Project Summary / Abstract
A fundamental goal in neuroscience is understanding how neural network function arises from circuit structure.
However, the immense complexity of most brain networks has been a significant barrier to progress.
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
Scalable electron tomography for connectomics
Investigator
Mark H Ellisman, Wei-Chung Allen Lee
Institute
harvard medical school
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Title
Scalable Molecular Pipelines for FAIR and Reusable BICAN Molecular Data
Investigator
Jesse Gillis, Timothy L Tickle, Owen R White
Institute
broad institute, inc.
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
This project will create scalable resources that will be critical to the development of BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas
Network (BICAN) consortium brain atlases. This team will focus on the development of common molecular
data processing pipelines that are cloud-native and FAIR.
Title
Scalable technologies for brain-wide connectomics of transcriptomic cell types: focus on brainstem
Investigator
Jayaram Chandrashekar, Karel Svoboda
Institute
allen institute
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project summary, Scalable technologies for brain-wide connectomics of
transcriptomic cell types: focus on brainstem
This proposal is to develop a scalable pipeline to combine high-resolution morphology and molecular
classification of individual neurons to define morpho-molecular cell types in the br
Title
Scalable, non-dissociative single-cell RNA sequencing for mapping the brain in health and disease
Investigator
Li Sun
Institute
topogene, inc.
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
A fundamental goal of the BRAIN Initiative and other neuroscience projects is to map cell types in the brain and study their changes associated with function, disease, and drug treatment.
Title
Secondary analysis of resting state MEG data using the Human Neocortical Neurosolver software tool for cellular and circuit-level interpretation
Investigator
Stephanie Ruggiano Jones
Institute
brown university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
The neuroscience community is experiencing a revolution in its ability to share and analyze vast amounts of
human brain imaging data, with support from the BRAIN Initiative and other substantial data-sharing efforts.
Title
Sensory-motor strategies for odor-guided navigation
Investigator
Ian Gordon Davison
Institute
boston university (charles river campus)
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Animals interact with the world through dynamic, iterative sensory-motor processes that guide their
ongoing movement.
Title
Simultaneous high-throughput functional, transcriptomic and connectivity profiling using FUNseq
Investigator
Andreas Tolias, Anthony M Zador
Institute
baylor college of medicine
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Recent advances in technology driven by the BRAIN Initiative have yielded new methods for characterizing the ac-
tivity, transcriptome, and microscale anatomy of neurons throughout the brain, and have increased the throughput
of these techniques by orders of magnitude.
Title
Spatiotemporal epigenomic and chromosomal architectural cell atlas of developing human brains
Investigator
Chongyuan Luo
Institute
university of california los angeles
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
The adult human brain is comprised of numerous cell types exhibiting specific transcriptomic and epigenomic
signatures associated with their spatial location, connectivity, and function.
Title
Spinal Cord Stimulation to Improve Motor Function in People with Post-Stroke Hemiplegia
Investigator
Marco Capogrosso, Douglas J Weber
Institute
university of pittsburgh at pittsburgh
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
SUMMARY Motivation: In the US, almost 800’000 people have a stroke every year. Unfortunately, despite intense physio- therapy stroke survivors retain permanent arm motor deficits, some complete hemiparesis.
Title
Statistical machine learning tools for understanding neural ensemble representations and dynamics
Investigator
Uri Tzvi Eden, Loren M Frank, Alan David Kaplan
Institute
university of california, san francisco
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
The brain is a massively interconnected network of specialized circuits.
Title
Sub-millimeter precision wireless neuromodulation using a microwave split ring resonator
Investigator
Ji-Xin Cheng
Institute
boston university (charles river campus)
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Project Summary
Minimally invasive neural modulation at sub-millimeter spatial resolution remains a critical yet unmet
biomedical need. Researchers have explored a broad spectrum of electromagnetic wave and developed
wireless neuromodulation methods.
Title
Systematic identification of enhancers to target the breadth of excitatory and inhibitory neuronal cell types in the cerebral cortex
Investigator
Paola Arlotta, Benjamin E Deverman, Gordon J Fishell, Yating Wang
Institute
broad institute, inc.
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
In this proposal we aim to identify gene regulatory elements that permit the targeting and
manipulation of brain circuit models of human brain function.
Title
Targeted Neuromodulation by Nanosecond Pulsed Electric Fields
Investigator
Andrei G Pakhomov
Institute
old dominion university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Nanosecond pulsed electric field (nsPEF) is a new modality for neuromodulation, with unique capabilities
qualitatively different from the conventional electrostimulation.
Title
Thalamus in the middle: computations in multi-regional neural circuits
Investigator
Adam G Carter, Jayaram Chandrashekar, Jorge H Jaramillo, Karel Svoboda, Bosiljka Tasic
Institute
allen institute
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Summary, Overall (Thalamus in the middle: computations in multi-regional neural
circuits)
This collaborative project aims to uncover the logic of signal routing from subcortical areas to the frontal cortex
through the thalamus.
Title
The Disadvantage Exposome as a Driver of Alzheimer’s Disease Pathology
Investigator
Margo Heston
Institute
university of wisconsin-madison
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
1 PROJECT SUMMARY
2 Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia worldwide, incurring a projected healthcare
3 burden of $1 trillion in the United States alone by 2060.
Title
The Heart and the Mind: An Integrative Approach to Brain-Body Interactions in the Zebrafish
Investigator
Florian Engert, Mark C Fishman, Adrienne L Fairhall, Jeff W Lichtman, Joshua T Vogelstein
Institute
harvard university
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
The heart and the mind: an integrative approach to brain-body interactions in the
zebrafish
Our current U19 has focused primarily on Exteroception, which can be defined as the accumulated sensory experience
originating from events in the outside world.
Title
The interaction of cortical and subcortical processing in natural sensory behavior
Investigator
Cristopher M Niell, Michael Wehr
Institute
university of oregon
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Abstract
Our brains have evolved to extract relevant sensory information from rich and complex natural environments in
order to drive appropriate behavior.
Title
The Neural Circuit Basis of Olfactory Navigation in Adult Drosophila
Investigator
Katherine Nagel
Institute
new york university school of medicine
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
PROJECT SUMMARY
In order to forage effectively for food, the brain must integrate innate and learned information about the
value of different food odors and use this information to select navigational motor programs.
Title
The Neural Code and Dynamics of the Reading Network
Investigator
Nitin Tandon
Institute
university of texas hlth sci ctr houston
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
Reading involves complex transformations of word forms, with visual input mapped to lexical, semantic and
phonological systems in less than a second.
Title
The Spatial and Temporal Scale of Neuromodulation in Mouse Sensory Cortex
Investigator
Jacob Reimer
Institute
baylor college of medicine
Fiscal Year
Funding Opportunities Number
Project Number
The neuromodulators acetylcholine (ACh) and norepinephrine (NE) are associated with an
activated cortical brain state characterized by an increase in the reliability of cortical responses
to external stimuli and enhanced performance on behavioral tasks.