Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie Bezos, have announced a $15 million donation to Princeton University, their alma mater.
The money will be used to establish the Bezos Center for Neural Circuit Dynamics in?the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, led?by co-director David Tank.
"Professor Tank and his colleagues are on an epic quest to unravel one of humankind's greatest challenges — understanding the brain," Jeff Bezos said in a press release. "New tools and techniques are making possible discoveries that would have been unthinkable just two decades ago. We can hope for advancements that lead to understanding deep behaviors, more effective learning methods for young children, and cures for neurological diseases. MacKenzie and I are delighted and excited to support Princeton in their focus on fundamental neuroscience."??
The Bezos Center will be housed a new complex under construction on the south edge of campus. The facility is expected to open in the summer of 2013.
Researchers at the Bezos Center will look for patterns of activity that reveal, for example, how decisions are made or memories are recalled. At the microscopic level, the brain has networks of neurons wired together with synaptic connections to form neural circuits. Each neuron can have differing electrical and chemical activity. As neurons become silent or active, the pattern of activity shifts. These changing patterns are called neural circuit dynamics.
In the new center, measurement of neural circuit dynamics will be combined with complementary measurement of how the neurons are wired together with synaptic connections. The measurement of neural connectivity, and the mining of that data for knowledge about the brain, is an emerging field of research known as "connectomics."
Jeff Bezos '86 was an electrical engineering and computer science major who graduated with highest honors and Phi Beta Kappa.?MacKenzie Bezos was an English major who graduated with highest honors in 1992 and a certificate in creative writing.
"I am deeply grateful to Jeff and MacKenzie for so generously supporting this critical initiative," Princeton President Shirley M. Tilghman said. "The Princeton Neuroscience Institute is grappling with some of the most fascinating questions in the scientific world today, and the Bezos Center will significantly advance our understanding of how the brain works by taking full advantage of Princeton's strong tradition of multidisciplinary collaboration, its pre-eminence in quantitative and theoretical sciences, and its leadership in developing scientific instrumentation."
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