New Government Initiative for “Brain Mapping”

There is much fanfare surrounding the recently-proposed $100 million investment in research to “map” the brain in an effort to discover cures for major diseases, such as autism and Parkinson’s. While there might be some benefit to this endeavor, Dr. Braverman said on Geraldo’s WABC radio show on 4-3-13 that “It’s just a drop in the bucket.” He didn’t have time to mention that billions have been wasted on fruitless cancer research and there is every likelihood that the proposed investment using public funds will disappear down the sinkhole of inefficiency, waste, and connected lobbies.

Dr. Braverman also didn’t have time to mention that he and a handful of other brain experts are already mapping the brain to diagnose and treat myriad conditions from headaches to anxiety to depression to insomnia. And, while he did manage to announce the publication in the Public Library of Science (PLOS) the PATH Foundation’s new proposal for a universal brain health checkup, he did not have the time to elaborate on how impactful that paradigm would be in terms of improving health in the short term and dramatically reducing healthcare costs in both the short and long run.
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“For most people,” Dr. Braverman always says with a wry smile, “the brain is attached to the body.” If you want total health, you must find out just how well your brain is functioning now, and you must intervene at the earliest possible stage to halt its progression toward dementia and other conditions that reduce the quality of life and cut it short.

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