Brain and Spinal Injuries in Georgia: A Needs Assessment and State Action Plan

PRNewswire -- The Brain and Spinal Injury Trust Fund Commission releases its 2008 report "Brain and Spinal Injuries in Georgia: A Needs Assessment and State Action Plan" which is in conjunction with the Trust Fund's 10th Anniversary that will be held at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta.

A Significant Public Health Problem

Brain and spinal injuries are a significant public health issue for the state of Georgia. These injuries affect an estimated 70,000 Georgians each year, resulting in substantial costs to the individual, the family, and the state in terms of decreased quality of life, lost wages, and need for services. While brain and spinal injuries can be devastating, it is possible for people with such injuries to live lives of independence and meaning within the community. To do so, however, requires a commitment at the local, state, and national level to develop a comprehensive, specialized, and coordinated system of care.

The Commission will begin the process of implementing the recommended goals in the State Action Plan during FY 2009. To assist with this process the Commission requests the assistance of the Governor, the General Assembly, state agency leaders, and the citizens of Georgia during this next year to learn more about the incidence, needs, and specialized service models available for Georgians with brain and spinal injuries.

The entire report can be viewed on-line at the Trust Fund's web site at www.bsitf.state.ga.us or to request a copy, email info-bsitf@dhr.state.ga.us

Neuropolicy Center Confronts the Biological Basis of Collective Decision Making

A new Center for Neuropolicy at Emory University will focus on how the biology of the brain influences decision-making in politics, policy and business.

As a partnership among researchers in the Emory School of Medicine, Emory College and the Goizueta Business School, the Center will create an ideal environment to accelerate discovery in this emerging field.

"Emory's vision is to work collaboratively for positive transformation in the world," says President James Wagner. "This new center brings together some of the brightest minds at our university and has the potential to effect policy change on problems of global importance through an exciting and emerging field of discovery."

The Center is the vision of Gregory S. Berns, MD, PhD, professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine. Berns specializes in the use of brain imaging technologies to understand human motivation and decision-making, with a special interest in neuroeconomics and social neuroscience. He will lead the Center as the Emory Distinguished Chair of Neuroeconomics.

"For decades, neuroscientists, psychologists and economists have studied human decision-making from different perspectives," says Berns. "Although each has approached the problem with different theories and techniques, the basic question cuts across many fields: how do humans balance individual self-interest against societal good?

"We all live in groups," notes Berns. "Sometimes groups make good decisions, but often times groups behave worse than any of its members would. This new center will approach the problem of collective decision making from an entirely new perspective, by studying how the human brain functions in groups."

The Center includes support from three schools. It will be developed over a span of five years and will be divided into areas of teaching, research and policy. Thomas J. Lawley, MD, dean of Emory University School of Medicine; Robert A. Paul, PhD, dean of Emory College; Lawrence M. Beneviste, PhD, dean of the Goizueta Business School; and Dennis W. Choi, executive director of Emory's Comprehensive Neurosciences Initiative are actively supporting this endeavor.

"The Center for Neuropolicy is another example of how Emory is working across schools and disciplines to pioneer initiatives with significant implications for our community, the nation and the world," says Fred Sanfilippo, MD, PhD, executive vice president for health affairs at Emory. "Dr. Berns' expertise and leadership, in collaboration with the diverse group of Emory leaders who will also be involved, will make this center a model for other institutions to emulate."

Members of the Center will have the ability to advise decision-makers of all kinds by conducting experiments focused on the biologically based pressures that influence collective decision-making. Their advice will be based on scientific discoveries that will open up a whole new understanding about how culture, intelligence and environment influence the way decisions are made, and how basic human tendencies drive judgment in certain situations.

Berns points out that we also need to understand how religious and political ideologies, which are abstract social values, become transformed in the brain and can subvert basic self-survival value judgments, which occurs in war and terrorism.

"Collective decision-making is political, but politics are biological," says Berns. "The human brain evolved to function in social groups. By discovering how our brains are wired to behave in group settings, we can begin figuring out solutions to problems of global impact."

Berns is the author of Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment (Henry Holt & Co., 2005) and the forthcoming Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How To Think Differently (Harvard Business School Press, 2008).

Berns graduated cum laude in physics from Princeton University, received a PhD in biomedical engineering from the University of California, Davis, and an MD from the University of California, San Diego. He completed a psychiatry residency at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pittsburgh. He came to Emory in 1998. He has received numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health and has published over 40 peer-reviewed original research articles in such journals as Science, Nature Neuroscience, and Neuron. Current projects include the biology of adolescent decision-making and the effects of peer pressure on risk attitudes.

Grant Supports "Intelligent Binoculars" that Mimic the Human Brain

The Georgia Institute of Technology has received a contract to help develop “intelligent binoculars” that mimic the low-level image processing done by the human brain. Called the Cognitive Technology Threat Warning System (CT2WS), the device is expected to be far more capable than portable visual threat-warning equipment currently used by the U.S. military.

A research team headed by Paul Hasler, an associate professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), will investigate the use of neuromorphic engineering to enable a CT2WS device. Neuromorphic techniques use innovative hardware and software approaches to emulate human intelligence.

The Georgia Tech team will be working with Hughes Research Laboratory and Northrop Grumman Corp., which have won CT2WS contracts from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

“Realistically, this is probably not something that’s going to be one project and then it’s done,” said Hasler, who is a research team leader at the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC), a 200-researcher group at Georgia Tech focused on mixed-signal (analog-digital) microelectronics. “This opens up a whole avenue of thought about neural-inspired approaches to new applications. There are likely to be a tremendous number of opportunities here going forward.”

Neuromorphic engineering is interdisciplinary, using fields that include biology, physics, mathematics and computer science, as well as electrical and other types of engineering. Its aim is to develop artificial systems—such as vision devices or auditory processors or even robotic systems—based to a degree on natural biological systems.

The CT2WS program’s aim is to deliver several prototype units small enough to be carried by solders in the field. DARPA has stated that these intelligent visual devices are now possible because of recent discoveries in a variety of fields, including wide-angle optics, digital imaging, cognitive visual-processing algorithms, neurally-based target detection processing and ultra low power analog-digital signal processing electronics.

A successful visual-warning device of this type could produce revolutionary capabilities for the combat soldier.

“The idea of this project is to build a visual device that is attentive, that can do the kind of low-level visual processing that your eyes do naturally,” Hasler explained. “You would see a certain picture in your field of view, but the device would actually be looking over a much wider space—and if it found something interesting it would present you with that picture as well.”

Hasler specializes in designing analog microelectronic circuits, in particular, novel analog designs that possess some of the configurability of their digital counterparts and yet use far less power.

Working with Associate Professor David Anderson, also in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Hasler has built mixed-signal analog-digital circuits that can match the performance of all-digital designs while using hundreds of times less power and producing less heat.

Hasler has already performed research relevant to the design of intelligent visual devices. With $1.2 million in funding, he and Anderson worked on an earlier DARPA program that focused on new approaches to integrating the sensing and processing of images. And when Hasler won the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, he used that funding to examine frameworks for building neural circuits.

Hasler explains that power issues are vital to a project like CT2WS, which must be portable and yet have enough processing power to emulate human cognition.

“This is a highly interesting platform problem because you really are trying to build, at least initially, a simple representation of one layer of human brain cortex, maybe multiple layers if you can,” Hasler said. “You need a great deal of computational power, robustness and performance, and it becomes possible because a configurable analog-digital system has a power efficiency improvement of up to 10,000 times compared to an all-digital system.”

Hasler adds that the new DARPA program can also be expected to stimulate speculation about whether this technology has commercial promise.

“This kind of problem can serve as a roadmap for future applications,” Hasler said. “It can get people from the commercial side interested because it demonstrates some very real possibilities.”