PROJECT SUMMARY
When Confucius said, “Tell me who are your friends, and I’ll tell you who you are,” he was noticing that how we
behave and communicate is shaped by who we choose to hang out with every day. We constantly mimic the
mannerisms and behaviors of friends and loved ones.
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 #
TitleNeural Mechanisms of Social Communication in Parrots
Investigator
Jesse Heymann Goldberg
Institute
cornell university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
TitleNeural Mechanisms of Transcranial Current Stimulation
Investigator
Bart Krekelberg, Pierre- Olivier Polack
Institute
rutgers the state univ of nj newark
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Transcranial current stimulation (TCS) creates small electrical fields in the brain through electrodes placed on
the scalp.
TitleNext-generation MORF Mice for Scalable Brainwide Morphological Mapping and Genetic Perturbation of Single Neurons
Investigator
Hong-Wei Dong, Xiangdong William Yang
Institute
university of california los angeles
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
A major challenge in studying the mammalian brain is to characterize the integrative properties of
individual neurons, such as molecular profiles, complete morphology (dendrites, axons, synapses),
connectivity, and activity; furthermore, this must be done at a scale that is commensu
TitleNIPreps: integrating neuroimaging preprocessing workflows across modalities, populations, and species
Investigator
Oscar Esteban, Michael Peter Milham, Russell A Poldrack, Ariel Shalom Rokem, Theodore Satterthwaite
Institute
stanford university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Despite the rapid advances in the neuroimaging research workflow over the last decade, the enormous
variability between and within data types and specimens impedes integrated analyses.
TitleOpen-Access AAV Toolbox for Basal Ganglia Cell Types and Circuits
Investigator
Trygve Bakken, Tanya Lynn Daigle, Boaz Pirie Levi, Jonathan T Ting, Bosiljka Tasic
Institute
allen institute
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
We propose to leverage new and existing transcriptomic and epigenetic datasets from mouse, marmoset,
macaque and human brain to develop refined approaches for brain cell type enhancer selection for creating cell-
type specific enhancer adeno-associated viruses (AAVs), and to make inr
TitlePlatform technologies for scalable highly multiplexed proteomic phenotyping of the brain
Investigator
Kwanghun Chung, Hong-Wei Dong, Matthew P Frosch, Guoping Feng, Peng Yin
Institute
harvard university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
The complexity of the mammalian brain is unparalleled by any other organs, and understanding its cellular
composition and their brain-wide organization is essential to understand the brain functions and dysfunctions.
Extensive efforts have been made toward mapping brain cells through various lenses,
TitleReal-time Aberration Sensor for Large-Scale Microscopy Deep in the Mouse and Adult Zebrafish Brain
Investigator
Steven Graham Adie
Institute
cornell university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
ABSTRACT
Optical imaging holds tremendous promise in our endeavor to understand brain functions. The major challenges
for optical brain imaging are depth and speed.
TitleRedefine Trans-Neuropsychiatric Disorder Brain Patterns through Big-Data and Machine Learning
Investigator
Peter V. Kochunov, Paul M Thompson
Institute
university of maryland baltimore
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Abstract
This application will combine the strengths of two large scale NIH-funded initiatives to understand disorder-
related patterns in the human brain: Connectomes Related to Human Disease (CRHD) and Enhancing
Neuroimaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA).
TitleRNA-programmable cell type targeting and manipulation across vertebrate nervous systems
Investigator
Z Josh Huang
Institute
duke university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Systematic experimental access to diverse neuronal cell types is a prerequisite to deciphering brain circuit
organization, function, and dysfunction.
TitleRobust modeling of within- and across-area population dynamics using recurrent neural networks
Investigator
Lee Miller, Chethan Pandarinath
Institute
emory university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Over the past several decades, the ability to record from large populations of neurons (e.g., multi-electrode
arrays, neuropixels, calcium imaging) has increased exponentially, promising new avenues for understanding
the brain.
TitleScalable 3D molecular imaging and data analysis for cell census generation
Investigator
Steve Presse, Douglas Shepherd
Institute
arizona state university-tempe campus
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
This project is a collaboration across two universities and multiple scientific disciplines to develop new scalable
3D molecular imaging and analysis approaches for cell type identification within human brain tissue.
TitleScalable integration of cell types and connectivity in the motor cortex of rodents and non-human primates
Investigator
Forrest Christie Collman, Nuno Macarico Da Costa, R Clay Reid
Institute
allen institute
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
The BICCN has recently completed a broad survey of the cellular components of motor cortex, including
transcriptomic profiling, patch-seq, multiplexed FISH, inter-areal connectivity, and single neuron morphology.
Missing from this view is a detailed picture of how individual neurons
TitleScalable tools for consistent identification of neuronal cell types in mouse and human
Investigator
Staci A Sorensen, Uygar Sumbul
Institute
allen institute
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
The proposed work will address a critical gap in our understanding of neuronal phenotypes and cell types by
developing machine learning algorithms and cloud-based software for the integration of multiple modality
characterizations large and growing datasets of cortical neurons in mou
TitleSecondary analysis of functional MRI and resting state connectivity in white matter
Investigator
John C Gore, Bennett A. Landman
Institute
vanderbilt university medical center
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Abstract / Summary
This proposal aims to perform novel, secondary analyses on large archives of publicly-available fMRI
studies in order to quantify the functional characteristics of white matter (WM) and their changes during
normal aging and in the progression to Alzheimer’s Disease (AD).
TitleSelective Control of Synaptically-Connected Circuit Elements by Interluminescence
Investigator
Ute H Hochgeschwender, Christopher I Moore
Institute
central michigan university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
A wealth of new tools can directly control output of specific neurons on fast (e.g., optogenetic) or sustained (e.g.,
chemogenetic) time scales.
TitleSimultaneous functional MRI and Micro-Magnetic Nervous System Stimulation
Investigator
Ilknur Ay, Giorgio Bonmassar, Xin Yu
Institute
massachusetts general hospital
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
ABSTRACT
Micromagnetic stimulation (µMS) has several advantages over electrical stimulation. First, µMS does not
require charge-balanced stimulation waveforms as in electrical stimulation. In µMS, neither sinks nor sources
are present when the time-varying magnetic field induces a current.
TitleSmall molecule regulation of endogenous transcription factors for circuit-specific neuromodulation
Investigator
Gerald R. Crabtree
Institute
stanford university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Methods for regulating cellular processes within distinct populations of neurons are needed to elucidate
relationships between molecular mechanisms, circuits, and behavior; and to develop cell type- or circuit-
selective treatments for neurological disorders.
TitleStructural variation in neuronal circuits as a basis for functional and behavioral individuality
Investigator
Bassem A Hassan, Wei-Chung Allen Lee, Benjamin De Bivort
Institute
harvard medical school
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
A fundamental gap in our knowledge of the nervous system is understanding how variations in wiring and
connectivity of neuronal circuits relate to variability in neural computations and behavior.
TitleThe encoding of uncertainty in the Drosophila compass system
Investigator
Jan Drugowitsch, Rachel Wilson
Institute
harvard medical school
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Summary
Strategic behaviors often take account of uncertainty. For example, if we are presented with two conflicting
pieces of information, we give less weight to the more uncertain source of information – i.e., the source of
information that leads to lower accuracy overall.
TitleThe laminar organization of 'index' versus 'attribute' coding in neocortex
Investigator
Bruce L Mcnaughton
Institute
university of california-irvine
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
We propose a circuit-level principal underlying how brains acquire 'episodic' memories and reprocess
them into compact, efficient 'schemas': The attributes or 'contents' of experience are represented primarily in
the deeper layers of neocortex (NC), whereas the superficial layers are dedicated to en
Last reviewed on July 02, 2025