Project Summary
Recent years have seen major breakthroughs in methodology for studying two complex yet
fundamental aspects of brain structure: synaptic connectivity patterns and the heterogeneous distribution of
molecules.
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 #
TitleNew strategies for molecular cell-type labeling in volume electron microscopy
Investigator
Linnaea E Ostroff
Institute
university of connecticut storrs
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
TitleOdor trail tracking: a new paradigm to unveil algorithms and neural circuits underlying active sensation and continuous decision making
Investigator
Catherine Dulac, Venkatesh N Murthy, Massimo Vergassola
Institute
harvard university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Summary
Animals actively sample sensory information, which they combine with prior knowledge to make
decisions in a sensorimotor feedback loop.
TitleONIX: A Neural Acquisition System for Unencumbered, Closed-Loop Recordings in Small, Freely Moving Animals
Investigator
Jonathan Newman
Institute
open ephys, inc
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Over the last century, extracellular recording technologies have progressed from handmade needle electrodes
and vacuum tube amplifiers to microfabricated devices containing hundreds of recording sites and on-chip
digitization circuits.
TitleOpen-source miniaturized two-photon microscopes for large field-of-view and volumetric imaging
Investigator
Daniel Aharoni, Hugh T Blair, Anne Kathryn Churchland, Peyman Golshani, Alcino J. Silva, Alipasha Vaziri
Institute
university of california los angeles
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Abstract:
Single-photon (1P) epifluorescence miniaturized microscopy coupled with genetically encoded calcium sensors
has allowed investigators to record the activity of large populations of identified neurons over days to weeks in
freely behaving animals, answering fundamental questions in neurosci
TitlePinpointing the Cerebellum's Contribution to Social Reward Processing
Investigator
Haroon Skander Popal
Institute
temple univ of the commonwealth
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
The cerebellum has long been thought to solely process motor information. Yet, there is a growing literature
that points to a role of the cerebellum in processes across multiple domains.
TitlePREFRONTAL CIRCUITS OF WORKING MEMORY
Investigator
Christos Constantinidis, Boris V Zemelman
Institute
vanderbilt university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Working memory, the ability to maintain and manipulate in formation in memory over a period of seconds, is a
critical component of higher cognitive functions.
TitleProbing Neural Circuits of Zebrafish Sleep with Electrophysiology and Calcium Imaging
Investigator
David Aaron Prober, Thai V. Truong
Institute
california institute of technology
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
ABSTRACT
The zebrafish has emerged as a useful model system to discover and characterize genetic and neuronal circuits
that regulate vertebrate sleep.
TitleReal Time NEURON Simulation for Experimental Applications
Investigator
Mark W Nowak
Institute
cytocybernetics, inc.
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
The goal of this proposal is to combine the power of the NEURON mathematical modeling software with the Cybercyte “plug and play” dynamic clamp system.
TitleRevealing the mechanisms of primate face recognition with synthetic stimulus sets optimized to compare computational models
Investigator
Winrich Freiwald, Nikolaus Kriegeskorte
Institute
columbia univ new york morningside
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Neuroscience is entering a new era, where large-scale neural network models can be tested with unprecedent-
edly rich measurements of neural activity.
TitleRibo-STAMPEDE: novel tools for molecular profiling of brain cell types
Investigator
Giordano Lippi, Eugene Wei-Ming Yeo
Institute
scripps research institute, the
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
A detailed and comprehensive census of central nervous system (CNS) cell types and states is essential to our
understanding of the neural substrates of cognition and behavior.
TitleRole of Endocannabinoid System in Seizure Sensitivity in Eclampsia
Investigator
Maria Jones-Muhammad
Institute
university of mississippi med ctr
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Preeclampsia, a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy, can advance to eclampsia, when the mother
displays novel seizures. The mechanisms that cause some preeclampsia patients to advance to
eclampsia are unknown.
TitleRole of neuronal ensembles in cortical plasticity during learning and development
Investigator
Alejandro Akrouh
Institute
columbia univ new york morningside
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract
The brain undergoes extensive synaptic plasticity and circuit refinement during development. Similar
changes recur throughout life during learning in a more narrowly constrained manner.
TitleScalable electron tomography for connectomics
Investigator
Mark H Ellisman, Wei-Chung Allen Lee
Institute
harvard medical school
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary / Abstract
A fundamental goal in neuroscience is understanding how neural network function arises from circuit structure.
However, the immense complexity of most brain networks has been a significant barrier to progress.
TitleScalable Molecular Pipelines for FAIR and Reusable BICAN Molecular Data
Investigator
Jesse Gillis, Timothy L Tickle, Owen R White
Institute
broad institute, inc.
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
This project will create scalable resources that will be critical to the development of BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas
Network (BICAN) consortium brain atlases. This team will focus on the development of common molecular
data processing pipelines that are cloud-native and FAIR.
TitleScalable technologies for brain-wide connectomics of transcriptomic cell types: focus on brainstem
Investigator
Jayaram Chandrashekar, Karel Svoboda
Institute
allen institute
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project summary, Scalable technologies for brain-wide connectomics of
transcriptomic cell types: focus on brainstem
This proposal is to develop a scalable pipeline to combine high-resolution morphology and molecular
classification of individual neurons to define morpho-molecular cell types in the br
TitleScalable, non-dissociative single-cell RNA sequencing for mapping the brain in health and disease
Investigator
Li Sun
Institute
topogene, inc.
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
A fundamental goal of the BRAIN Initiative and other neuroscience projects is to map cell types in the brain and study their changes associated with function, disease, and drug treatment.
TitleSecondary analysis of resting state MEG data using the Human Neocortical Neurosolver software tool for cellular and circuit-level interpretation
Investigator
Stephanie Ruggiano Jones
Institute
brown university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
The neuroscience community is experiencing a revolution in its ability to share and analyze vast amounts of
human brain imaging data, with support from the BRAIN Initiative and other substantial data-sharing efforts.
TitleSensory-motor strategies for odor-guided navigation
Investigator
Ian Gordon Davison
Institute
boston university (charles river campus)
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Animals interact with the world through dynamic, iterative sensory-motor processes that guide their
ongoing movement.
TitleSimultaneous high-throughput functional, transcriptomic and connectivity profiling using FUNseq
Investigator
Andreas Tolias, Anthony M Zador
Institute
baylor college of medicine
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Recent advances in technology driven by the BRAIN Initiative have yielded new methods for characterizing the ac-
tivity, transcriptome, and microscale anatomy of neurons throughout the brain, and have increased the throughput
of these techniques by orders of magnitude.
TitleSpatiotemporal epigenomic and chromosomal architectural cell atlas of developing human brains
Investigator
Chongyuan Luo
Institute
university of california los angeles
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
The adult human brain is comprised of numerous cell types exhibiting specific transcriptomic and epigenomic
signatures associated with their spatial location, connectivity, and function.