Funding Opportunity Announcements

This is a reissue of RFA-MH-21-175 to comply with DMSP policy. The purpose of this Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is to encourage applications that will develop and validate novel tools to facilitate the detailed analysis of complex circuits and provide insights into cellular interactions that underlie brain function. The new tools and technologies should inform and/or exploit cell-type and/or circuit-level specificity. Plans for validating the utility of the tool/technology will be an essential feature of a successful application. The development of new genetic and non-genetic tools for delivering genes, proteins and chemicals to cells of interest or approaches that are expected to target specific cell types and/or circuits in the nervous system with greater precision and sensitivity than currently established methods are encouraged. Tools that can be used in a number of species/model organisms rather than those restricted to a single species are highly desired. Applications that provide approaches that break through existing technical barriers to substantially improve current capabilities are highly encouraged.

Reissue of RFA-MH-22-115 to comply with DMSP policy. The purpose of this Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is to encourage applications that will develop and validate novel tools to facilitate the detailed analysis and manipulation of complex circuits and provide insights into cellular interactions that underlie brain function. Critical advances in the treatment of brain disorders in human populations are hindered by our lack of ability to monitor and manipulate circuitry in safe, minimally-invasive ways. Clinical intervention with novel cell and circuit specific tools will require extensive focused research designed to remove barriers to delivery of gene therapies. In addition to identification and removal of barriers, the need to specifically target dysfunctional circuitry poses additional challenges. Neuroscience has experienced an impressive influx of exciting new research tools in the past decade, especially since the launch of the BRAIN Initiative. However, the majority of these cutting edge tools have been developed for use in model organisms, primarily rodents, fish and flies. These cutting edge tools, such as viral delivery of genetic constructs, are increasingly adaptable to large brains and more importantly are emerging as potential human therapeutic strategies for brain disorders. A pressing need to develop tools for use in large brains, more directly relevant to the human brain is the focus of this initiative. The new tools and technologies should inform and/or exploit cell-type and/or circuit-level specificity. Plans for validating the utility of the tool/technology will be an essential feature of a successful application.

The purpose of the NIH BRAIN Initiative Advanced Postdoctoral Career Transition Award to Promote Diversity (K99/R00) program is to enhance workforce diversity in the neuroscience workforce and maintain a strong cohort of new and talented, NIH-supported, independent investigators from diverse backgrounds in BRAIN Initiative research areas. This program is designed to facilitate a timely transition of outstanding postdoctoral researchers with a research and/or clinical doctorate degree from mentored, postdoctoral research positions to independent, tenure-track or equivalent faculty positions. The program will provide independent NIH research support during this transition to assist awardees in launching competitive, independent research careers.

The goal of the NIH BRAIN Initiative Advanced Postdoctoral Career Transition Award to Promote Diversity (K99/R00) program is to enhance workforce diversity in the neuroscience workforce and maintain a strong cohort of new and talented, NIH-supported, independent investigators from diverse backgrounds in BRAIN Initiative research areas. This program is designed to facilitate a timely transition of outstanding postdoctoral researchers with research and/or clinical doctorate degree from mentored, postdoctoral research positions to independent, tenure-track or equivalent faculty positions. The program will provide independent NIH research support during this transition to assist awardees in launching competitive, independent research careers.

Reissue of RFA-MH-22-220 to comply with DMSP. This FOA supports the development of software to visualize and analyze the data as part of programs of building the informatics infrastructure for the BRAIN Initiative. Other informatics programs include developing data standards that are needed to describe the new experiments that are being created by or used in the BRAIN Initiative ( RFA-MH-19-146 ), and creating the data infrastructures that will house the data from multiple experimental groups ( RFA-MH-19-145 ). Each of the programs is aimed at building an infrastructure that is used by a particular sub-domain of experimentalists rather than building a single all-encompassing informatics infrastructure now. Building the infrastructure one experimental area at a time will ensure that the infrastructure is immediately useful to components of the research community. As our understanding of the brain improves, it may be possible to create linkages between these various sub-domain specific informatics programs. Investigators of the informatics programs should keep that goal in mind and build for the future even though the current efforts are more limited in scope.

Invasive surgical procedures offer the opportunity for unique intracranial interventions such as the ability to record and stimulate intracranially within precisely localized brain structures in humans. Human studies using invasive technology are often constrained by a limited number of patients and resources available to implement complex experimental protocols and need to be aggregated in a manner that addresses research questions with appropriate statistical power. Therefore, this RFA seeks applications to assemble diverse, integrated, multi-disciplinary teams that cross boundaries of interdisciplinary collaboration to overcome these fundamental barriers and to investigate high-impact questions in human neuroscience. The research should be offered as exploratory research and planning activities to establish feasibility, proof-of-principle and early-stage development that, if successful, would support, enable, and/or lay the groundwork for a potential, subsequent Research Opportunities Using Invasive Neural Recording and Stimulating Technologies in the Human Brain, as described in the companion FOA (RFA-NS-22-041). Projects should maximize opportunities to conduct innovative in vivo neuroscience research made available by direct access to the brain from invasive surgical procedures. Projects should employ approaches guided by specified theoretical constructs and by quantitative, mechanistic models where appropriate. Awardees will join a consortium working group, coordinated by the NIH, to identify consensus standards of practice, including neuroethical considerations, to collect and provide data for ancillary studies, and to aggregate and standardize data for dissemination among the wider scientific community.

The purpose of the The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative Fellows (F32) program is to enhance the research training of promising postdoctorates, early in their postdoctoral training period, who have the potential to become productive investigators in research areas that will advance the goals of the BRAIN Initiative. Applications are encouraged in any research area that is aligned with the BRAIN Initiative, including neuroethics. Applicants are expected to propose research training in an area that clearly complements their predoctoral research. Formal training in analytical tools appropriate for the proposed research is expected to be an integral component of the research training plan. In order to maximize the training potential of the F32 award, this program encourages applications from individuals who have not yet completed their terminal doctoral degree and who expect to do so within 12 months of the application due date. On the application due date, candidates may not have completed more than 12 months of postdoctoral training.

Reissue of RFA-NS-18-019: Understanding the dynamic activity of neural circuits is central to the NIH BRAIN Initiative. The invention, proof-of-concept investigation, and optimization of new technologies through iterative feedback from end users are key components of the BRAIN Initiative. This FOA seeks applications to optimize existing or emerging technologies through iterative testing with end users. The technologies and approaches should have potential to address major challenges associated with recording and modulation (including various modalities for stimulation/activation, inhibition and manipulation) of cells (i.e., neuronal and non-neuronal) and networks to enable transformative understanding of dynamic signaling in the central nervous system (CNS). These technologies and approaches should have previously demonstrated their transformative potential through initial proof-of-concept testing and are now ready for accelerated refinement. In conjunction, the manufacturing techniques should be scalable towards sustainable, broad dissemination and user-friendly incorporation into regular neuroscience research.Proposed technologies should be compatible with experiments in behaving animals, validated under in vivo experimental conditions, and capable of reducing major barriers to conducting neurobiological experiments and making new discoveries about the CNS. Technologies may engage diverse types of signaling beyond neuronal electrical activity such as optical, electrical, magnetic, acoustic or genetic recording/manipulation. Applications that seek to integrate multiple approaches are encouraged. If suitable, applications are expected to integrate appropriate domains of expertise, including biological, chemical and physical sciences, engineering, computational modeling and statistical analysis.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) intends to support a group of Specialized Collaboratories that will adopt scalable technology platforms and streamlined sampling strategies and assay cascade to create comprehensive and highly granular brain cell atlases in human, non-human primates, and mouse, in coordination and collaboration with other BICAN projects. In particular, the Specialized Collaboratories are expected to complement the Comprehensive Centers in BICAN with distinct capabilities, competencies, and research aims. The overarching goal of the BICAN is to build reference brain cell atlases that will be widely used throughout the research community, providing a molecular and anatomical foundational framework for the study of brain function and disorders.

This BRAIN Initiative FOA is to further develop molecular tools of high impact that are targetable to brain cell types for the monitoring and manipulation of neural circuits in experimental animals. This FOA is part of the BRAIN Initiative Armamentarium for Brain Cell Access transformative project. This will support iterative improvement of molecular payloads capable of monitoring and manipulating neural cell activity and that can be delivered to specific brain cell types using targeting technologies.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) supports Comprehensive Centers to develop and test technologies that can be scaled to brain-wide atlases of mouse circuit connectivity. Centers will establish data collection, analysis, and dissemination pipelines to demonstrate the feasibility of mapping cell-to-cell connectivity with a minimum resolution of synaptic connections. They will demonstrate the significance of the approach within the context of a chosen CNS sub-volume, by testing specific hypotheses relating circuit structure to function. They will also incorporate toolsets and infrastructure for integrating separately collected data from smaller volumes, as well as from other data collection modalities, and for enabling the neuroscience community to interact with and mine the data for new research questions. Centers will be integrated into the BRAIN CONNECTS Network, consisting of projects from this FOA and its companion announcements, as a coordinated effort aimed at developing wiring diagrams that can span entire brains across multiple scales.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) supports Comprehensive Centers to develop and test technologies that can be scaled to brain-wide atlases of human and non-human primate circuit connectivity. Centers will establish data collection, analysis, and dissemination pipelines to demonstrate the feasibility of mapping region-to-region connectivity with a minimum resolution of individual cells and/or axon fibers. They will demonstrate the significance of the approach within the context of a chosen CNS sub-volume, by testing specific hypotheses relating circuit structure to function. They will also incorporate toolsets and infrastructure for integrating separately collected data from smaller volumes, as well as from other data collection modalities, and for enabling the neuroscience community to interact with and mine the data for new research questions. Centers will be integrated into the BRAIN CONNECTS Network, consisting of projects from this FOA and its companion announcements, as a coordinated effort aimed at developing wiring diagrams that can span entire brains across multiple scales.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) supports Specialized Projects to develop current or emerging technologies to generate comprehensive atlases of brain connectivity, with an emphasis on human, non-human primate (NHP), and mouse. Projects validating approaches using other species are also permitted if well justified. Applications may address any aspects of the data collection, analysis, and dissemination pipelines, to enable faster and more cost-effective generation and interpretation of brain-wide wiring diagrams. Projects will offer distinct capabilities and competencies aimed at developing and optimizing current technologies or entirely new and potentially risky approaches. They will be integrated into the BRAIN CONNECTS Network, consisting of other Specialized Projects from this FOA, and Comprehensive Centers from its companion announcements, as a coordinated effort aimed at developing wiring diagrams that can span entire brains across multiple scales.

Reissue of RFA-MH-19-135 The purpose of this Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is to encourage applications that will develop and validate novel tools to facilitate the detailed analysis and manipulation of complex circuits and provide insights into cellular interactions that underlie brain function. Critical advances in the treatment of brain disorders in human populations are hindered by our lack of ability to monitor and manipulate circuitry in safe, minimally-invasive ways. Clinical intervention with novel cell and circuit specific tools will require extensive focused research designed to remove barriers to delivery of gene therapies. In addition to identification and removal of barriers, the need to specifically target dysfunctional circuitry poses additional challenges. Neuroscience has experienced an impressive influx of exciting new research tools in the past decade, especially since the launch of the BRAIN Initiative. However, the majority of these cutting edge tools have been developed for use in model organisms, primarily rodents, fish and flies. These cutting edge tools, such as viral delivery of genetic constructs, are increasingly adaptable to large brains and more importantly are emerging as potential human therapeutic strategies for brain disorders. A pressing need to develop tools for use in large brains, more directly relevant to the human brain is the focus of this initiative. The new tools and technologies should inform and/or exploit cell-type and/or circuit-level specificity. Plans for validating the utility of the tool/technology will be an essential feature of a successful application. The development of new genetic and non-genetic tools for delivering genes, proteins and chemicals to cells of interest or approaches that are expected to target specific cell types and/or circuits in the nervous system with greater precision and sensitivity than currently established methods are encouraged.

The NIH Research Education Program (R25) supports research education activities in the mission areas of the NIH. The overarching goal of this Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative R25 program is to support educational activities that complement and/or enhance the training of a workforce to meet the nations biomedical, behavioral and clinical research needs in research areas relevant to the BRAIN Initiative. To accomplish the stated over-arching goal, this FOA will support creative educational activities with a primary focus on Courses for Skills Development and Research Experiences. The purpose of this FOA is to encourage applications for the continuation and/or expansion of ongoing and new research education programs that will significantly advance the educational goals of the BRAIN Initiative as described in BRAIN 2025: A Scientific Vision including neuroethics and opportunities to increase the workforce diversity in BRAIN Initiative research areas. Proposed programs are expected to offer hands-on research experiences, an in-depth conceptual understanding of the techniques and tools employed, and the knowledge to apply appropriate analytic approaches to the resulting data. Participants are limited to undergraduate, graduate/medical students, medical residents, postdoctoral scholars, and/or early-career faculty with an emphasis on diversity as defined by NIH (NOT-OD-20-031). Proposed programs will facilitate the development of a sophisticated cadre of future investigators with the knowledge and skills to apply BRAIN Initiative techniques and approaches and data resources (BRAIN cell census data https://bicon.org/data) to research questions about brain function and behavior. Programs appropriate for this FOA must include participants from a regionally/nationally recruited cohort.

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.

This is a reissue of RFA-MH-19-136. The purpose of this Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is to encourage applications that will develop and validate novel tools to facilitate the detailed analysis of complex circuits and provide insights into cellular interactions that underlie brain function. The new tools and technologies should inform and/or exploit cell-type and/or circuit-level specificity. Plans for validating the utility of the tool/technology will be an essential feature of a successful application. The development of new genetic and non-genetic tools for delivering genes, proteins and chemicals to cells of interest or approaches that are expected to target specific cell types and/or circuits in the nervous system with greater precision and sensitivity than currently established methods are encouraged. Tools that can be used in a number of species/model organisms rather than those restricted to a single species are highly desired. Applications that provide approaches that break through existing technical barriers to substantially improve current capabilities are highly encouraged.

Reissue of RFA-NS-19-011: The purpose of the NIH Blueprint and BRAIN Initiative Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience (D-SPAN) Award is to support a defined pathway across career stages for outstanding graduate students who are from backgrounds that are nationally underrepresented in neuroscience research. This two-phase award will facilitate completion of the doctoral dissertation and transition of talented graduate students to strong neuroscience research postdoctoral positions, and will provide career development opportunities relevant to their long-term career goal of becoming independent neuroscience researchers.

This is a reissue of RFA-MH-19-147. This FOA supports the development of software to visualize and analyze the data as part of programs of building the informatics infrastructure for the BRAIN Initiative. Other informatics programs include developing data standards that are needed to describe the new experiments that are being created by or used in the BRAIN Initiative ( RFA-MH-19-146 ), and creating the data infrastructures that will house the data from multiple experimental groups ( RFA-MH-19-145 ). Each of the programs is aimed at building an infrastructure that is used by a particular sub-domain of experimentalists rather than building a single all-encompassing informatics infrastructure now. Building the infrastructure one experimental area at a time will ensure that the infrastructure is immediately useful to components of the research community. As our understanding of the brain improves, it may be possible to create linkages between these various sub-domain specific informatics programs. Investigators of the informatics programs should keep that goal in mind and build for the future even though the current efforts are more limited in scope.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) solicits applications to develop web-accessible data archives to capture, store, and curate data related to BRAIN Initiative activities. The data archives teams will work with the research community to incorporate tools that allow users to analyze and visualize the data, but the creation of such tools is not part of this FOA. The data archives will use appropriate standards to describe the data, but the creation of such standards is not part of this FOA. A goal of this program is to advance research by creating a community resource data archive with appropriate standards and summary information that is broadly available and accessible to the research community for furthering research.