Abstract
Nonivasive stimulation of the brain in health and disease is an important goal of the Brain Initiative. Current
methods include Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), Transcranial Electric Stimulation (TES) and
Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Stimulation (TFUS).
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
Non-invasive Radio Frequency Stimulation of Neurons and Networks
Investigator
Gyorgy Buzsaki, Daniel K Sodickson
Institute
new york university school of medicine
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Title
Non-invasive, Deep Brain, and Focal Neuromodulation in Nonhuman Primates
Investigator
Taylor D Webb
Institute
university of utah
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
The ability to non-invasively perturb specific regions deep in the human brain would enable researchers and clinicians
to study the causal relationships between specific brain structures and behavior.
Title
Noninvasive low-intensity focused ultrasound-enabled sonogenetic method to induce plasticity in adult visual cortex.
Investigator
Grace M Hwang, Hey-Kyoung Lee
Institute
johns hopkins university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Development of non-invasive tools for activating deep brain structures is critical for causally
manipulating neural function in humans. Furthermore, such method, if able to elicit long-term plastic changes in
neural circuits, will aid in functional recovery of neural function.
Title
Novel transparent, ultra-soft neuroelectrode arrays based on nanomeshing conventional electrode materials
Investigator
Michela Fagiolini, Hui Fang, Wentai Liu
Institute
northeastern university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Abstract
There is a growing interest to effectively combine optical approaches with electrophysiology at large scale
and with great precision to fully leverage the complementary spatial and temporal resolution advantages of
both techniques.
Title
Open-source software for multi-scale mapping of the human brain
Investigator
Bruce Fischl, Juan Eugenio Iglesias Gonzalez
Institute
massachusetts general hospital
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary (maximum 30 lines)
The BRAIN initiative seeks to develop and apply technologies in order to understand of how brain cells interact
in both time and space to give rise to brain function.
Title
Optical control of neuromodulatory GPCRs
Investigator
Ehud Isacoff, Dirk Hartwig Trauner
Institute
university of california berkeley
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
A major goal of neuroscience is to understand how neuromodulatory systems regulate core processes of brain
and behavior, from motor function and learning to reward, aversion, attention, and sleep.
Title
Optimization of Clear Optically Matched Panoramic Access Channel Technique (COMPACT) for large-scale deep-brain neurophotonic interface
Investigator
Meng Cui, Guang Yang
Institute
purdue university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Optimization of Clear Optically Matched Panoramic Access Channel Technique (COMPACT)
for large-scale deep-brain neurophotonic interface
With the advance of sensitive molecular indicators and actuators, neurophotonics has become a powerful
paradigm for discovering the principles underlying neural ci
Title
Optimization, application and dissemination of high-speed hybrid multiphoton volumetric imaging technologies
Investigator
Attila Losonczy, Alipasha Vaziri
Institute
rockefeller university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT
Understanding how cognitively-relevant behavioral functions emerge from activity patterns of identified cell-
types is predicated on the ability to record large-scale ensemble dynamics from genetically-identified and
longitudinally-tracked neuronal populations across multi
Title
Optimizing oscillatory epidural electrical stimulation to selectively increase task-related population dynamics in motor areas
Investigator
Karunesh Ganguly, Jeffrey A Roberts
Institute
university of california, san francisco
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Stroke is the leading cause of motor disability in the United States. While brain stimulation to enhance motor
function after stroke has shown promise in small studies, two recent large stroke trials did not find evidence for
significant benefits.
Title
Photoactivatable systems for controlling transcription and ablating synapses.
Investigator
Donald B Arnold
Institute
university of southern california
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
The advent of optogenetic tools for controlling neuronal function with light has led to dramatic
advances in the understanding of the anatomy and function of neural circuits.
Title
Prefrontal contributions to contextual representation
Investigator
Cybelle Marguerite Smith
Institute
university of pennsylvania
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Abstract/Summary
This application describes a 3-year training plan that will enable me, a cognitive neuroscientist with prior
training in electroencephalography (EEG), to conduct research on contextual memory representation using
neuroimaging (fMRI) and computational modeling.
Title
Re-engineering Connectivity in the Drosophila Brain
Investigator
Marco Gallio
Institute
northwestern university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Understanding how our brain's 100 billion neurons process information to produce complex
feelings, decisions, and behaviors is a daunting task. A single neuron in the human brain may
communicate with more than a hundred thousand partners.
Title
Real-time manipulations to understand and improve memory processes
Investigator
Anna Kathleen Gillespie
Institute
university of california, san francisco
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
The hippocampus is critical for capturing rich, multimodal representations of experience and facilitating
the long-term storage and later recall of these experiences.
Title
Restoring Sight to the Blind: Neural Imaging with Retinal Prostheses
Investigator
Noelle Stiles
Institute
university of southern california
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary – Restoring Sight to the Blind: Neural Imaging with Retinal Prostheses
Retinal prostheses restore sight to the blind by electrically stimulating still viable cells in the
retina.
Title
Significance of excitatory and inhibitory synaptic integration by interneurons for local circuit dynamics and behavior
Investigator
Brandon David Turner
Institute
duke university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Localized structuring of neuronal output by inhibitory microcircuits is a fundamental component of
neuronal information processing.
Title
Sonogenetic control of neurons in a large volume of the rodent brain
Investigator
Sreekanth H. Chalasani
Institute
salk institute for biological studies
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Abstract
A key challenge in neuroscience is the development of methods to non-invasively manipulate specific neuronal
cell types in vivo.
Title
Streamlining Volumetric Imaging, Analysis and Publication Using Immersive Virtual Reality
Investigator
Gianfranco Doretto, Michael David Morehead, George A Spirou
Institute
istovisr
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Over the past 15 years, new imaging technologies and methods for high throughput imaging
have revolutionized structural biology by extending the resolution and scale of collected images
in 3 dimensions.
Title
Studying how the hippocampal-prefrontal-hypothalamic circuit encodes social dominance
Investigator
Nancy Padilla Coreano
Institute
salk institute for biological studies
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Social deficits are common in psychiatric disorders and available treatments are limited. Our lack of basic
knowledge on how the brain controls social behaviors makes it challenging to develop therapeutics for social
deficits.
Title
The behavioral microstructure of a memory-guided food-caching behavior and its relationship to hippocampal replay
Investigator
Selmaan Chettih
Institute
columbia university health sciences
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
The hippocampus is a critical site for rapid memory formation and retrieval, with extensively documented
functions representing spatial and navigational variables, yet less is known of the means by which it guides
behavior.
Title
The experience of human subjects with brain organoid research
Investigator
Kate E. Macduffie
Institute
university of washington
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
Efforts to understand the mechanisms of brain-based disease have been hindered by the limited
ability of animal models to reflect the full complexity of human brain and behavior.