PROJECT SUMMARY
Many pain syndromes are notoriously refractory to almost all treatment and pose significant costs to patients
and society. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) for refractory pain disorders showed early promise but
demonstration of long-term efficacy is lacking.
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 #
TitleTechnology development for closed-loop deep brain stimulation to treat refractory neuropathic pain
Investigator
Edward Chang, Philip Andrew Starr
Institute
university of california, san francisco
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
TitleThe cerebro-cerebellar-basal-gangliar network for visuomotor learning
Investigator
Stefano Fusi, Michael E. Goldberg, Peter Strick
Institute
columbia university health sciences
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
ABSTRACT
Visual learning is critical to the lives of human and non-human primates. Visuomotor association, the
assignment of an arbitrary symbol to a particular movement (like a red light to a braking movement), is a well-
studied form of visual learning.
TitleThe Neural Mechanism of Interval Timing in Drosophila
Investigator
Ashley Danielle Smart
Institute
stanford university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
There is no dedicated sensory organ for time, and yet our brains are able to use time to anticipate the
environment and adapt.
TitleThe Neuroimaging Data Model: FAIR descriptors of Brain Initiative Imaging Experiments
Investigator
David Bryant Keator
Institute
university of california-irvine
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract
Reuse of existing neuroscience data relies, in part, on our ability to understand the experimental design and
study data.
TitleTime-Gated Diffuse Correlation Spectroscopy for functional imaging of the human brain
Investigator
Maria Angela Franceschini
Institute
massachusetts general hospital
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract
Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a well-established neuroimaging method which enables
neuroscientists to study brain activity by non-invasively monitoring hemodynamic changes in the cerebral cortex.
In the last decade, the use of fNIRS has increased significa
TitleTools to broaden access to high-throughput functional connectomics
Investigator
Wei-Chung Allen Lee, Thomas Macrina, Hyunjune Sebastian Seung, John Tuthill
Institute
harvard medical school
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
The goal of this proposal is to develop a widely adoptable, high-throughput, functional connectomics platform to
semi-automatically reconstruct and analyze the synaptic connectivity of functionally characterized neuronal
microcircuits.
TitleTowards a unified framework for dopamine signaling in the striatum
Investigator
John Assad, Sandeep R Datta, Samuel J Gershman, Scott Warren Linderman, Bernardo L Sabatini, Naoshige Uchida, Linda E Wilbrecht
Institute
harvard medical school
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project abstract
Animals, including humans, interact with their environment via self-generated and continuous actions that
enable them to explore and subsequently experience the positive and negative consequences of their actions.
As a result of their interactions with the environment, animals alter
TitleUnbiased Epigenomic and Transcriptomic Profiling of Non-Neuronal Cells in the Mouse Brain
Investigator
Nicola J Allen, Joseph R Ecker
Institute
salk institute for biological studies
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
ABSTRACT
The mammalian brain is composed of 50% neurons and 50% non-neuronal glial cells, including astrocytes
(20%) which regulate synaptic transmission and provide metabolic support for neurons, oligodendrocytes
(25%) that speed up neuronal action potential conduction, and microglia (5-15%) which
TitleUnderstanding Brain Development Through the Lens of Metabolism
Investigator
Aparna Bhaduri
Institute
university of california, san francisco
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
The human cerebral cortex is a complex structure comprised of distinct areas with specialized functions and connectivity patterns.
TitleUnderstanding how post-translational palmitoylation influences in vivo molecular and circuit dynamics during learning
Investigator
Jessica C Nelson
Institute
university of pennsylvania
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Habituation is a simple form of learning in which animals reduce responsiveness to repetitive stimuli. Habituation forms a foundation for normal cognition; without the ability to filter irrelevant stimuli, animals are unable to perform more complex cognitive tasks.
TitleUnderstanding the logic of the brain-wide olfactory bulb projectome
Investigator
Dinu Florentin Albeanu, Alexei Koulakov
Institute
cold spring harbor laboratory
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
SUMMARY
To date, fundamental understanding of which features of odorants are decoded by the brain, and how
information about these features is channeled through the olfactory system is still lacking.
TitleValidated tools for identifying, characterizing, and targeting all non-neuronal cells in the brain and determining the neuro-glio-vascular connectome
Investigator
Chenghua Gu
Institute
harvard medical school
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract:
Proper function of precisely wired neural circuits depends on a close physical and functional relationship with an
equally complex and overlapping vascular network.
TitleVentromedial prefrontal cortex regulation of fear memory expression
Investigator
Kirstie Alyssa Cummings
Institute
icahn school of medicine at mount sinai
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Anxiety disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) typically nucleate when individuals experience a highly traumatic event. One hallmark of PTSD is pronounced expression of fear and resistance to fear-suppressing behavioral therapies.
TitleVisual coding in freely moving behavior
Investigator
Cristopher M Niell
Institute
university of oregon
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Abstract
Vision is an active sense that we use to explore the world around us.
TitleA 5-dimensional connectomics approach to the neural basis of behavior
Investigator
Paul S Katz
Institute
university of massachusetts amherst
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary / Abstract
This project is a collaboration between researchers at four universities to examine how the brain makes
decisions. When a human or any animal moves through the world, it must make constant decisions about what
to do next.
TitleA Biomimetic Approach Towards a Dexterous Neuroprosthesis
Investigator
Michael L. Boninger
Institute
university of pittsburgh at pittsburgh
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Cervical spinal cord injury results in the loss of arm and hand function, which significantly limits independence
and results in costs over the person’s lifespan.
TitleA Facility to Generate Connectomics Information
Investigator
Jeff W Lichtman
Institute
harvard university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
The goal of this proposal is to disseminate high resolution large volume serial section electron
microscopy data to neuroscientists.
TitleA Fast, Accurate and Cloud-based Data Processing Pipeline for High-Density, High-Site-Count Electrophysiology
Investigator
Nathan G Clack, Bruce Kimmel
Institute
vidrio technologies, llc
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
The past decade has seen major advances in the tools available to neuroscientists, making it possible to ask
increasingly specific questions regarding which neurons and circuits are correlated with, necessary for, and
sufficient for, specific behavioral or computational functions.
TitleA method for anterograde trans-synaptic tracing
Investigator
Donald B Arnold
Institute
university of southern california
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Although considerable information about neuronal circuits has been generated from experiments where
retrograde transsynaptic tracing has been performed using Rabies Virus, there is no comparable technique for
transsynaptic tracing in the anterograde direction.
TitleAssessing the Effects of Deep Brain Stimulation on Agency
Investigator
Adina L Roskies
Institute
dartmouth college
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Recent advances in neurotechnologies have provided us with the ability to modulate brain function by
direct and indirect interventions.