PM Modi inaugurates Centre for Brain Research at IISc

Bengaluru: Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Centre for Brain Research (CBR) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) campus in Bengaluru on Monday.

The centre was set up at a cost of Rs 280 crore to study the aspects of the brain functioning, along with a Rs 225-crore grant from the Pratiksha Trust - a foundation set up by Infosys cofounder Kris Gopalakrishnan and his wife Sudha Gopalakrishnan.



The Infosys cofounder gave Rs 11 crore more, a few months after the initial grant, to foster a partnership between CBR and Carnegie Mellon University.

The grant, earmarked to be used over a period of 10 years, is considered as one of the biggest contributions towards research in pure science in India.

The new centre will research on the functioning of the brain to find cures for neurodegenerative conditions and diseases accelerated by old age such as Dementia and Alzheimer's. It will also build on the existing knowledge of the functioning of the brain to create better computing models.

An international scientific advisory board led by Nobel laureate Torsten Wiesel and professors Stanley Fahn from Columbia University; Sangram Sisodia from the University of Chicago; John Morris from Washington University and Giovanni Frisoni from the University of Geneva have been guiding the operations of the centre.