This Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) encourages the application of BRAIN Initiative tools and technologies toward a better understanding of neural circuits that underlie cognitive, social and affective processes in order to inform about circuit-based targets for prevention and treatment of mental illnesses. Applications are due through May 10, 2027.
Since its inception in 2013, the BRAIN Initiative has supported over 500 projects for over $1 billion to develop innovative technologies and tools to understand complex signals from multiscale brain circuits. Given remarkable progress in technology development, the neuroscience community is poised to apply these new technologies, and accumulated knowledge, to further understand complex systems-level processes and how their dysfunction might be implicated in mental health illnesses.
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has recently issued a Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) NOT-MH-24-290 to leverage BRAIN Initiative technologies and tools to understand brain function in the service of cognition, social, or affective processing in support of NIMH’s strategic research priorities.
NIMH is encouraging applications proposing the following types of BRAIN Initiative tools and technologies:
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Technologies that enable causal in vivo behavioral neuroscience experimental designs to probe functions of neural circuits that subserve cognitive functions, emotion regulation, and social affective processes.
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Technologies that analyze and manipulate complex circuits with the goal of providing comprehensive circuit diagrams
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Technologies that monitor neural activity and in vivo behaviors
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Technologies to access, manipulate, and monitor brain cell types in vivo during behaviors
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Technologies for large-scale monitoring and quantitative analysis of the behavioral and neurophysiological effects of neuronal activity manipulations using high-resolution, high-throughput approaches for multi-dimensional data sets
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Technologies that combine connectomics analysis with in vivo physiological recording during behavior to establish how circuits or network connectivity relates to functional activity
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Technologies that allow examination of developmental time course and/or sex differences in mental health-relevant circuit function
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Computational modeling approaches and data analysis
For a full list of BRAIN Initiative tools and technologies that could be applied in NIMH research applications, please visit the BRAIN Initiative resources webpage and funded projects webpage.
Applications are due through May 10, 2027. For more information and a full list of funding opportunities included in this notice, please read the full notice (NOT-MH-24-290).