The BRAIN Blog

Please join us on June 17-18 at the 10th Annual BRAIN Initiative Conference to hear our featured plenary speakers and panel share their expertise and insights with conference attendees.  

The 10th Annual BRAIN Initiative Conference: Celebrating a Decade of Innovation is next month! If you haven’t registered for this hybrid event, you still have time to join us. In-person registration closes on May 31, 2024.  

Register on the event website today!  

The BRAIN Initiative is marking a milestone—10 years of advancing neuroscience and neurotechnology research by funding innovative projects. As part of a rotating series of blog posts, the Directors of the BRAIN Initiative-partnering Institutes and Centers share their voice and perspectives on the impact BRAIN has made on their respective missions—and vice versa.  

By George F. Koob, PhD, Director, NIAAA

A message to the community from Dr. John Ngai, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) BRAIN Initiative.

When the first grants from the Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies^® Initiative, or The BRAIN Initiative^®, were issued in 2014, the entire neuroscience field came alive with this new, innovative way to advance cutting-edge science and novel neurotechnologies.

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.  

FlyWire, a BRAIN-funded project, is hosting a challenge to optimize the grouping of visual neurons within clusters, known as columns, in the right optic lobe of the Drosophila brain.

The BRAIN Initiative is marking a milestone—10 years of advancing neuroscience and neurotechnology research by funding innovative projects. As part of a rotating series of blog posts, the Directors of the BRAIN Initiative-partnering Institutes and Centers share their voice and perspectives on the impact BRAIN has made on their respective missions—and vice versa. 

By Walter Koroshetz, MD, Director, NINDS

Dr. Emily Wright is an F32 award recipient who used the funding opportunity to investigate how stress affects neurotransmitter release. The F32 funding opportunity supports the research training of promising postdoctorates early in their postdoctoral training period.

DataJoint and Neurodata Without Borders will host three exciting workshops that feature tools disseminated through the BRAIN Initiative U24 Research Resource Grants for Technology Integration and Dissemination. Applications for the workshops are now open.

Have you read the latest BRAIN Initiative Alliance newsletter? BRAIN scientists are invited to share their tools with the scientific community in the Toolmakers Newsletter. These newsletters spotlight BRAIN Initiative investigators with tools, technologies, or theories ready for distribution to the research community to advance neurotechnology.  

Last month, members of the NIH BRAIN Initiative’s Neuroethics Working Group (NEWG) and Multi-Council Working Group (MCWG) discussed potentially unique ethical considerations related to pediatric neurostimulation and emerging opportunities in neuroethics research, as well as updates from NEWG and MCWG members.