Money quote from MSNBC:

The Allen Institute already has a head start on the human brain, thanks to its studies of gene expression in the human cortex. Today marks the official beginning of a four-year campaign to characterize gene activity in the entire human brain.

Jones said the institute spent about $41 million to create the mouse brain atlas, and about half of that work can be leveraged for the new project. However, he estimated that completing the human brain map would require $55 million more, spread over four years.

“The human brain is 2,000 times as large as the mouse brain,” he observed. “The first thing that you’re faced with, right out of the gate, is that it’s 2,000 times as big.”