Two re-issued Requests for Applications (RFAs) support innovative methodologically-integrated approaches and multi-PI, team science exploratory approaches within a broader suite of RFAs on brain circuits and integrated approaches.
The NIH Institutes and Centers participating in the BRAIN Initiative are happy to announce two re-issued RFAs that support research on targeted circuit projects and exploratory team-research circuit programs. These RFAs sit within a larger family of funding mechanisms that collectively seek to address long-standing neuroscience issues through an integrated experimental approach, as outlined in the BRAIN 2025 report.
RFA-NS-18-030 (Targeted Brain Circuits Projects) utilizes an R01 mechanism and supports research projects utilizing methodologically-integrated approaches to understand how circuit activity gives rise to mental experience and behavior. These targeted Brain Circuit Project awards will support individual laboratories or small multi-PD/PI groups. The RFA seeks proposals that reflect the NIH BRAIN Initiative interests in the application of cutting-edge methodologies for understanding brain circuit function at cellular and sub-second levels of resolution in ethologically relevant behaviors. Applications should offer specific, feasible research goals as endpoints within a 5-year term. Individual budget requests are not limited but must reflect project needs. The next receipt date is July 3, 2018. Subsequent upcoming receipt dates are: November 6, 2018; July 3, 2019; November 6, 2019; July 1, 2020; November 10, 2020.
RFA-NS-18-029 (Exploratory Team-Research BRAIN Circuit Programs) utilizes a U01 mechanism and will support multi-PI, interdisciplinary team science programs to establish overarching principles of circuit function. This RFA seeks applications that build teams of experts for exploratory studies that integrate theory and modeling with new and emerging methods for recording and manipulating neural circuits across multiple brain regions. Funded projects are expected to elucidate a specific behavioral or neural system in terms of dynamic circuit activity. Successful exploratory studies may lead to subsequent, competing applications for support of multi-component, team-research projects (RFA-NS-17-018). Individual budget requests are not limited but must reflect project needs. The upcoming receipt dates are July 23, 2018 and June 10, 2019.
These RFAs sit within a family of funding opportunities that emphasize the use of cutting-edge methods for activation and recording to understand the behavior of circuits at cellular and sub-second levels of spatial and temporal resolution; that is, at the level of functional units of circuits. For more information about the goals and scope of work for these funding opportunities, please visit our list of active funding opportunities, or contact the BRAIN Team for Integrative and Quantitative Neuroscience.