Rapid advances in neuroscience in the past decades depended on the development of various brain imaging and physiological recording technologies, as well as the use of appropriate animal model systems for studying various brain functions and dysfunctions.  It has also become clear that, due to the close proximity of their brain anatomy and physiology to humans, non-human primates (NHPs) represent indispensable animal models for understanding the neural basis of normal human brain functions and dysfunctions associated with brain disorders. In view of the international need for a sustainable infrastructure for studying brain science based on the use of NHPs, we proposed to establish the International Center for Primate Brain Research Center (ICPBR) in 2019. With initial funding from the Shanghai municipal government and Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), ICPBR has acquired its first laboratory space and facility in the Songjiang District of Shanghai, adjacent to the NHP facility of the Institute of Neuroscience.

The initial groups of principal investigators and researchers in the ICPBR were derived from research teams of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics (MPI-BC) in Tübingen, and the Institute of Neuroscience of CAS in Shanghai. The groups have extensive expertise in the development of pioneering brain imaging and electrical recording technologies for studying higher cognitive functions in NHPs, and generating NHP models of brain disorders, using transgenic, gene editing and cloning approaches. In vivo optical imaging of large neuronal populations, spatial transcriptomic and connectomics studies at the single-cell resolution level are been developed for various NHP species, from rhesus and cynomolgus monkeys to marmosets.

A well-recognized goal of brain science in the coming decades is to understand the mechanisms linking brain functions across multiple levels - from behaviors and systems levels, to neural circuits and individual neurons, and to synapses and molecules.  Truly mechanistic understanding requires to explain phenomena found in one level in terms of those found in a level above and below. Great technical and conceptual challenges remain looming ahead in how do global brain activities give rise various cognitive and behavioral functions – from learning/memory to decision making to consciousness? How do various types of neurons establish specific neural circuit functions to generate specific global brain activity? How do transcripts expressed in various neurons endowed specific physiological and connectivity patterns of various neuronal subtypes and substates? How does the plasticity of individual synapses and neurons generate the plasticity of cognitive and behavioral functions? To address such questions, we need to develop new technologies for monitoring and manipulating activity of large populations of neurons of distinct types with high spatial and temporal resolution. Genetic and molecular tools developed for rodents in recent years are now ripe for applications to NHPs.

By establishing ICPBR, we aim to build an international center that could serve as a platform with top-the-line brain scanners, optical imaging and electrophysiological recording setups, and facilities for cellular, molecular, and genetic studies for NHPs. The highest international standards for the use and care of NHPs are introduced. We envision that ICPBR will comprise permanent investigators with independent research laboratories, as well as visiting scientists who perform collaborative research with existing staff or carry out their own research projects using ICPBR facilities over short- or long-term periods. We are particularly interested in developing long-term cross-continental, multi-national research projects that aim to address fundamental problems of higher cognitive functions that are relevant to our understanding of human brains and to the development of therapeutic approaches for human brain disorders. We believe that ICPBR could serve to promote global collaborative efforts that are required for solving these problems. 

Nikos Logothetis and Mu-ming Poo