involvement in the International Brain Initiative and enable synergistic interactions.
• Between research fields: Promote interdisciplinary approaches to neuroscience and training across different fields to drive neuroscience discovery and innovation.
• Between global research efforts: Provide a platform for collaboration between existing global research efforts and international neuroscience-relevant societies to establish means of interacting with brain researchers.

Share and disseminate knowledge

• To global citizens: Engage in a meaningful dialogue with citizens, patients, and all stakeholder communities around the world to understand their interests and communicate transparently about the opportunities and challenges arising from the latest research in neuroscience and brain-inspired artificial intelligence.
• To accelerate discovery: Implement mechanisms for the rapid dissemination of information and global data sharing to accelerate discovery.
• To drive research translation and application: Promote the acquisition of standardised data so that commercial risk is reduced for translation and provide a platform for engagement with industry to provide translation of discoveries.

Shape the future

• To empower future generations of neuroscientists: Through innovative transdisciplinary training that embraces a global research perspective and the benefits of neuroscience for all.
• For international collaboration: Develop innovative and dynamic models for international research collaboration including public and private stakeholders.
• To promote brain health: Practice a culture of sharing data related to brain diseases to enable integrated application and translation to improve brain health on a global scale.
• For ethical neuroscience practice: Advance neuroscience with neuroethics as an integral part of the global neuroscientific enterprise.

The mission of CBRS is to build on Canada’s strengths and current investments in cutting-edge collaborative neuroscience to transform neurological and mental health for Canadians. The Strategy is a grass-roots initiative launched by leading Canadian neuroscientists, in partnership with representatives of the Neurological Health Charities of Canada to respond to a growing need for concerted efforts to understand the brain.

Its vision is of innovative and collaborative brain research that will drive policy as well as social, health and economic advancement for Canada and the world. Canada’s neuroethicists will guide these endeavors and continue to provide national and global leadership in aligning ethical, social, legal and policy considerations with advances in neuroscience.

The CBRS is not seeking to become a parallel funding stream, but rather to inspire decision makers and funders to further invest in programs that foster collaborative, transdisciplinary and open approaches to move Canada toward a big-science model for brain research.

By leveraging existing investments in brain science and adopting a big science approach to discovery, CBRS can establish transform the future of Canadian society.

Groundbreaking work is being done in the areas of neurology and neurosurgery as new neurotechnologies open up the potential for innovative therapies for a variety of ailments of the brain, spanning psychiatric, neurodegenerative, and oncological disorders. However, the decision to make the transition from pre-clinical research to first-in-human trials is a difficult one, marked by the relative absence of information on the certainty of safety, efficacy, and risk of the intervention. While guidance exists for pharmaceutical development, there is less literature on this translation for novel surgical procedures and medical devices. Patients and practitioners alike are left with a dirth of tools to aid them in the decision to undergo a novel neurointervention. In the absence of such guidance, it is unclear what factors are the key drivers of decision makers’ choices. We seek to explore the factors that key stakeholders take into consideration when determining a novel neurointervention’s readiness for translation into first-in-human trials. Insight into the attributes of a novel intervention that drive patients’ decision making will allow clinicians and researchers to better understand patient values and preferences in future care and research. Similarly, insight into the factors that drive clinicians' and researchers' perceptions of readiness can inform the development and translation of future novel interventions for patients as well as regulatory guidance for the field. Our qualitative research will provide much needed data on the relatively underreported translational process for surgeries and novel medical devices.

Funding Agency: Sunnybrook Research Institute

The initiative to explore the need for and possibility of a Canadian national bioethics council was born from the view of some of Canada’s prominent ethicists that the country has unmet needs regarding normative guidance in matters related to science, values, and society. In 2021, Profs. Judy Illes and Vardit Ravitsky convened a small group of thought leaders who had previously expressed this concern in various contexts and venues to explore the potential interest in such an initiative. The group is currently in the information-gathering stage and, in 2022, will hold international and national consultations and engage with the broad Canadian academic bioethics and Science, Technology and Society (STS) communities to explore and advance possible models for Canada.

In collaboration with colleagues at the University of Bonn, Centre for the Law of Life Sciences, in Germany, we are undertaking a multinational collaboration to examine neuroscience patents and the protection of intellectual property as they pertain to brain health and disease.

The abstract of the project is as follows:
Patents granted in the field of neuroscience cover diverse areas of diagnostics, devices, data processing methods and computational models, and networks and systems related to the central nervous system. Historically, patent protections have safeguarded the intellectual property of creative neuroscience discoverers and inventors, and offered financial incentives for innovation. Today, however, the far-ranging scope of neuroscience patents may lead not only to obstacles to research, but to massive threats to personal rights, human dignity, and health data protection. Compounding this threat are notions about “mind reading” and "the transparent brain" arising from new capabilities of both invasive and non-invasive brain computer interfaces (BCIs) involving signal recording and regional tissue stimulation variously in healthy individuals, and patients with neurological and psychiatric disorders. Here we propose to use methods from legal scholarship and the social sciences to: (1) examine patents already granted, (2) classify them into the applicable patent law, (3) address the question of the viability of the patent law that applies to them, (4) elucidate perspectives about the desirability and pitfalls of patents pertaining to brain from neuroscientists, patent lawyers, and patent officers, and other expert informants, and (5) close identified gaps that are unfulfilled and may place individuals, patients and society at risk. The limited discourse to date on brain patents is thus extended fully through this work and will, above all, be brought into patent law and policy decision-making.

More than 500,000 children in the USA and Canada suffer from epilepsy today. Unmanaged, epilepsy can result in cognitive decline, social isolation and poor quality of life, and has substantial economic impact on families and society. 30% of children with epilepsy continue to have seizures while on anti-seizure medication, a condition known as drug resistant epilepsy (DRE). Properly selected, up to 70% of DRE patients become seizure-free after surgery. Nevertheless, epilepsy surgery carries with it risks proportional to its level of invasiveness. As a result, a variety of less invasive interventions have been developed, including MRI-guided laser interstitial thermal therapy, robot-assisted stereo-EEG, stereotactic radiosurgery, vagal nerve stimulation, and responsive neurostimulation. This project aims to identify what caregivers and physicians value when considering neurotechnological treatments for children with DRE. This knowledge will be used to develop, evaluate and deliver patient-directed resources in the form of infographics and informational materials and videos, and clinician resources for family decision-making, clinician counseling and care.

Click here to view the NIH Epilepsy Resources

Funding Agency: National Institutes of Health

Advanced neurotechnologies including deep brain stimulation (DBS) and ablative brain surgery are becoming increasingly common in the treatment of movement disorders, epilepsy, mental illness, and chronic non-malignant physical pain. In Canada, they are offered in academic medical centres of the most populated provinces. Some are classified as therapeutic; others as experimental. Two important considerations that have not yet been adequately explored about these technologies intended to remediate brain and other disorders are issues of access and diversity of cultural views about them. This study seeks to close that knowledge gap. In the first year of this long-term project, we are conducting expert consultations with two important cohorts: the physicians and researchers who work with these technologies, and Indigenous communities, who make up an important proportion of the rural and remote population. Through multidisciplinary, cross-cultural consultations, we will elucidate shared concerns and unique considerations that collectively inform the equitable and culturally meaningful delivery of these potentially life-changing treatments to diverse populations.