PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT
Recent advances in design and actuation have led to important improvements in prosthetic limbs. However, these devices
lack a means for providing direct sensory feedback, requiring users to infer information about limb state from pressure on
the residual limb.
Funded Awards
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) BRAIN Initiative funds a wide-variety of research: toolmakers, trainees, individual labs testing new hypotheses, and large, team-based efforts aiming to catalyze neuroscience inquiry forward. Explore NIH BRAIN Initiative funded awards listed below. Click on the project title to learn more about it within NIH RePORTER.
To see more NIH-funded awards and associated publications, please visit the NIH RePORTER.
Title
Investigator(s)
Institution
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunity #
Project #
Title
Spinal root stimulation for restoration of function in lower-limb amputees
Investigator
Lee E Fisher, Douglas J Weber
Institute
university of pittsburgh at pittsburgh
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Title
Split RNA polymerases for sensitive, multidimensional analysis of intercellular PPIs at synapses
Investigator
Bryan Dickinson, Engin Ozkan
Institute
university of chicago
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Deciphering the complex underpinning of brain structure and function requires a complete understanding of how
molecular contacts between cells in the brain are regulated.
Title
Technologies to drastically boost photon sensitivity for brain-dedicated PET
Investigator
Craig S Levin
Institute
stanford university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract
According to the BRAIN 2025 working group report, there is a need to drastically improve the spatiotemporal
resolution of positron emission tomography (PET), in order to facilitate the translation of new tracers that target
neuroreceptor function and dynamic PET imaging on t
Title
The Application of Generalized Linear Models to Calcium Imaging Data for Optimal High-Dimensional Receptive Field Estimation and Identification of Latent Network Dynamics
Investigator
Stephen L Keeley
Institute
princeton university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Abstract
As new recording methods emerge in neuroscience, new statistical techniques are needed to properly relate
neural activity to behavior, a given stimulus, or an internal process.
Title
THE DYNAMICS OF LONG RANGE CORRELATIONS IN CORTEX: SINGLE UNITS AND OXYGEN
Investigator
Lawrence H Snyder
Institute
washington university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
ABSTRACT
Resting state networks are a fascinating yet poorly understood phenomenon. Sets of spatially
separated regions show correlated slow fluctuations in fMRI BOLD signals, most obvious when
subjects are at rest.
Title
The impact of cerebellar tDCS in local and downstream brain circuits: how much is neuralactivity modulated in the resting state and during sensorimotor processing?
Investigator
Javier F Medina
Institute
baylor college of medicine
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Non-invasive stimulation of the cerebellum holds great promise for investigating brain function, and for
diagnosing and treating a variety of brain disorders.
Title
the self-tuning brain: cellular and circuit mechanisms of behavioral resilience
Investigator
Adrienne L Fairhall, Timothy James Gardner, Carlos Lois
Institute
california institute of technology
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
ABSTRACT
A major goal in clinical neuroscience is to develop efficient treatments to prevent or minimize the loss of
brain function caused by pathological decreases or increases of neuronal activity, which are hallmarks of a
wide variety of neurological disorders.
Title
Towards a Complete Description of the Circuitry Underlying Sharp Wave-Mediated Memory Replay
Investigator
Gyorgy Buzsaki, John E Lisman, Attila Losonczy, Mark J Schnitzer, Ivan Soltesz
Institute
stanford university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Although neuroscience has provided a great deal of information about how neurons work, the fundamental
question of how neurons function together in a network to produce cognition has been difficult to address.
Our group has been at the forefront of developing methods that allow large scale monitorin
Title
Trans-Sheet Illumination Microscopy (TranSIM) for decoding whole brain activity at submillisecond temporal resolution
Investigator
Katsushi Arisaka, Laurent A. Bentolila
Institute
university of california los angeles
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Today’s knowledge of large-scale neural networks is advancing along two orthogonal directions. Spatial (static, structural) connectomic understanding is achieved through optical and electron microscopy; yielding high spatial resolution with limited or no temporal information.
Title
Transcranial magnetic stimulation with enhanced focality and depth (fdTMS)
Investigator
Angel V Peterchev
Institute
duke university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
This project will develop transcranial magnetic stimulation coils with improved focality and depth (fdTMS).
TMS is a technique for noninvasive brain stimulation using strong, brief magnetic pulses. TMS is widely used in
the neurosciences as a tool for probing brain function and connectivity.
Title
Understanding the synaptic, cellular and circuit events of MEG & EEG using a vertically translational cross-species approach
Investigator
Chengcheng Huang, Dean F Salisbury, Tobias Teichert
Institute
university of pittsburgh at pittsburgh
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
7. PROJECT SUMMARY
Background. Electro- and magneto-encephalographic (EEG/MEG) responses to a stimulus are systematically
attenuated– by up to 80%– if the same stimulus was presented less than 8-12 seconds ago.
Title
Using fMRI to Measure the Neural-level Signals Underlying Population-level Responses
Investigator
Rosemary Alice Cowell, David Ernest Huber
Institute
university of massachusetts amherst
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary: The goal of this proposal is to advance our ability to accurately infer the properties of neu-
ral-level responses from the more coarse-grained information obtained with non-invasive imaging in humans.
To achieve this goal, the project will capitalize on feature-selective cortical r
Title
Viral Strategies for Functional Connectomics in the Visual System
Investigator
R Clay Reid
Institute
allen institute
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary / Abstract
A fundamental but unsolved question in neuroscience is how specific connections between brain cells
(neurons) underlie information processing.
Title
Wide-field scan-less multi-photon endoscopy using spatio-temporal pulse delivery and temporal focusing
Investigator
Mark A Foster
Institute
johns hopkins university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/ Abstract
Multiphoton, depth sectioning micro-endoscopes are of paramount importance in capturing neural activity with
cellular resolution.
Title
"Methods from Computational Topology and Geometry for Analysing Neuronal Tree and Graph Data"
Investigator
Partha Pratim Mitra, Yusu Wang
Institute
cold spring harbor laboratory
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Summary
Progress from description to quantification is essential as a science matures. Yet numerical analysis of the
elementary unit of brain circuitry—the individual neuron—continues to pose methodological challenges.
Title
A high-speed volumetric multiphoton microscope for the study of developing neural circuits in retina
Investigator
Marla Feller
Institute
university of california berkeley
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Our research goal is to determine the factors that instruct the development of visual
responses in the mammalian retina. In particular, we are studying the developmental
period when the retina transitions from generating retinal waves to mediating visual
responses by forming functional circuits.
Title
A platform for high-throughput production of targeting systems for cell-type-specific transgene expression in wild-type animals
Investigator
Ian R Wickersham
Institute
massachusetts institute of technology
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
We will use high throughput techniques to produce a set of viral vectors that will allow selective expression of transgenes in specific populations of neurons in the brain.
Title
A tool-box to control and enhance tDCS spatial precision
Investigator
Marom Bikson
Institute
city college of new york
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Aimed at revolutionizing our understanding of the brain, the BRAIN initiative calls for “improvement of existing non-invasive neuromodulation” techniques.
Title
A unified cognitive network model of language
Investigator
Nathan E Crone, Nitin Tandon
Institute
university of texas hlth sci ctr houston
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Most current approaches to understanding the neural basis of cognitive processes are severely limited in
two respects. First, most commonly used methods do not have the temporal (e.g., fMRI) or spatial (e.g.,
MEG/ EEG) resolution to capture the relevant dynamics.
Title
Adaptive DBS in Non-Motor Neuropsychiatric Disorders: Regulating Limbic Circuit Imbalance
Investigator
Wayne K Goodman
Institute
baylor college of medicine
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
In patients with intractable Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), ventral striatum (VS) deep brain stimulation
(DBS) effectively reduces symptom severity in about 60% of cases.