Neurostimulation, including invasive methods like deep brain stimulation (DBS), is an increasingly important approach to treating mental illness. It offers the possibility of directly targeting the circuit dysfunctions that produce mental disorders.
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 #
TitleCircuit and Cognitive Mechanisms of Striatal Deep Brain Stimulation
Investigator
Alik S Widge
Institute
university of minnesota
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
TitleClinical Translation of Targeted and Noninvasive Ultrasonic Propofol Uncaging
Investigator
Raag D Airan
Institute
stanford university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY .
There are numerous clinical needs for a technology that can modulate nervous system activity noninvasively
and focally, with clinically-relevant spatial and temporal precision, with a robust and predictable mechanism of
action, and that could act on any of the varied modes of neura
TitleComputational neuroscience of language processing in the human brain
Investigator
Evelina Fedorenko, Robert Mark Richardson
Institute
massachusetts institute of technology
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
TitleConnecting late-life depression and cognition with statistical physics based connectomics and sparse Frechet regression
Investigator
Alex Leow, Yichao Wu, Liang Zhan
Institute
university of illinois at chicago
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Recently, several lines of evidence have supported that synaptic dysfunction represents one of
the earliest brain changes in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), leading to hyper-excitation in neuronal
circuits.
TitleControl of the time course of dopamine release through optimized electrical brain stimulation.
Investigator
Stephen Leigh Cowen, Michael L Heien, Timothy Lewis
Institute
university of arizona
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Electrical stimulation of deep brain structures is an essential tool for the causal investigation of neural systems
that regulate learning and decision making.
TitleConverting Value into Action: Computations in Corticostriatal Circuits for Flexible Decision Making
Investigator
Linda Amarante
Institute
johns hopkins university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
To flexibly execute behavior, choices are made based on previous outcomes that will maximize reward.
Crucially, learning the value of each action to obtain a reward is thought to drive this decision making process.
In a value-based decision making framework, these values are first co
TitleCortical basis of complex motor sequences in humans for neural interfaces
Investigator
Jaimie M Henderson, Krishna V Shenoy
Institute
stanford university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Intracortical brain-computer interfaces (iBCIs) can restore lost function for people with severe
speech and motor impairment (SSMI) due to neurological injury or disease. Despite tremendous
recent progress, iBCI performance remains well below that of able-bodied people.
TitleDecoding and Selective Modulation of Human Memory During Awake/Sleep Cycles
Investigator
Itzhak Fried
Institute
university of california los angeles
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Episodic memories integrate the content of human experience in space and time and constitute the core of one's
identity.
TitleDefining motor neuron diversity from embryo to adulthood and generating tools for in vivo and in vitro access
Investigator
Tulsi Patel
Institute
columbia university health sciences
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
In order to understand neurological diseases, it is essential to identify the affected neuronal cell types,
create model systems that accurately recapitulate normal function and disease phenotypes, and develop tools
that allow cellular manipulations.
TitleDefining Targets for Tic Detection and Suppression in Tourette Syndrome Deep Brain Stimulation
Investigator
Christopher R Butson, Aysegul Gunduz, Michael S Okun
Institute
university of florida
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Tourette syndrome (TS) is a continuous lifelong condition that is highly prevalent, socially disabling, and in some severe
cases, physically injurious.
TitleDeveloping cell type-specific enhancers and connectivity mapping pipelines for marmosets
Investigator
Guoping Feng, Partha Pratim Mitra
Institute
massachusetts institute of technology
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Although genetic tools have dramatically advanced our understanding of brain function, they have
largely been confined to mice.
TitleDiscovering the molecular genetic principles of cell type organization through neurobiology-guided computational analysis of single cell multi-omics data sets
Investigator
Z Josh Huang
Institute
duke university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
ABSTRACT
Understanding the biological principles of cell type diversity and organization is necessary for deciphering
neural circuits underlying brain function.
TitleDisentangling hippocampal and cortical contributions to episodic memory
Investigator
Alexa Tompary
Institute
university of pennsylvania
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
This application describes a 5-year plan to investigate the neural dynamics that underpin distortion in memory,
integrating computational modeling approaches with functional neuroimaging (fMRI) and non-invasive brain
stimulation techniques (TMS).
TitleDissecting neocortical field potential dynamics using optical voltage imaging in genetically targeted cell-types
Investigator
Mark J Schnitzer, Ivan Soltesz
Institute
stanford university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Measurements of cortical field potentials are widely used throughout basic and clinical neuroscience, including in electroencephalography (EEG), electrocorticography (ECoG) and local field potential (LFP) recordings.
TitleDissecting the role of neuronal-astroglial interactions in sleep homeostasis
Investigator
Ashley Miranda Ingiosi
Institute
washington state university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Insufficient sleep, sleep disorders, and resulting problems with health and cognition are increasingly common
in the United States.
TitleEnhancing the spatial control of non-invasive brain stimulation by magnetic temporal interference
Investigator
John Gustaf Wilhelm Samuelsson
Institute
massachusetts general hospital
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract
Electromagnetic brain stimulation is a safe and proven way of controlling neural activity non-invasively with no
implanted hardware or injected biochemical agents.
TitleEthical and Policy Aspects of Cortical Visual Prosthetics Research: An Empirical Neuroethics Study
Investigator
Peter David Zuk
Institute
harvard medical school
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have emerged as a promising modality for restoring physiological functions
such as mobility, communication, and visual perception.
TitlefMRI physiological signatures of aging and Alzheimer's Disease
Investigator
Catherine Elizabeth Chang
Institute
vanderbilt university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
The growing availability of large functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) datasets has enabled new
investigations into functional systems of the human brain.
TitleFrom synapses to genes through morphology: an integrated characterization of cell types based on connectomics and transcriptomics data
Investigator
Forrest Christie Collman, Nuno Macarico Da Costa, R Clay Reid
Institute
allen institute
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
The goal of this project is to create a unified framework for understanding the relationship between
neuronal gene expression and connectivity in mouse visual cortex, by using morphology as a key
linking modality.
TitleFunctional and cell-type specific axonal pathways in the primate brain
Investigator
R Clay Reid
Institute
allen institute
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract
Over the past decade, there have been transformative advances in three areas of mammalian neuroscience.
First, our ability to record from large populations of neurons has dramatically increased with the advent of new
electrode technologies and improved multiphoton imaging.