These notices support the BRAIN Initiative Connectivity Across Scales Network (BRAIN CONNECTS), which aims to coordinate the development of research capacity and technical capabilities to generate wiring diagrams that span entire brain regions across multiple scales.
The three Notices of Intent to Publish featured below are related to planned Notices of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) from the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative supporting the development of the BRAIN Initiative Connectivity Across Scales (CONNECTS) Network, one of three major BRAIN Initiative transformative projects. NIH provides these Notices to allow potential applicants sufficient time to develop meaningful collaborations and responsive projects.
NOT-NS-22-045 BRAIN Initiative Connectivity across Scales (BRAIN CONNECTS): Comprehensive Centers for Human and Non-Human Primate Brain (UM1 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
NOT-NS-22-046 BRAIN Initiative Connectivity across Scales (BRAIN CONNECTS): Comprehensive Centers for Mouse Brain (UM1 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
These planned NOFOs will support Comprehensive Centers to develop and test technologies that can be scaled to brain-wide atlases of human and non-human primate (NOT-NS-22-045), as well as mouse (NOT-NS-22-046) circuit connectivity. The Centers are expected to establish pipelines for data collection, analysis, and dissemination to demonstrate the feasibility of mapping region-to-region and/or synaptic connectivity. Centers are also expected to incorporate toolsets and infrastructure for collected data to facilitate its use and dissemination within the neuroscience community.
NOT-NS-22-047 BRAIN Initiative Connectivity across Scales (BRAIN CONNECTS): Specialized Projects for Scalable Technologies (U01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
This planned NOFO will support 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 may also be permitted. 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 are expected to offer distinct capabilities and competencies aimed at developing and optimizing current technologies or entirely new and potentially risky approaches.
These NOFOs are part of a series comprising the BRAIN 2.0 transformative projects, which were motivated and inspired by the recommendations in “The BRAIN Initiative 2.0: From Cells to Circuits, Toward Cures” and “The BRAIN Initiative and Neuroethics: Enabling and Enhancing Neuroscience Advances for Society.” These large-scale projects, built on the early successes from the first half of the Initiative, will support the development and dissemination of critical resources and data to propel neuroscience far into the future.
As part of the NIH BRAIN Initiative’s efforts to promote more impactful science through the inclusion of diverse perspectives, these NOFOs (among most upcoming BRAIN NOFOs) will require a Plan for Enhancing Diverse Perspectives (PEDP) as part of the application.
The three planned companion NOFOs discussed above are expected to make 8-15 awards totaling $30M per year. All three BRAIN CONNECT NOFOs are currently estimated to be published Spring 2022 with an estimated application due date of Summer 2022.