Notices of Funding Opportunities

(Reissue of RFA-NS-18-014) This R34 FOA solicits applications that offer a limited scope of aims and an approach that will establish feasibility, validity, or other technically qualifying results that, if successful, would support, enable, and/or lay the groundwork for a potential, subsequent Targeted Brain Circuits Projects - TargetedBCP R01, as described in the companion FOA (RFA-NS-18-009). Applications should be exploratory research projects that use innovative, methodologically-integrated approaches to understand how circuit activity gives rise to mental experience and behavior.

(Reissue of RFA-NS-18-030) This FOA solicits applications for research projects that use innovative, methodologically-integrated approaches to understand how circuit activity gives rise to mental experience and behavior. The goal is to support projects that can realize a meaningful outcome within 5 years. Applications should address circuit function in the context of specific neural systems such as sensation, perception, attention, reasoning, intention, decision-making, emotion, navigation, communication or homeostasis. Projects should link theory and data analysis to experimental design and should produce predictive models as deliverables. Projects should aim to improve the understanding of circuits of the central nervous system by systematically controlling stimuli and/or behavior while actively recording and/or manipulating dynamic patterns of neural activity. Projects can use non-human and human species, and applications should explain how the selected species offers ideal conditions for revealing general principles about the circuit basis of a specific behavior.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) solicits applications to develop informatics tools for analyzing, visualizing, and integrating data related to the BRAIN Initiative or to enhance our understanding of the brain. As part of programs of building the informatics infrastructure for the BRAIN Initiative, the FOA supports several different, but related activities. These include modifying existing analysis and visualization tools to deal with BRAIN Initiative data and integrating different types of BRAIN Initiative datasets. Proposing the development of new tools to deal with BRAIN Initiative data is also permitted. The tools supported under this FOA will make use of relevant data standards and will be built so that they can be integrated into the data repositories, both of which are created in awards under the other FOAs of the BRAIN initiative informatics program. The tools must be user-friendly in accessing and analyzing data from appropriate data archives, and should analyze/visualize data without requiring users to download data. The tools should also allow data to be combined for analysis/visualization from multiple locations.

This is a reissue of RFA-MH-20-120. This FOA invites applications that will conduct secondary analysis or data mining of existing data relevant to the BRAIN Initiative goal of understanding brain circuits. The FOA also invites applications that seek to prepare and submit existing data that are highly relevant to the BRAIN Initiative into one of the BRAIN Initiative data archives. Applications can propose to generate or test new hypotheses which would not be possible in studies of single experiments, single technologies or single laboratories, or were beyond the scope of the original studies. Applications that propose to reanalyze existing data sets using new tools or approaches are also welcome. The proposed research may involve innovative analyses of existing data or novel combination or integration of existing data sets to address new aims or explore new questions.

This Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) encourages the translation of BRAIN Initiative technologies from academic and other non-small business research sectors to the marketplace. Small Business Concerns (SBCs) are encouraged to submit Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant applications that propose to further develop, optimize, validate and scale such technologies for commercial dissemination. Additionally, SBIR and STTR applications supporting the development and commercialization of novel technologies that fit within the mission of the BRAIN Initiative are encouraged.

A central goal of the BRAIN Initiative is to understand how electrical and chemical signals code information in neural circuits and give rise to sensations, thoughts, emotions and actions. While currently available technologies can provide some understanding, they may not be sufficient to accomplish this goal. For example, non-invasive technologies are low resolution and/or provide indirect measures such as blood flow, which are imprecise; invasive technologies can provide information at the level of single neurons producing the fundamental biophysical signals, but they can only be applied to tens or hundreds of neurons, out of a total number in the human brain estimated at 85 billion. Other BRAIN FOAs seek to develop novel technology (RFA-NS-17-003) or to optimize existing technology ready for in-vivo proof-of-concept testing and collection of preliminary data (RFA-NS-17-004) for recording or manipulating neural activity on a scale that is beyond what is currently possible. This FOA seeks applications for unique and innovative technologies that are in an even earlier stage of development than that sought in other FOAs, including new and untested ideas that are in the initial stages of conceptualization. In addition to experimental approaches, the support provided under this FOA might enable calculations, simulations, computational models, or other mathematical techniques for demonstrating that the signal sources and/or measurement technologies are theoretically capable of meeting the demands of large-scale recording or manipulation of circuit activity in humans or in animal models. The support might also be used for building and testing phantoms, prototypes, in-vitro or other bench-top models in order to validate underlying theoretical assumptions in preparation for future FOAs aimed at testing in animal models.

Reissue of RFA-MH-19-148. This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) intends to accelerate the integration and use of scalable technologies and tools to enhance brain cell census research, including the development of technology platforms and/or resources that will enable a swift and comprehensive survey of brain cell types and circuits. Applications are expected to address limitations and gaps of existing technologies/tools as a benchmark against which the improvements or competitive advantages of the proposed ones will be measured. The improvements include throughput, sensitivity, selectivity, scalability, spatiotemporal resolution and reproducibility in cell census analyses. The projects funded under this FOA will align with the overarching goals of The BRAIN Initiative® Cell Census Network (BICCN) and are expected to enable the generation of a substantial amount of cell census data using the proposed technologies or via collaboration with the BICCN.

The purpose of the The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative Fellows (F32) program is to enhance the research training of promising postdoctorates, early in their postdoctoral training period, who have the potential to become productive investigators in research areas that will advance the goals of The BRAIN Initiative®. Applications are encouraged in any research area that is aligned with The BRAIN Initiative®, including neuroethics. Applicants are expected to propose research training in an area that clearly complements their predoctoral research. Formal training in analytical tools appropriate for the proposed research is expected to be an integral component of the research training plan. In order to maximize the training potential of the F32 award, this program encourages applications from individuals who have not yet completed their terminal doctoral degree and who expect to do so within 12 months of the application due date. On the application due date, candidates may not have completed more than 12 months of postdoctoral training.

This FOA is related to the transformative project, "A Cell Type-Specific Armamentarium for Understanding Brain Function and Dysfunction," described in the "The BRAIN Initiative® 2.0: From Cells to Circuits, Toward Cures" report of the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director BRAIN Initiative Working Group 2.0.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) solicits applications to develop web-accessible data archives to capture, store, and curate data related to BRAIN Initiative activities. The data archives will work with the research community to incorporate tools that allow users to analyze and visualize the data, but the creation of such tools is not part of this FOA. The data archives will use appropriate standards to describe the data, but the creation of such standards is not part of this FOA. A goal of this program is to advance research by creating a community resource data archive with appropriate standards and summary information that is broadly available and accessible to the research community for furthering research.