In February and March of this year, the Research Review Committee held meetings to evaluate research done by the Developmental Brain Science Group, the Molecular Neuropathology Group and the Brainway Group.
At BSI, all research groups are required to undergo a review of their work every five years. In the review, the results, progress and future direction of the research conducted by the groupﾕs laboratories, along with those of the group as a whole, are evaluated by Japanese and foreign experts in corresponding research fields. The result of each review sets the course of future plans for the laboratories and their group.
The essence of the committeeﾕs evaluations for each group is as follows

The research review commitee meeting for the Developmental Brain Science Group

The Developmental Brain Science Group
(Group Director: Katsuhiko Mikoshiba; three laboratories in the group)
The committee met from February 5 through 7. It comprised eight members and was chaired by Prof. Lynn Landmesser (Case Western Reserve University, U.S.A.)

The Gist of the Evaluation:
By elucidating the molecular and genetic mechanisms by which the brain forms, the Developmental Brain Science Group addresses a highly significant area of modern neuroscience. While utilizing a variety of model organisms, each laboratory addresses themes that both overlap and are complementary and thus provide an overall coherent focus for the Group. The review committee strongly recommends that BSI continue to support the Developmental Brain Science Group for the next five years at roughly its current level of funding.
Overall the Group addresses an important area of neuroscience and its presence significantly enhances BSI. Laboratory for Developmental Neurobiology is an outstanding laboratory that has made major contributions to the overall theme of the Group. Laboratory for Developmental Gene Regulation has made excellent progress and prospects for future productivity are very good. Support for a further five years is recommended for these two laboratories. The Laboratory for Molecular Neurogenesis was established more recently than the other laboratories in the Group and the research in this laboratory is at a more preliminary stage. Research progress is reasonable and the success of the approaches should become much more evident within two to three year time. The review committee proposes that its research progress be re-evaluated at that time.

The review committee strongly supports the continuation of the newly created Senior Scientist positions as this allows some of the most promising young scientists a chance to develop an independent research identity and overall will greatly enhance the quality of neuroscience research in Japan in the future.
The committee strongly recommends the establishment of a national zebrafish facility. Hundreds of mutations will be identified and the lines carrying these mutations will represent a hugely important resource for the Japanese scientific community, and for the zebrafish community as a whole.
The review committee strongly recommends that the Laboratories in the Development Brain Science Group participate more fully in graduate student training. The Committee feels that graduate students help foster an atmosphere of enthusiasm, energy and excitement in the laboratory and that they are very effective in promoting cross fertilization between laboratories. In addition, they provide an opportunity for junior members to develop teaching and supervisory abilities.
The review committee recommends that a new laboratory head be recruited to lead the former laboratory of neural regeneration.

The research review commitee meeting for the Molecular Neuropathology Group

The Gist of the Evaluation:
The mission of the Molecular Neuropathology Group (MNG) was to understand the pathomechanism of neurodegenerative disorders and to develop measures to protect susceptible individuals from neurological diseases. The review committee views the work of the MNG as highly successful and important and believes strongly that the work of the MNG and of the Laboratories for CAG Repeat Diseases, Neurogenetics and Motor System Degeneration should continue. It is hoped that by encouraging a focus on hypothesis-based focus for research, better integration of activities among MNG member laboratories, and the creation of strategic collaborations with Japanese and international investigators, the MNG will assume a leading role in research on the pathogenesis and treatment of neurodegeneration.
Laboratory for CAG Repeat Diseases has made a number of important contributions to the work of the MNG. Support for an additional five years is recommended. The review committee recommends that this laboratory refocus its efforts on the most important pathobiological questions on mechanisms of polyQ mediated neurodegeneration and that this laboratory improve interactions with other laboratories working on related problems within the institute and other research centers addressing polyQ diseases.
Laboratory for Neurogenetics has made important contributions with respect to the genetics and mechanisms of epilepsy. Support is recommended for an additional five years. The review committee wishes to see the lab focus its efforts more narrowly so that it can achieve international prominence.
Laboratory for Motor System Neurodegeneration is an outstanding laboratory that has demonstrated its ability to contribute significantly to our understanding of neurodegenerative disease mechanisms. Support for an additional five years is recommended.
Due to the loss of the permanent head of Laboratory for Neurodegeneration Signal through resignation, after a brief transition period to allow the current investigators to finish up key experiments, the review committee recommends dissolving this laboratory and creating a new neurodegenerative disease mechanism laboratory that will enhance and complement the work of the MNG.

The review committee would urge BSI to encourage the goal through emphasizing the creation of focused, hypothesis-driven research programs. Moreover, BSI should actively and aggressively support collaboration of MNG laboratories with outstanding Japanese and international scientists.

The research review commitee meeting for the Brainway Group

The Gist of the Evaluation:
The mission of the Brainway Group is to elucidate the design principles of the brain, and to apply this knowledge to the design and development of a brain computer. The Group proposes that the brain has two central design principles: output-driven operation, and memory-based architecture. In this first 5-year period, the Group chose a research strategy in which biological experiments would be used to confirm, and elaborate, these two principles. While a number of these experiments are interesting contributions to systems neuroscience, the review committee recommends a major shift of Laboratory for Brain-operative Expression (E-lab) resources to two new efforts, the general formalization of brain-style computing, and computational modeling of each experiment to yield brain-style computing principles. Moreover, all future E-lab experiments must contribute to these efforts as well as to the design of brain-style subsystems for devices being built in the Laboratory for Brain-operative Device (D-Lab) or other laboratories of the Creating the Brain area.
D-lab has 2 major foci. The first is on optical imaging and other technologies for measuring neural activity. This work is excellent. It is very relevant to neuroscience research at RIKEN BSI, and to the neuroscience community world-wide. However, it makes no direct contribution to developing brain-operative devices. Therefore the review committee recommends that this project have an independent status, uncoupled from the scientific goals of Brainway and that it be given exceptional financial and personnel support. The second focus of D-lab is on learning and robotics. D-Lab has developed two promising robot controllers but these are based on standard visual preprocessing and adaptive artificial neural networks. The review committee recommends that E-lab develop an explicit strategy to ensure that future work on robotics in D-lab contribute to the development of "brain-operative devices" based on explicit analysis of the role of brains in action, perception, memory and cognition.
To ensure that a transition is made to these new emphases, the review committee recommends that funding of the Brainway Group (as distinct from the Imager Project) be renewed initially for only 2 years, with further funding being subject to the results of a review in 2004 of progress in creating the new structures.