The BRAIN Blog

Recent meetings of the Multi-Council Working Group (MCWG) for the NIH BRAIN Initiative and the MCWG Neuroethics Division provided updates on BRAIN’s scientific progress, considerations of the neuroethical issues surrounding the science, and discussions on how to continue working toward the goals of the BRAIN 2025 report…

In December, the NIH BRAIN Initiative held its third annual BRAIN Initiative Investigators Meeting, gathering experts from around the globe to share their cutting-edge BRAIN-funded research. The attendees spent three days learning about each other’s work, forming new collaborations, and hearing from members of the BRAIN Initiative Alliance.

Videocasts will be available for the NIH BRAIN Initiative Multi-Council Working Group and Neuroethics Division meetings on February 14^th and February 15^th…

Whole brain mapping of a sensorimotor response in the zebrafish… Novel optogenetics combination to control select cells in deep brain tissue at high resolution… Instability of neurons during stable song behavior in songbirds…

Whole-brain optogenetic mapping of a visual sensorimotor behavior in the larval zebrafish.

Advances in neurotechnology are aimed at helping us better understand normal brain function and how to treat dysfunction associated with brain disorders. These technological advances carry potentially profound ethical implications. A set of recently published articles highlight how the NIH BRAIN Initiative is working to integrate neuroethics in neurotechnology research and development.

Despite being a relatively new effort, research funded under the NIH BRAIN Initiative already is producing new technologies and methods

The 2016 BRAIN Initiative Principal Investigators Meeting will occur December 12-14 in Bethesda, Maryland…

NIH announces three new Requests for Applications (RFAs) for interdisciplinary projects using advanced and innovative technologies to address overarching principles of circuit function in the context of specific brain systems and behaviors. Funding from these new RFAs will enable investigators to unlock the mystery of how complex patterns of neural activity give rise to our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and will lay the groundwork for understanding circuit dysfunctions in brain diseases.

Demonstration of the feasibility of using a fiberless optoelectrode for activating and recording from neurons… New insights into the mechanisms of neurovascular coupling… Chronic in vivo recordings with carbon fiber microelectrodes… In vivo subcellular imaging of voltage and calcium signals…

Newly designed fiberless multi-color optoelectrode for in vivo use

The NIH recently announced the 108 newly funded awards for Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 for the NIH BRAIN Initiative®. The NIH will highlight these funded awards, funding opportunities, and other BRAIN-related endeavors, such as The BRAIN Initiative Alliance, at the upcoming, annual Society for Neuroscience conference in San Diego, CA (Nov. 12^th-16^th, 2016).

With four new Requests for Applications (RFAs), NIH announces the formation of the BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN), a resource to be used widely by the neuroscience community supporting a center or centers and specialized collaboratories for a mouse brain atlas, collaboratories for human and non-human primate brains, and a data center.