Project Summary / Abstract
This grant focuses on how very recent experiences––over the past few seconds to minutes––allow brains to
update expectations about the world and then use these expectations to guide behavior.
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 #
Title
Understanding the role of quantitative internal signals in behavioral flexibility
Investigator
Gaby Maimon
Institute
rockefeller university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Title
Use of advanced analytics to understand brain-behavior screen media activity relationships in ABCD data
Investigator
Marc N Potenza, Yihong Zhao
Institute
yale university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract
Growing up in a media-saturated world, the current generation of children and adolescents spend on average 6-
9 hours each day on screen media activities (SMAs). Therefore, SMA is a topic of considerable concern in the
USA and elsewhere.
Title
Using large scale electrophysiology to study the role of midbrain dopamine neurons underlying motivated behaviors
Investigator
Kurt M Fraser
Institute
university of california berkeley
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
A core feature of a number of psychiatric illnesses is the disordered estimation of the predictive relationship
between a given cue and an outcome. This failure to appraise and generate appropriate behavioral responses
is true for cues that both are rewarding and aversive.
Title
Waking up the nervous system: Molecular characterization of neuronal leader cells and their role in brain development
Investigator
Nicole Ann Aponte-Santiago
Institute
university of california, san francisco
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract
Learning how spontaneous neuronal activity shapes embryonic brain development is critical for understanding
neurodevelopmental processes, with implications in neurological or neuropsychiatric disorders.
Title
4D Transcranial Acoustoelectric Imaging for High Resolution Functional Mapping of Neuronal Currents
Investigator
Russell S Witte
Institute
university of arizona
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
ABSTRACT
The overarching goal of this project is to optimize, validate and implement a revolutionary and safe modality
for noninvasive functional imaging of neural currents deep in the human brain through the skull at
unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution.
Title
A Community Framework for Data-driven Brain Transcriptomic Cell Type Definition, Ontology, and Nomenclature
Investigator
Michael Hawrylycz, Ed Lein, Christopher J Mungall, Helen Elizabeth Parkinson, Richard H Scheuermann
Institute
allen institute
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary: A Data-driven Framework for Brain Transcriptomic Cell Type Definition, Ontology, and
Nomenclature
Defining the complete census of neuronal and non-neuronal cell types in the brain is a major priority for the NIH BRAIN
Initiative, since cellular complexity is a major barrier to under
Title
A Comparative Framework for Modeling the Low-Dimensional Geometry of Neural Population States
Investigator
Eva Dyer
Institute
georgia institute of technology
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Advances in neural recording technology now provide access to neural activity at high temporal resolutions, from
many brain areas, and during complex and naturalistic behavior.
Title
A neuroethological model of sensorimotor processing in animal-animal interactions
Investigator
Joseph Parker
Institute
california institute of technology
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Animals interact with members of their own or other species in the context of social and defensive
behaviors, predator-prey relationships and symbiose
Title
A new theory of population coding in the cerebellum
Investigator
Reza Shadmehr
Institute
johns hopkins university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
A theory of population coding in the cerebellum
In order to move accurately, the brain relies on internal models that predict the sensory consequences of motor
commands.
Title
A novel approach to analyzing functional connectomics and combinatorial control in a tractable small-brain closed-loop system
Investigator
John H Byrne, Hillel J Chiel, Elizabeth C Cropper, Cynthia Anne Chestek, Avy Susswein, Peter John Thomas
Institute
university of texas hlth sci ctr houston
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
SUMMARY
Adaptive behaviors emerge from neuronal networks by dynamically regulating functional connectomes.
Title
Accelerating Dissemination of Implantable Neurotechnology for Clinical Research
Investigator
David Allenson Borton, Timothy Denison, Philip Andrew Starr, Gregory A Worrell
Institute
university of california, san francisco
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Summary
Invasive neurostimulation is an established technique in the therapy of movement disorders and epilepsy, and
shows promise for amelioration of psychiatric and cognitive disorders.
Title
Active sensing at the sensory surface: glomerular signals for olfactory navigation by freely-moving mice
Investigator
Matthew C Smear
Institute
university of oregon
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Our senses aren’t passive. Rather, we actively seek relevant information via sampling movements.
However, experiments in sensory systems often restrict sampling movements to simplify stimulus delivery
and allow large scale imaging and electrophysiology.
Title
Activity-dependent mechanisms for memory circuit maturation.
Investigator
Sarah Leinwand
Institute
university of california berkeley
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Adult behavior is the product of neural circuits that have been sculpted during development by
genetic programs and experience in the form of neural activity.
Title
Adaptive Neurostimulation to Restore Sleep in Parkinson's Disease: An Investigation of STN LFP Biomarkers In Sleep Dysregulation and Repair
Investigator
Aviva Abosch, Casey Harrison Halpern, Clete A Kushida, John A Thompson
Institute
university of nebraska medical center
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that leads to both motor and non-motor symptoms.
While there is as yet no cure for PD, medical and surgical therapies have been developed that effectively target
the motor symptoms of PD.
Title
An Ethical Approach to Detecting Covert Consciousness
Investigator
Michael J Young
Institute
massachusetts general hospital
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Alarming shortcomings of the bedside behavioral examination in reliably detecting consciousness generate
profound dilemmas for clinicians and families facing decisions about continuation of life-sustaining therapy, pain
control, prognostication, and resource allocation in patients wi
Title
An integrated platform for studying sensory networks in the vertebrate brain
Investigator
Ethan Kime Scott
Institute
university of queensland
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
7. Project Summary/Abstract
Human experience is shaped by our senses, which receive diverse inputs from our
environment. These varied inputs, however, all contribute to a single integrated
representation in our minds of the outside world.
Title
Application of the principle of symmetry to neural circuitry: From building blocks to neural synchronization in the connectome
Investigator
Hernan Makse, Manuel Zimmer
Institute
city college of new york
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract
The broad, long-term objective of this grant is to advance a new theoretical approach to identify
synchronized building blocks of neural circuits based on group theory and its application to understand the
permutation symmetries of these circuits.
Title
Bidirectional Interactions of Cortex and Basal Ganglia During Action Selection
Investigator
Allison Elizabeth Girasole
Institute
harvard medical school
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract
Selecting future actions based on previous experiences is key to an animal's survival. This process, known as
action selection, depends on the proper function of cortical and subcortical basal ganglia circuits.
Title
Biophysical modeling of the functional MRI signal through parametric variations in neuronal activation and blood vessel anatomy using realistic synthetic microvascular networks
Investigator
Grant Hartung
Institute
massachusetts general hospital
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
The most widespread tool for measuring brain activity noninvasively in humans is functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI), which typically tracks changes in blood flow and oxygenation using the blood-oxygenation-level-
dependent (BOLD) signal.
Title
Brain States and Flexible Behavior
Investigator
Santiago Jaramillo, David Mccormick, Cristopher M Niell
Institute
university of oregon
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Abstract
To survive in dynamic environments, the nervous system must be able to generate flexible behavior —
seamlessly weaving together past experience with the present context to achieve future goals.