Project Summary/Abstract
Ethical concerns raised from both current and historically controversial psychosurgeries are driving disparities in
accessibility to emerging BRAIN Initiative technology for those with severe, disabling, chronic mental illness like
individuals with treatment-refractory schiz
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 #
TitleLeveraging ethical dissension among capacity, beneficence and justice in clinical trials of neurotherapeutics in the severely disabled: lessons from schizophrenia
Investigator
Rachel A Davis, Judith Morse Gault, Elyn R. Saks
Institute
university of colorado denver
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
TitleMapping cerebellar granule cell function with novel genetic and optical tools
Investigator
Gerard Joey Broussard
Institute
princeton university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract
Recent evidence from multiple laboratories in both human and animal models supports a role for the granule cell (GrC)
pathway of the cerebellum in representing a wide range of sensory, motor, and internal information.
TitleMapping Developmental Lineage Relationships in the Cerebral Cortex
Investigator
Tomasz Nowakowski
Institute
university of california, san francisco
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Summary/Abstract
The cerebral cortex contains an astonishing diversity of neuronal cell types distributed across dozens of
functional areas, which emerge during early development for an apparently uniform neuroepithelium, and the
radial glia cells, which act as neural stem cells.
TitleMapping the neuronal circuitry underlying indirect striatal to hypothalamicconnectivity and its role in feeding
Investigator
Miriam E Bocarsly
Institute
national institute on alcohol abuse and alcoholism
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Food consumption is fundamental to species survival and understanding the neuronal circuitry underlying feeding behaviors is of the utmost importance.
TitleMechanisms of Active Sensing in Drosophila
Investigator
Marie Suver
Institute
new york university school of medicine
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
The goal of this project is to study the cellular basis of active sensation. A crucial function of all nervous systems is to distinguish between sensory stimuli originating from the external world and that generated by our own movements.
TitleMechanisms underlying large-scale coordination of cortical activity during perceptual decisions
Investigator
Lucas Pinto
Institute
princeton university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
It has become increasingly clear that both spontaneous and trained behaviors engage activity throughout the cortex. However, at least in the case of perceptual decisions, task complexity critically modulates the underlying large- and mesoscale cortical dynamics.
TitleMotion Sequencing for All: pipelining, distribution and training to enable broad adoption of a next-generation platform for behavioral and neurobehavioral analysis
Investigator
Sandeep R Datta
Institute
harvard medical school
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Understanding the function of the nervous system requires a sophisticated understanding of its main
output, behavior.
TitleMulti-regional neural circuit dynamics underlying short-term memory
Investigator
Shaul Druckmann, Nuo Li
Institute
baylor college of medicine
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Abstract
The focus of this BRAIN Initiative funding opportunity is to use “innovative approaches to understand how
circuit activity gives rise to a specific behavior”. Cognitive behaviors arise from collective interactions of
multiple brain systems.
TitleMultielectrode Arrays for Neurotransmitter Detection with Fast Scan Cyclic Voltammetry
Investigator
Alexandros George Zestos
Institute
microprobes for life science, inc.
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract
The brain is by far the most complex and heterogeneous organ in the human body. For years, there has
been a growing and unmet need to develop multielectrode arrays for neurotransmitter sensing in
multiple brain regions simultaneously.
TitleMultilevel Analysis of Neuronal Computations Underlying the Robust Encoding of Sensory Information in the Mammalian Olfactory System
Investigator
Benjamin R Arenkiel, Paul Pfaffinger
Institute
baylor college of medicine
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
A key problem in neuroscience is to uncover fundamental principles and algorithms that allow
neuronal networks to perform the complex calculations that underlie normal behavior effectively and
efficiently.
TitleMultiscale analysis of how the basal ganglia impact cortical processing in behaving mice
Investigator
Dieter Jaeger
Institute
emory university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract
The overall goal of this project is to determine how output from the basal ganglia influences cerebral cortical
activity in the processes of decision making, motor planning, and movement execution.
TitleNeural Computation for Innate Behaviors in the Superior Colliculus
Investigator
Markus Meister
Institute
california institute of technology
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Neural computation for innate behaviors in the superior colliculus
The long-term goal of the proposed research is to understand how the brain makes sense of the onslaught of
sensory data to extract just the few bits of relevant knowledge needed to make a decision.
TitleNeural Computations Underlying Vocal Sensorimotor Transformations
Investigator
Michael A Long
Institute
new york university school of medicine
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract
This project aims to investigate the circuit mechanisms enabling an ethologically relevant sensorimotor
transformation.
TitleNeural representation of mating partners by male C. elegans
Investigator
Scott Warren Linderman, Aravinthan D. Samuel, Paul Warren Sternberg
Institute
california institute of technology
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Understanding how neural circuits create animal behavior requires knowing the system-wide activity patterns
that connect sensory experience to motor activities, all within the full set of feedback loops by which actuated
motor decisions modulate the animal's perceptions of itself and
TitleNeural signatures of learning complex environments in the amygdala-prefrontal network
Investigator
David Barack
Institute
columbia university health sciences
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
The ability to learn and think about complex situations is central to a range of human cognitive
functions, including navigation, reasoning, and decision making.
TitleNeuro-glio-vascular interactions in vivo probed with optical imaging
Investigator
Congwu Du, Yingtian Pan
Institute
state university new york stony brook
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
This application, "Neuro-glio-vascular interactions in vivo probed with optical imaging", will address the
broad challenge of the BRAIN Initiative (Innovative Neurotechnologies) and the targeted challenge
(tools to target, identify and characterize non-neuronal cells in the brain).
TitleNeuromodulation approaches for restoring dexterous control following cortical stroke.
Investigator
Preeya Khanna
Institute
university of california, san francisco
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Stroke-causing illness, disability, and early death is set to double worldwide within the next 15 years.
Despite physical therapy, about 50% of stroke survivors have impaired hand function, which strongly impacts
activities of daily living and independence; novel treatment methods a
TitleNeuronal circuits for context-driven bias in auditory categorization
Investigator
Yale E Cohen, Maria Neimark Geffen, Konrad P. Kording
Institute
university of pennsylvania
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
NEURONAL CIRCUITS FOR CONTEXT-DRIVEN BIAS IN AUDITORY CATEGORIZATION
In everyday life, because both sensory signals and neuronal responses are noisy, important cognitive tasks, such
as auditory categorization, are based on uncertain information.
TitleNew approaches for single cell tagging, editing and profiling of glial cells in vivo
Investigator
Weizhe Hong
Institute
university of california los angeles
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Summary
The mammalian central nervous system supports a multitude of cognitive and behavioral functions through
coordinated action of different neural circuits that are composed of diverse sets of differentiated cell types,
including both neurons and non-neuronal cells.
TitleNext Generation Cell-Type-Specific Viral Vectors for Non-Neuronal Brain Cell Types
Investigator
Michael Eldon Greenberg
Institute
harvard medical school
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary:
While traditionally conceived as passive support elements for neuronal networks, non-neuronal brain cells are
now appreciated as dynamic integral components of central nervous system (CNS) circuitry.