Project Summary/Abstract
The prenatal period is a sensitive and critical time for brain development characterized by waves of neurogenesis,
neuronal migration, and formation of neural networks.
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 #
TitleGene regulatory networks influencing neuron-microglia interactions in fetal brain development.
Investigator
Claudia Z Han
Institute
university of california, san diego
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
TitleHierarchy of the vocalization motor patterning circuits
Investigator
Kevin Yackle
Institute
university of california, san francisco
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
How are complex behaviors that require the coordination of multiple muscle systems produced? How does the
brain suddenly turn them “on”?
Vocalizations are seemingly simple, yet to occur, ~100 muscles must be coordinated, such as those for
articulation (laryngeal and tongue) and breathing.
TitleHippocampo-cortical contributions to world building in freely behaving macaques
Investigator
Kari Hoffman
Institute
vanderbilt university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
When learning in complex, realistic, or even real worlds, we have the benefit of using different
strategies adaptively. For most primate brains, adaptive means adjusting as a function of where we
are, who we are with, and what things of use are in view or in reach.
TitleHormonal regulation of sensory processing during parental care
Investigator
Kristina O. Smiley
Institute
university of massachusetts amherst
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Does the way we hear sounds change when we become parents?
TitleIdentifying prefrontal signatures of successful and dysfunctional attention
Investigator
Brielle Ferguson
Institute
stanford university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Attention is comprised of several component processes, including sustained attention, selective
attention, and attentional flexibility.
TitleImplementation and dissemination of cloud-based retrospective hemodynamic analysis tools to enhance HCP data interpretation
Investigator
Blaise Debonneval Frederick
Institute
mclean hospital
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Summary
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging data has been a mainstay of neuroscience research for more than two
decades, as it allows rapid, continuous, noninvasive monitoring of neuronal function.
TitleImproving the robustness of neuroimaging through exploitation of variability in processing pipelines
Investigator
Gregory Kiar, Michael Peter Milham
Institute
child mind institute, inc.
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
ABSTRACT
Reproducible findings are essential to scientific advancement. Unfortunately, when fields lack consensus
standards for methods, or their implementations, reproducibility tends to be more of an ideal than a reality.
TitleIntegrated functional and structural analysis of an entire column in mouse primary visual cortex
Investigator
Reza Abbasi Asl
Institute
university of california, san francisco
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Neurons in the visual cortex form an intricate connectivity structure and topographic arrangement. The
structural and morphological organization of the neurons is known to constrain its functional properties.
TitleIntegration of social and nonsocial information in the primate brain
Investigator
Joseph Simon
Institute
icahn school of medicine at mount sinai
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Primate species frequently use social information to inform their decisions, for instance, to help make inferences
about potential threats or rewards in the environment.
TitleInvestigating descending control of walking
Investigator
Helen Horan Yang
Institute
harvard medical school
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract
Circuits in the brain control motor output to generate the precise behaviors required for survival. Dysfunction of
these circuits results in devastating movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis.
TitleInvestigating the microcircuit determinants of neural population activity through comparative analysis of latent dynamics across cortical areas in the mouse
Investigator
Audrey Sederberg
Institute
university of minnesota
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
A key goal in neuroscience is determining how microcircuit structure predicts circuit function. An intriguing idea,
supported by some theoretical models, is that variation in microcircuit composition supports functional
specialization.
TitleInvestigating the pathomechanisms underlying Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease
Investigator
Julia Alexis Jones
Institute
scripps research institute, the
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease is a genetically and clinically heterogeneous group of
inherited peripheral neuropathies that is characterized by damage to long motor and sensory
axons.
TitleInvestigating the Role of Microglia in Methamphetamine Use Disorder
Investigator
Samara Jo Vilca
Institute
university of miami school of medicine
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
ABSTRACT
Substance use disorder is a chronic relapsing disease that is characterized by repeated drug use despite
negative consequences.
TitleLocus coeruelus-prefrontal interactions for flexible decision-making
Investigator
Joshua I Gold
Institute
university of pennsylvania
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Higher brain functions include the ability to learn expectations about the world, update those expectations
appropriately when given new sensory information, and use those continually updating expectations to guide
behavior.
TitleLong-term consequences of visual working memory
Investigator
Megan Teresa Debettencourt
Institute
university of chicago
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
The ability to remember information, whether after short or long delays, is a fundamental human ability.
TitleMachine learning analyses of single-cell multi-modal data for understanding cell-type functional genomics and gene regulation
Investigator
Daifeng Wang
Institute
university of wisconsin-madison
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Understanding cell-type-specific gene functions, expression dynamics, and regulatory
mechanisms in complex brains is still challenging.
TitleMechanisms of Transplanted Cortical Interneuron Survival and Function
Investigator
Benjamin Rakela
Institute
university of california, san francisco
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Cortical interneurons (cINs) are inhibitory cells that are born in surplus far from the cortex. During prenatal
timepoints, cIN precursors migrate into the mouse visual cortex (V1) where only a fraction are selected to
survive.
TitleMesh electronics for understanding space encoding in the amphibian brain
Investigator
Lisa Giocomo, Guosong Hong, Lauren A O'connell
Institute
stanford university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Many animals rely on spatial cognition for daily survival in order to recognize familiar places and process movements
through or between locations. A variety of space-encoding cells in the hippocampus are important for spatial behaviors
in mammals.
TitleModeling the development of orientation selectivity, maps, and the associated recurrent circuit
Investigator
Kenneth D Miller
Institute
columbia university health sciences
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
ABSTRACT
Much evidence suggests that the development of orientation selectivity and maps in primary visual cortex (V1)
is instructed by spontaneous patterns of input activity, without the necessity of visual experience.
TitleMolecular and circuit mechanisms of nausea-associated behaviors
Investigator
Chuchu Zhang
Institute
harvard medical school
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project summary
Nausea is an unpleasant sensation of visceral malaise often accompanied by an involuntary urge to vomit.
Nausea responses to toxin ingestion and infection are evolutionarily beneficial survival behaviors that
avoid or expel toxins which may cause peripheral tissue damage.