Zack Lynch is author of The Neuro Revolution: How Brain Science Is Changing Our World (St. Martin's Press, July 2009).
The Human Brain Project (HBP) turned 10 years old this past week and neuroscientists gathered to celebrate recent advances and speculate about what is to come. While the field of cognitive neuroscience took a while to realize the importance of data sharing and neuroinformatics, it is now working to archive and openly disseminate data from neuroimaging studies of brain function from across the globe.
One of the results of this decade long effort has been the development of the fMRI Data Center (fMRIDC) which provides computerized analysis of neuroimages, providing the ground work for a neuropsychiatric image database that could be used for clinical assessment.
As I've written previously, neurotechnology will be used to define mental disorders in the coming years. Indeed, the DSM-V, due for publication in 2010, will most likely contain neuroimaging and genetic analysis information to more accurately diagnose and treat mental disorders.