Notices of Funding Opportunities

A central goal of the BRAIN Initiative is to develop new and improved perturbation technologies suitable for controlling specified cell types and circuits to modulate function in the central nervous system. This FOA seeks applications to systematically characterize, model, and validate the membrane, cellular, circuit, and adaptive-biological responses of neuronal and non-neuronal cells to various types of stimulation. Development of new technologies and therapies, as well as of disease models are outside the scope of this FOA. However, activities related to combining multiple recording modalities are allowed. As part of this program, investigators will be required to participate in a consortium to develop standards and model systems for the evaluation of current and next generation neuromodulation technologies.

The purpose of The 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 Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) does not allow applicants to propose to lead an independent clinical trial, but does allow applicants to propose research experience in a clinical trial led by a sponsor or co-sponsor.

--- Notice to change the Application Due Dates on BRAIN Initiative - NOT-EB-18-005 - https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-EB-18-005.html --- This FOA solicits new theories, computational models, and statistical tools to derive understanding of brain function from complex neuroscience data. Proposed tools could include the creation of new theories, ideas, and conceptual frameworks to organize/unify data and infer general principles of brain function; new computational models to develop testable hypotheses and design/drive experiments; and new mathematical and statistical methods to support or refute a stated hypothesis about brain function, and/or assist in detecting dynamical features and patterns in complex brain data. It is expected that the tools developed under this FOA will be made widely available to the neuroscience research community for their use and modification. Investigative studies should be limited to validity testing of the tools being developed.

Invasive surgical procedures provide the unique ability to record and stimulate neurons within precisely localized brain structures in humans. Human studies using invasive technology are often constrained by a limited number of patients and resources available to implement complex experimental protocols and are rarely aggregated in a manner that addresses research questions with appropriate statistical power. Therefore, this FOA seeks applications to assemble integrated, multi-disciplinary teams to overcome these fundamental barriers. Projects should investigate high-impact questions in human neuroscience. The research should be offered as exploratory research and planning activities to establish feasibility, proof-of-principle and early-stage development that will later compete for continued funding under new or ongoing FOAs of the BRAIN Initiative or under NIH Institute appropriations. Projects should maximize opportunities to conduct innovative in vivo neuroscience research made available by direct access to brain recording and stimulating from invasive surgical procedures. In addition, projects that aim to implement novel methods of temporally-linked brain-behavior quantification in laboratory and real-world settings are encouraged. Awardees will join a consortium work group, coordinated by the NIH, to identify consensus standards of practice as well as supplemental opportunities to collect and provide data for ancillary studies, and to aggregate and standardize data for dissemination among the wider scientific community.

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA), in support of the NIH Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, aims to support early stage development of entirely new and novel noninvasive human brain imaging technologies and methods that will lead to transformative advances in our understanding of the human brain. The FOA solicits unusually bold and potentially transformative approaches and supports small-scale, proof-of-concept development based on exceptionally innovative, original and/or unconventional concepts.

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA), in support of the NIH Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, aims to support full development of entirely new or next generation noninvasive human brain imaging tools and methods that will lead to transformative advances in our understanding of the human brain. The FOA seeks innovative applications that are ready for full-scale development of breakthrough technologies with the intention of delivering working tools within the timeframe of The BRAIN Initiative® (“BRAIN 2025: A Scientific Vision,” http://braininitiative.nih.gov/). This FOA represents the second stage of the tool/technology development effort that started with RFA-MH-14-217 and RFA-MH-15-200.

This FOA solicits applications for research projects that use innovative and 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 animal species, and applications should explain how the selected species offers ideal conditions for revealing general principles about the circuit basis of a specific behavior.

The purpose of this FOA is to promote the integration of experimental, analytic, and theoretical capabilities for large-scale analysis of neural systems and circuits. This FOA seeks applications for exploratory research studies that use new and emerging methods for large scale recording and manipulation of neural circuits across multiple brain regions. Applications should propose to elucidate the contributions of dynamic circuit activity to a specific behavioral or neural system. Applications should seek to understand circuits of the central nervous system by systematically controlling stimuli and/or behavior while actively recording and/or manipulating relevant dynamic patterns of neural activity and by measuring the resulting behaviors and/or perceptions. Studies should incorporate rich information on cell-types, on circuit functionality and connectivity, and should be performed in conjunction with sophisticated analysis of complex, ethologically relevant behaviors. Applications should propose teams of investigators that seek to cross boundaries of interdisciplinary collaboration by bridging fields and linking theory and data analysis to experimental design. Exploratory studies supported by this FOA are intended to develop experimental capabilities and quantitative, theoretical frameworks in preparation for a future competition for larger-scale, multi-component, Team-Research Circuit Programs (U19) awards.

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement [FOA] submitted through the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative is to stimulate the development and validation of novel tools and analytical methods to target, identify and characterize non-neuronal cells in the brain. This FOA complements previous and ongoing cell-census and tool development efforts initiated under BRAIN, RFA-MH-14-215 and RFA-MH-14-216, that have focused almost exclusively on neuronal cells. The cutting-edge tools and methods developed under this opportunity should focus specifically on providing improved points of entry into non-neuronal cell-types (glial and vascular) to enable their inventory and characterization within the CNS and help define how these cells interact among each other and with neuronal cells to impact functional circuitries. Plans for validating the utility of the tool/technology/method and demonstrating its advantage over currently available approaches will be an essential feature of a successful application. Tools that can be used in several species or model organisms rather than in a single species are especially desirable.

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) supports efforts to disseminate resources and to integrate them into neuroscience research practice. Projects should be highly relevant to specific goals of the BRAIN Initiative, goals that are described in the planning document "BRAIN 2025: A Scientific Vision." They should engage in one or more of the following activities: distribution of tools and reagents; user training on the usage of new technologies or techniques; providing access to existing technology platforms and specialized facilities; minor improvements to increase the scale/efficiency of resource production and delivery; minor adaptations to meet the needs of a user community. Applications strictly focused on technology or software development, rather than dissemination of an existing resource, are not responsive to this FOA. Refinements to microscopes or tools necessary to customize them to the experimental needs of the end users are allowed. Projects should address compelling needs of neuroscience researchers working toward the goals of the BRAIN 2025 report that are otherwise unavailable or impractical in their current form.