User:Cassianp/Human Cognome Project

"Wikipedia Proposal: Human Cognome Project"

Created by: Pamela Cassiani, Marion Tilearcio, Taylor Licolli, and Yun Chen.

Key Points

What is the Human Cognome Project?

The Human Cognome Project seeks to parallel the Human Genome Project in mapping the human brain. It combines biology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence to make an effort at elucidating brain structure. The ability to map the human brain from the smallest cells to the large structure of the brain would allow scientists to expand into new technological frontiers.

Development of Brain Morphology

Glial Monorail

Neurons migrate to specific regions of the brain using glia, specifically astroglia.

Inductive Factors

The early morphology of the brain is dictated by transcription and growth factors. Inductive signals promoting both neuronal and glial development include retinoic acid, fibroblast growth factor, bone morphogenetic proteins, and sonic hedgehog.

Cognitive Science

• Better understanding of the human cognome can help scientists develop methods to augment human intelligence.
• Scientists, with a "sequenced" cognome, will know more about the effects of brain injuries to certain regions and can work to better treatments based on information provided by the Human Cognome Project.

Artificial Intelligence

• Scientists use fMRI to study how the brain reacts to stimuli in order to develop algorithms to represent the data that was generated from the stimuli
• If a mathematical algorithm for the brain can be generated, new technologies can be created that assist humans in processing emotions, data, etc.

References

1. Leonard CM, Eckert MA, Kuldau JM. Exploiting human anatomical variability as a link between genome and cognome. Genes Brain Behav. 2006;5(Suppl 1):64–77.
2. Schierwagen, A. Reverse Engineering for Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architectures: A Critical Analysis. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, 2011, Volume 718, 111-121. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-0164-3_10.
3. Hatten M. E. (1990). Riding the glial monorail: a common mechanism for glial-guided neuronal migratin in different regions of the developing mammalian brain. Trends Neurosci. 13, 179–184. doi: 10.1016/0166-2236(90)90044-B.
4. Spikman JM, Van der Naalt J, Timmerman ME, Milders MV, Veenstra WS. Social cognition dmpairments in relation to general cognitive deficits, injury severity and prefrontal lesions in traumatic brain injury patients. J Neurotrauma. 2011 Sep 20.
5. Horn, Robert E. Beginning to Conceptualize the Human Cognome Project. 2002. <http://www.stanford.edu/~rhorn/a/topic/cognom/artclCncptlzHumnCognome.pdf>.

Workload Division

• We have decided to meet at times that work well for all group members to work on this project together. We believe that this way, all group members will be able to make equal contributions to the project.