Notices of Funding Opportunities

A central goal of the BRAIN Initiative is to develop new and improved technologies suitable for recording from as well as controlling specified cell types and circuits to modulate and understand function in the central nervous system. In order to accomplish these goals, further information is needed to understand the function of current technologies used for recording or stimulating the nervous system. This RFA accepts grant applications in two related but distinct areas. The first is to systematically characterize, model, and validate the membrane, cellular, circuit, and adaptive-biological responses of neuronal and non-neuronal cells to various types of stimulation technologies. The second is to understand the biological and bioinformatic content of signals recorded from neuronal and non-neuronal cells and circuits. Development of new technologies, therapies and disease models, are outside the scope of this FOA. Activities related to enabling the simultaneous use of multiple recording or stimulation technologies are allowed.

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA), in support of the NIH Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, aims to support early stage development of entirely new and novel noninvasive human brain imaging technologies and methods that will lead to transformative advances in our understanding of the human brain. The FOA solicits unusually bold and potentially transformative approaches and supports small-scale, proof-of-concept development based on exceptionally innovative, original and/or unconventional concepts.

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA), in support of the NIH Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, aims to support full development of entirely new or next generation noninvasive human brain imaging tools and methods that will lead to transformative advances in our understanding of the human brain. The FOA seeks innovative applications that are ready for full-scale development of breakthrough technologies with the intention of delivering working tools. This FOA represents the second stage of the tool/technology development effort that started with RFA-MH-14-217 and RFA-MH-15-200

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) solicits grant applications in two related but distinct areas. The first area is in the development and testing of novel tools and methods of neuromodulation that go beyond the existing forms of neural stimulation. The second distinct area that this FOA seeks to encourage is the optimization of existing stimulation methods.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) solicits applications to create a Marmoset Coordination Center. The awardee will be responsible for two separate but related activities. The first activity will be to become the repository for genomic, pedigree, and event records (date of birth, medical, reproductive history) for captive marmosets. The awardee is expected to use that information to help make breeding recommendations to maximize the health and genetic diversity of the marmosets in primate colonies. Applicants are encouraged to adopt the model used by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The second major activity of the awardee will be to maintain a web site and an information support center to assist neuroscience researchers who are used to working with other animal models so that they may assess the utility of including marmosets in their scientific research program. In cases where the neuroscientists want to move forward, the Coordination Center will link the investigators to marmoset colonies that may be able to facilitate their science.

The common marmoset has recently emerged as a promising model system to understand the primate brain. In particular, marmoset behavior is similar in many ways to human behavior and the technology for germ line transmission of exogenous genetic information is now possible. However, existing colonies and commercial sources are currently unable to provide sufficient marmosets for neuroscience research. This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) solicits applications to expand existing colonies of the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) for neuroscience research in the United States. Awardees under this FOA are expected to expand their current marmoset colonies to provide healthy, well-characterized animals that will be made available to the neuroscience research community. Awardees are also expected to participate in and provide health and genetic information to an NIH-Funded Marmoset Coordination Center to help the community understand the pedigree of individuals in the relatively small captive marmoset population and improve the genetic diversity of that population across multiple colonies.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages research grant applications directed toward developing next-generation human cell-derived assays that replicate complex nervous system architectures and physiology with improved fidelity over current capabilities. This includes technologies that do not rely on the use of human fetal tissue, as described in NOT-19-042. Supported projects will be expected to enable future studies of complex nervous system development, function and aging in healthy and disease states.

The BRAIN Initiative® and the neuroscience field as a whole is generating massive and diverse research data across different modalities, spatiotemporal scales and species in efforts to advance our understanding of the brain. The data types are being produced through development and application of innovative technologies in high-throughput -omics profiling, optical microscopy, electron microscopy, electrophysiological recording, macroscale neuroimaging, neuromodulation, and others. The BRAIN Initiative® has made significant investments in the development of an infrastructure to make data available to the research community in a useful way. This infrastructure includes data archives, data standards, and software for data integration, analysis and machine learning. This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages secondary analysis of the large amounts of existing data related to The BRAIN Initiative®. The data do not need to be held in one of the funded BRAIN Initiative data archives, but the data must be held in a data archive that is readily accessible to the research community. Support will be provided for innovative analysis of relevant existing datasets using conventional or novel analytic methods, data science techniques, and machine learning approaches. Support may also be requested to prepare and submit existing data into any of The BRAIN Initiative® data archives. Investigators should not underestimate the time and effort that may be necessary to curate or harmonize data. Analyzed data, models and analytical tools generated under this FOA are expected to be deposited into an appropriate data archive. Since The BRAIN Initiative® data archives are mostly making the data available to the research community through cloud-based storage, depositing the analyzed data, models and tools are expected to enhance opportunities to create a data sandbox where investigators can easily compare the results of their analysis with those from other research groups.

The purpose of this Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative is to encourage applications that will develop and validate tools and resources to facilitate the detailed analysis of brain microconnectivity. Novel and augmented techniques are sought that will ultimately be broadly accessible to the neuroscience community for the interrogation of microconnectivity in healthy and diseased brains of model organisms and humans. Development of technologies that will significantly drive down the cost of connectomics would enable routine mapping of the microconnectivity on the same individuals that have been analyzed physiologically, or to compare normal and pathological tissues in substantial numbers of multiple individuals to assess variability. Advancements in both electron microscopy (EM) and super resolution light microscopic approaches are sought. Applications that propose to develop approaches that break through existing technical barriers to substantially improve current capabilities are highly encouraged. Proof-of-principle demonstrations and/or reference datasets enabling future development are welcome, as are improved approaches for automated segmentation and analysis strategies of neuronal structures in EM images.no

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) supports efforts to disseminate resources and to integrate them into neuroscience research practice. Projects should be highly relevant to specific goals of the BRAIN Initiative, goals that are described in the planning document "BRAIN 2025: A Scientific Vision." They should engage in one or more of the following activities: distribution of tools and reagents; user training on the usage of new technologies or techniques; providing access to existing technology platforms and specialized facilities; minor improvements to increase the scale/efficiency of resource production and delivery; minor adaptations to meet the needs of a user community. Applications strictly focused on technology or software development, rather than dissemination of an existing resource, are not responsive to this FOA. Refinements to microscopes or tools necessary to customize them to the experimental needs of the end users is allowed. Projects should address compelling needs of neuroscience researchers working toward the goals of the BRAIN 2025 report that are otherwise unavailable or impractical in their current form.