Project Summary
When learning new skills, experience with previously-learned skills can facilitate faster learning by constraining
behavioral exploration and shaping, a concept known as “structural learning”3,4.
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
Unraveling constraints on motor cortical activity exploration and shaping during structural skill learning using large-scale 2-photon imaging and holographic optogenetic stimulation
Investigator
Vivek Athalye
Institute
columbia university health sciences
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Title
Unveiling the mechanisms of ultrasound neuromodulation via spatially confined stimulation and temporally resolved recording
Investigator
Ji-Xin Cheng, Xue Han
Institute
boston university (charles river campus)
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Ultrasound has been explored as a modality to modulate nerves and muscles back in the 1920s. A number of
recent studies have demonstrated the feasibility of using ultrasound to stimulate peripheral nerves, spinal cord,
and brain.
Title
Validating and extending optical tools for extended neural silencing
Investigator
Christopher Peter Ford, Matthew J Kennedy, Chandra L Tucker
Institute
university of colorado denver
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Conditionally silencing the activity of specific neural ensembles is a powerful approach
for mapping brain circuits responsible for specific behaviors.
Title
What are we Stimulating with Transcranial Ultrasound in Mice?
Investigator
Kim Butts-Pauly
Institute
stanford university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Abstract
Completely noninvasive neuromodulation using focused ultrasound (FUS) offers the promise of precisely
stimulating specific targets deep in the brain, at power levels commonly used for diagnostic imaging studies.
Having a working mouse model to study neuromodulation with ultrasound i
Title
Whole-brain recording into nucleic acids using template-independent polymerases
Investigator
Keith Edward Jaggard Tyo
Institute
northwestern university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
This proposal aims to record and store neural activity into DNA/RNA strands with high spatial and temporal
resolution, enabling neural activity recording densely within local circuits, yet broadly across large scale neural
circuits, and potentially across the entire brain.
Title
Wireless High-Density Diffuse Optical Tomography for Decoding Brain Activity
Investigator
Joseph P Culver
Institute
washington university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
This grant will develop a wireless wearable high-performance, high-density diffuse optical tomography (DOT)
instrument for mapping of brain function in naturalistic settings.
Title
A magnetic particle imager (MPI) for functional brain imaging in humans
Investigator
Lawrence L Wald
Institute
massachusetts general hospital
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
In this U01 grant we propose a 5 year engineering development effort to advance Magnetic
Particle Imaging (MPI) to replace MRI as the next-generation functional brain imaging tool for human
neuroscience.
Title
A microscope optimized for brain-scale 2-photon imaging
Investigator
Bijan Pesaran
Institute
new york university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
This proposal presents an academic-industrial partnership to develop an instrument for 2-photon laser
scanning microscopy (2p-LSM) in non-human primates (NHP) for transformative basic science and clinical
translation.
Title
A novel platform for genetically-encoded optical neuropeptide sensors (NEONS)
Investigator
Matthew Ryan Banghart, Geoffrey A Chang
Institute
university of california, san diego
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Neuromodulators play an important role in our life by dynamically adapting the brain to an ever-changing
environment.
Title
A whole-brain ultrasonic neural stimulation and photoacoustic recording system in behaving animals
Investigator
Omer Oralkan, Mesut Sahin
Institute
north carolina state university raleigh
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary:
Decoding the electrical and chemical signals in neural circuits is essential to understand the
communication between different brain regions and how these neural networks give rise to a particular function
at the level of the whole organism.
Title
Accessing the Neuronal Scale: Designing the Next Generation of Compact Ultra High Field MRI Technology for Order-of-Magnitude Sensitivity Increase in Non-Invasive Human Brain Mapping
Investigator
Brian Keith Rutt
Institute
stanford university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
A complete understanding of both normal brain function and neurological disorders / mental illness will
require the deciphering of the complex brain networks that underlie behavior and cognition, at both whole-brain
and microscopic scales.
Title
Achieving ethical integration in the development of novel neurotechnologies
Investigator
Winston Chiong
Institute
university of california, san francisco
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
New technologies that modulate brain function have tremendous potential for alleviating the persistent burden
of depression and other neuropsychiatric disorders, but also raise challenging ethical and societal questions
regarding self-ownership and control over our thoughts,
Title
An academic industrial partnership for the development of high frame-rate transcranial super resolution ultrasound imaging
Investigator
Paul A Dayton, Gianmarco Pinton
Institute
univ of north carolina chapel hill
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Abstract
Very recently, the revolutionary technology of contrast enhanced super-resolution ultrasound imaging has been
developed.
Title
BIDS-Derivatives: A data standard for derived data and models in the BRAIN Initiative
Investigator
Russell A Poldrack
Institute
stanford university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract
The effective sharing of data requires the development and broad adoption of standards for the
organization of data and metadata.
Title
Bringing laser focus to voltage imaging: Enhanced indicators and advanced scanning methods for two-photon recording of dense networks in vivo
Investigator
Stephane Dieudonne, Michael Z. Lin
Institute
stanford university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Recording the electrical impulses of many individual neurons in intact brain circuits in real time would enable a detailed
understanding of how the brain processes information.
Title
Calcium biosensors for deep-tissue imaging and spectral multiplexing
Investigator
Vladislav Verkhusha
Institute
albert einstein college of medicine, inc
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Calcium signaling participates in almost every aspect of cell functioning, specifically in neurons.
Title
Circuit mechanisms of evidence accumulation during decision-making
Investigator
Zhihao Luo
Institute
princeton university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary/Abstract
Circuit mechanisms underlying evidence accumulation during decision-making
Behavior across many types of decision-making is well described by the gradual accumulation of evidence
toward one of multiple alternatives.
Title
Controlled neuronal firing in vivo using two photon spatially shaped optogenetics
Investigator
Emily Gibson, Diego Restrepo
Institute
university of colorado denver
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
This is an application in response to RFA-NS-17-00 4 “BRAIN Initiative: Optimization of Transformative
Technologies for Large Scale Recording and Modulation in the Nervous System (U01)”.
Title
Cortex-wide volumetric imaging of neuronal activity.
Investigator
Alipasha Vaziri
Institute
rockefeller university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
We propose to design, build, apply, and disseminate a device that will push the boundaries of current
technology for volumetric imaging of distributed activity of large-scale neuronal circuits at high neuronal
sampling rate and single cell resolution.
Title
Deep brain stimulation for depression using directional current steering an individualized network targeting
Investigator
Wayne K Goodman, Nader Pouratian, Sameer Anil Sheth
Institute
columbia university health sciences
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
ABSTRACT
The public health burden of Treatment Resistant Depression (TRD) has prompted clinical trials of deep brain
stimulation (DBS) that have, unfortunately, produced inconsistent outcomes.