Grand Challenges

Recent technological advances enable us to measure, model, and manipulate neural activity in living brains with unprecedented precision and scale. These capabilities promise to reveal the distributed brain-wide neural computations that underlie cognition, flexible behavior, and biological intelligence.

Allen School researchers are developing innovative theory, modeling, and machine learning techniques to realize this vision, including new computational theories of brain function, computational tools for complex data analysis and experimental design, and AI-enabled brain co-processors for next-generation brain-computer interfaces. This research could open up new avenues for diagnosing and treating neurological and psychiatric conditions that affect millions of people in Washington state and billions of people worldwide. And as technologies for neural data collection and neural interfaces become more powerful, we’re committed to ensuring they are developed and deployed in ways that are secure, privacy-preserving, fair and broadly accessible.