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 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. Amassing evidence supports the idea that control of caloric intake is complex and involves calculations of hedonic value, reward and motivation.
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 of Information Routing in Primate Fronto-striatal Circuits
Investigator
Thilo Womelsdorf
Institute
vanderbilt university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT
This project focuses on developing new analysis tools to investigate the mechanisms of information
routing in primate fronto-striatal circuits during goal-directed behavior.
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-region 'Network of Networks' Recurrent Neural Network Models of Adaptive and Maladaptive Learning
Investigator
Kanaka Rajan
Institute
icahn school of medicine at mount sinai
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
The massive neural activity data collected through transformative new technologies present an incredible
opportunity in facilitating the mission of the BRAIN Initiative and the wider neuroscience community: to
understand brain function.
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.
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.
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 methods and theories to interrogate organizational principles from single cell to neuronal networks
Investigator
Mara Dierssen, Bing Ye
Institute
university of michigan at ann arbor
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Understanding how individual neurons contribute to network functions is fundamental to neuroscience. Recent
years have seen exciting progresses in the reconstructions of single-neuron morphologies and wiring diagrams
at the level of individual synapses.
TitleNext-generation high-resolution diffusion MRI resolving cortical columns and layers in vivo
Investigator
Allen W Song, Trong-Kha Truong
Institute
duke university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Abstract
In response to the NIH RFA-EB-17-003 on “Proof of Concept Development of Early Stage Next Generation
Human Brain Imaging”, we propose a two-year plan to develop the much needed hardware and software
solutions for ultrahigh resolution diffusion MRI to delineate cortical columns and layers in
TitlePediatric Deep Brain Stimulation: Neuroethics and Decision Making
Investigator
Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby, Gabriel Lazaro-Munoz, Eric A. Storch
Institute
baylor college of medicine
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) and adaptive DBS systems are currently used in children with dystonia,
epilepsy, and Tourette Syndrome, and its use is expanding to other neuropsychiatric conditions.