According to NeuroInsights and NIO, the top nine neurotech regions with composite scores are:
1. San Francisco Bay Area, CA (100)
2. Greater Boston, MA (98)
3. New York/New Jersey (91)
4. London, United Kingdom (84)
5. San Diego, CA (83)
6. Los Angeles/Irvine, CA (81)
7. Baltimore, MD (69)
8. Greater Philadelphia, PA (66)
9. Minneapolis, MN (53)

Other regions supporting neurotech innovation include nascent clusters (Montreal, Canada; Basel/Zurich, Switzerland; Tel Aviv, Israel; Seattle, WA; Stockholm, Sweden; Tokyo, Japan) as well as regions to watch (Munich, Germany; New Haven, CT; Chicago, IL; Shanghai, China, Cleveland, OH and Raleigh/Durham, NC).

The rankings are based on three broad factors: number of neuroscience-focused companies, availability of local risk capital and social infrastructure (universities, hospitals, research institutes). The San Francisco Bay Area ranked first in number of companies and risk capital, while Boston ranked first in social infrastructure.

Data gathered for the report also reveals several other interesting regional trends. New York/New Jersey is the leading region for public neurotechnology companies. Boston, MA and Baltimore/Washington D.C. are the leading regions for neurotechnology social infrastructure based on strong graduate programs and hospital rankings in neuroscience related areas. The San Francisco Bay Area, Minneapolis, MN and Cleveland, OH are major centers for neurodevice development.

A special thanks to Corey M. McCann, our bright and diligent intern for all his hard work on this project!

CALL FOR SPEAKERS
Showcase your translational research project to potential investors and partners:
* Cutting edge research projects ready for investment or hand off to industry (preclinical or clinical)
* Pharmaceuticals, biologics, cell therapies, devices, and diagnostics
* Presenter abstracts accepted from October 1 through January 5, 2010
* Presenters notified by February 15 and coached on presentation, partnering, and start-up strategy
* Presentations selected based on quality of research, interest to industry, and fit with program
* Presentations will be 10 minutes plus Q&A with session panel

The summit will feature the top researchers from across translational neuroscience including Alzheimer's, addiction, ALS, anxiety, depressive disorders, epilepsy, migraine, mild cognitive impairment, Huntington's, multiple sclerosis, obesity, pain, Parkinson's, schizophrenia, age-related macular degeneration, sensory disorders, sleep disorders, and stroke. Download Fillable Presenter Submission Form

Steering Committee:
-Casey Lynch, Managing Director, NeuroInsights & President, Neurotech Development Foundation
-Frank Eeckman, MD, PhD Consultant, NeuroInsights
-Jill Heemskerk, PhD, Program Director, Office of Translational Research, NINDS/NIH
-Charles Jennings, PhD, Director of McGovern Institute Neurotechnology Program, MIT
-Zack Lynch, Executive Director, Neurotechnology Industry Organization
-Dan O'Connell, Managing Director, NeuroVentures Capital
-Gail Schechter, PhD, Director Center for Bioentrepreneurship at UCSF
-Paul Stypulkowski, PhD, Senior Director Research, Medtronic
-Guy Seabrook, PhD, Senior Director, Neuroscience Global External Research &
Development, Eli Lilly

The summit is hosted by the Neurotechnology Development Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit created to accelerate the development of treatments for the brain and nervous system by promoting translation of basic research.

IN THE 19TH CENTURY, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape.

Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is even greater. “Women hold up half the sky,” in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that’s mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it’s not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos. There’s a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That’s why foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution."

September 13, 2019 President Signs NINA (Neuro Information Nondiscrimination Act)

Inspired by the GINA (Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act) legislation passed in 2008, NINA might include areas such as:

-Explicit right to cognitive liberty, brain privacy
-Bans discrimination in hiring based on neuroimaging profile
-Bans all local, state 'drug vaccine' programs
-Bans 'neuroprofiling' for travel and attendance at public events
-Subsidizes accelerated learning with neuroenablement technologies
-Legalizes use of neuroenablers
-Bans denial of health coverage based on neuroprofile
-Bans cosmetic memory erasure

The scenario is being accelerated by the development of more sophisticated imaging technologies, neuroinformatic analysis algorithms, neurofeedback technologies, research into neuroplasticity, drug vaccine, neuropharma and neurodevice R&D.

The reason this scenario was seen as important to sketch out was that right now we have a whole host of technologies that are emerging without an effective policy infrastructure. There will be severe unintended consequences as technologies accelerate across a wide variety of enabling disciplines and national governments may eventually need to step in to protect their populations and their basic human rights.

A recent article in the Prospect written by David Edmonds, The Age of Enhancement, highlights the complexities that arise when considering the societal impact of conscious mental enhancement, "At the heart of the debate there remains unease about tampering with the very things that make humans human. And while we are becoming accustomed to some varieties of enhancement, our capacity to manipulate not just our bodies and our cognitive faculties, but potentially also our core emotions, is taking us into a world of dizzyingly new options."

Realize that these applications are just beginning to be developed. The more sophisticated work is still being carried out in the research labs of people like Andrew Lo, Dmitry Repin, Xiao-Jing Wang, Paul Zak and others. If you are serious, then I'd highly recommend attending the upcoming Society for Neuroeconomics meeting Sept. 27-29 in Evanston, Illinois to get insights into cutting edge research. Richard Peterson, whose story I describe in detail in the book founded a $50M hedge fund, MarketPsy Capital, that uses special emotion detecting algorithms to help time trades.

Evidence of the evolution of these neurofinancial software applications is everywhere. Sunday's NYTimes carried a story, Mining the Web for Feelings no Facts, that discussed several companies developing "sentiment analysis" systems. Perhaps more interesting was Monday's WSJ article "The Mistakes We Make - and Why We Make Them" which is loaded with basic ideas for neurofinancial applications. In the article, Mr. Statman, a professor at Santa Clara University points out eights ways to avoid the cognitive and emotion errors that lead to poor investing. One clear theme throughout his musings is that "regret" plays a pivotal role many of our worst mistakes. Also, here is a post I wrote in 2003 with some oldies but still undeveloped goodies.

So the bottom line is this: the future isn't here yet, go invent it.

Michael F. Huerta, Ph.D., is the associate director for scientific technology research at the NIMH and leads neuroscience and neurotechnology programs and initiatives at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He directs the NIH’s Human Connectome Project, the National Database for Autism Research and the Office of Cross-Cutting Science and co-chairs the coordinating committee of the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research.

"Technology’s potential to improve—or to imperil—our lives and our societies lies at the center of this entertaining and thought-provoking book by Zack Lynch, founder and executive director of the Neurotechnology Industry Organization.

Written for a lay audience, The Neuro Revolution begins with Lynch’s description of his first bungee jump, from the canopy of a lush rain forest, followed by a shock of pain from an injured spine when his second jump went awry. The experience inspired him to explore neuroscience and neurotechnology (Lynch defines the latter as “the tools we use to understand and influence our brain and nervous system”). With prose that is at times clever and quirky but never dull, Lynch discusses how our understanding of the human brain—as well as our ability to influence it—may shape the future of law, commerce, art, warfare and religion.

Along the way, we read stories of discovery and invention set in a variety of contexts and disciplines. Lynch’s anecdotes illustrate how the findings and technologies of brain science might alter society. He supports his stories and personal musings with references to reader-friendly articles and books; comments and insights from scientists, artists, ethicists and other experts; and historical facts that help the reader appreciate the full trajectory of a discovery.

... Lynch describes this and other neurotechnologies with characteristic zeal and animation without wandering too far from rigorous scientific interpretation. This is a difficult balance to achieve.
...Given the broad perspective Lynch takes in this book, readers may argue that he should have addressed additional technologies, neuroscience findings and ethical or legal implications more thoroughly. However, suggesting that additional points could be made or that topics could be explored further is more an acknowledgement of the richness and import of Lynch’s subject matter than a criticism of what this slim book offers.
...The Neuro Revolution is a timely and approachable introduction to the power of neuroscience and neurotechnology to shape our world, inside and out.

Yesterday, UPenn took another broad step into the future by announcing the founding of the Penn Center for Neuroscience and Society. The Center is cross-disciplinary endeavor to increase understanding of the impact of neuroscience on society through research and teaching and to encourage the responsible use of neuroscience for the benefit of humanity. The reach of the CNS will extend beyond academia and engage policy makers, advocacy groups, industry and professionals in the full range of fields affected by progress in neuroscience such as business, the military, law and education.

In an email yesterday, Martha Farah, Director of the CNS, described the aims of the center as being "very much aligned with the aims of your organization [NIO], and the social and historical perspective you present in your excellent new book are also very consistent with ours. So, I welcome your participation as we embark on the mission of the Center: to increase understanding of the impact of neuroscience on society."

Not only does the Center's development underscore the continuing evolution of The Neuro Revolution but it also supports our case up on Capitol Hill as we lobby Congress to pass the National Neurotechnology Initiative Act which contains over $10M/year in neuroethics related research funding.

As you can imagine, we thought long and hard about the title for the book. Years back I considered Brain Wave (a play on the physical phenomenon, the patterns of historical techno-economic waves, and the close association with the name of this blog). Obviously, The Neuro Revolution won for multitude of reasons, one of them being the desire to raise "neuro" to a new status.

The prefix to adjective shift is of monumental significance. Neuro refers to more than just the ways that neuroscience and neurotechnologies will drive social, economic and political developments but also to the many new ways of viewing, understanding and existing that will emerge as we assimilate neuro-derived and inspired tools and practices into our lives throughout the 21st century. This is similar to how the adjectives Industrial and Information placed before Revolution connoted much greater meaning than a type of technology or science.

At all of my discussions over the two last week in DC, NYC, Boston, Palo Alto, San Francisco, I continually shared that the primary reason for writing the book was to spark an ongoing broad public dialogue about how brain science, neurotechnology and new ways of viewing situations will transform nearly every aspect of human life - from law enforcement to the financial markets, to marketing, art, entertainment, religion, warfare and even what it means to be human.

I was heartened a few days after my talk at MIT, attended by over 100 neuroscientists, that it generated enough interest in the societal implications of their research that they are already working on a follow on series focused on emerging issues.

While there is already a burgeoning neuroethics community, it is time to expand the community. Given the extraordinary changes coming, it must begin to include people from all walks of life, yet another reason to write a book less laden in terminology and more focused on story and human interest. Let the conversations grow!