Project Summary
The main objective of the proposed research is to develop a wearable transcranial focused ultrasound
(tFUS) environment that reversibly modulates (either elicits or suppresses) region-specific neural
activities of the brain.
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 #
TitleWearable Transcranial Focused Ultrasound System for Region-specific Functional Neuromodulation
Investigator
Seung-Schik Yoo
Institute
brigham and women's hospital
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
TitleWide deployment of massively multiplexed nanosystems for brain activity mapping
Investigator
Michael L Roukes, Kenneth L Shepard
Institute
california institute of technology
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
This project will place into the hands of many experimental neuroscientists validated, massively-multiplexed tools
for recording of neuronal activity, for chemical sensing of neuromodulators, and for highly-patterned optogenetic
stimulation with concurrent electrical recording – in any region of the
TitleWireless Photometry For In Vivo Behavorial Studies
Investigator
Paul Braun, Michael R Bruchas
Institute
university of illinois at urbana-champaign
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Abstract
The goal of this R21 proposal is to develop a robust, minimally invasive wireless photometry
system for in vivo calcium measures in freely moving behavior.
TitleWireless recording in the central nervous system with ultrasonic neural dust
Investigator
Jose Miguel Carmena
Institute
university of california berkeley
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
SUMMARY
We propose an ultra-miniature as well as extremely compliant system that enables massive scaling in the
number of neural recordings from the brain while providing a path towards large-scale neural recordings and
truly chronic brain-machine interfaces (BMI).
TitleA new strategy for cell-type specific gene disruption in flies and mice
Investigator
Thomas Robert Clandinin, Nirao Mahesh Shah
Institute
stanford university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Developing and validating a toolkit for cell type specific gene manipulation PIs: Clandinin and Shah Neurons express complex arrays of genes that play crucial roles in determining neuronal function.
TitleA novel approach to examine slow synaptic transmission in vivo
Investigator
Tianyi Mao, Haining Zhong
Institute
oregon health & science university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Two primary modes of chemical communication occur between neurons in the brain: fast synaptic transmission, such as that mediated by glutamate and GABA, which directly control the electrical activities of neurons, and slow synaptic transmission, such as tha
TitleA robust ionotropic activator for brain-wide manipulation of neuronal function
Investigator
Andrew D Ellington, Boris V Zemelman
Institute
university of texas at austin
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal embodies the rational design, high throughput screening, and in vitro characterization of novel neuronal actuators. The starting point for our endeavor is an ionotropic channel that launched the optogenetic revolution.
TitleA viral system for light-dependent trapping of activated neurons
Investigator
Michael R Drew, Stephen Martin, Boris V Zemelman
Institute
university of texas at austin
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A central goal in neuroscience is to identify cellular ensembles supporting mental and behavioral states, but these ensembles cannot be defined a priori.
TitleAN INDUCIBLE MOLECULAR MEMORY SYSTEM TO RECORD TRANSIENT STATES OF CNS CELLS
Investigator
Robi D Mitra
Institute
washington university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The brain is a remarkably complex organ comprised of hundreds of unique cell types that are organized to form sophisticated neural circuits.
TitleAnion channelrhodopsin-based viral tools to manipulate brain networks in behaving animals
Investigator
Valentin Dragoi, Roger Janz, John Lee Spudich
Institute
university of texas hlth sci ctr houston
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Examining neural circuits crucially relies on the ability to activate or silence individual circuit components to subsequently assess their impact on other parts of the circuit and their influence on behavior.
TitleAnterograde monosynaptic tracing
Investigator
Ian R Wickersham
Institute
massachusetts institute of technology
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Monosynaptic tracing using rabies virus has become a standard component of the systems neuroscience toolkit, allowing identification and manipulation of neurons directly presynaptic to any targeted neuronal population in the brain.
TitleBerkeley Course on Mining and Modeling of Neuroscience Data
Investigator
Friedrich T Sommer
Institute
university of california berkeley
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal is to administer and further develop a successfully established two-week summer training course titled "Mining and Modeling of Neuroscience Data" which is held at UC Berkeley.
TitleBiological 'Living Electrodes' Using Tissue Engineered Axonal Tracts to Probe and Modulate the Nervous System
Investigator
Daniel Kacy Cullen
Institute
university of pennsylvania
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Brain Machine Interfaces (BMIs) allow the nervous system to directly communicate with external devices in order to mitigate deficits associated with neurodegeneration or to drive peripheral prosthetics.
TitleBRAIN Initiative: Integrated Multimodal Analysis of Cell and Circuit-Specific Processes in Hippocampal Function
Investigator
Jonathan V. Sweedler
Institute
university of illinois at urbana-champaign
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The BRAIN Initiative seeks to understand the spatial, temporal and chemical nature of the brain.
TitleBuilding and sharing next generation open-source, wireless, multichannel miniaturized microscopes for imaging activity in freely behaving mice
Investigator
Peyman Golshani, Baljit Khakh, Dejan Markovic, Alcino J. Silva
Institute
university of california los angeles
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): One of the biggest challenges in neuroscience is to understand how neural circuits in the brain process, encode, store, and retrieve information.
TitleCapabilities of MRI-Based Neural Current Imaging for Human Brain Mapping
Investigator
Young R Kim
Institute
massachusetts general hospital
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In this proposal we leverage our recent developments in MRI acquisition methods and new animal models to attempt direct detection of neuronal currents with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).
TitleCarbon Thread Arrays for High Resolution Multi-Modal Analysis of Microcircuits
Investigator
Joshua D Berke, Cynthia Anne Chestek
Institute
university of michigan at ann arbor
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A major goal in neuroscience is to understand the computations performed by local brain circuits. A large obstacle to achieving this goal is that - at least in mammals - we currently cannot observe the spiking activity of most neurons within a circuit.
TitleCentral thalamic stimulation for traumatic brain injury
Investigator
Christopher R Butson, Joseph Thomas Giacino, Jaimie M Henderson, Andre Guelman Machado, Nicholas D Schiff
Institute
weill medical coll of cornell univ
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Severe to moderate traumatic brain injury (smTBI) annually afflicts many hundreds of thousands of Americans producing chronic cognitive disabilities that lack effective treatments.
TitleComputational and circuit mechanisms for information transmission in the brain
Investigator
Uri Tzvi Eden, Loren M Frank, Surya Ganguli, Adam Kepecs, Mark Alan Kramer, Christian Machens, Vanessa Tolosa
Institute
cold spring harbor laboratory
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The brain is a massively interconnected network of regions, each of which contains neural circuits that process information related to combinations of sensory, motor and internal variables.
TitleConducting polymer nanowires for neural modulation
Investigator
Christine K Payne
Institute
georgia institute of technology
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Understanding how people think, act, and feel ultimately requires understanding how neural circuits interact spatially and temporally. This level
of understanding requires fundamentally new tools that are high-throughput, direct, and non-invasive.