+$20 million for brain imaging institute

Some earmarks have had a lasting effect. A $10 million earmark in the 1997 energy appropriations bill helped launch a project that was then called the National Foundation for Functional Brain Imaging—later known as the MIND Institute, and now the Mind Research Network (MRN)—headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The nonprofit organization comprised a collaborative effort between researchers at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. The focus: developing new technologies and methodologies for magnetic

The well-funded consortium purchased several pieces of cutting-edge machinery, including three state-of-the-art MRI scanners and one MEG scanner. Apostolos Georgopolous, director of the Brain Science Center at the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis and a collaborator in the early days of the National Foundation for Functional Brain Imaging, says that the consortium benefited...