The BRAIN Blog

Requests for Applications (RFAs) for the NIH BRAIN Initiative® continue to address critical components of the BRAIN 2025 Report, including novel tools to explore brain microconnectivity and non-neuronal cells, technology integration and dissemination, neuroethics, non-invasive human brain imaging, invasive human neuroscience, and team-based research on neural systems and circuits.

Enhancement of a new DNA-based bioimaging technique… Method allowing near-simultaneous imaging of several thousand neurons in awake behaving mice… Imaging method to overcome biological tissue refractive index inhomogeneity increases large-field-of-view imaging depth… Open-source software package for working with microscopy images boosts high-throughput, single-cell analysis …

Improved DNA conjugation method enhances the achievable labeling density and spatial accuracy of highly multiplexed Exchange-PAINT imaging

Intracranial electrical recordings and neuro-stimulation of neurosurgical patients have made fundamental contributions to our understanding of vision, speech, decision making, memory, and sensorimotor processing. The use of these methods has burgeoned over the last decade due to technological advances and an increase in the number of patients undergoing neurosurgery for different neurological disorders.

Method to overcome light scatter in optical imaging distinguishes moving objects with high fidelity… Novel analysis method improves accuracy of neural network models… Improved imaging technique reveals synaptic transmission at quantal resolution in fruit fly larvae

Phase retrieval methods in optical imaging allow for successful imaging of moving targets through scattered media 

BRAIN Initiative team pushes the limits of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for human brain… A novel tool to manipulate gene function in specific cell types… Understanding the functional diversity of retinal bipolar cells…

Advancements to functional imaging technique result in ultra-high resolution capture of human cortical columns

Fabrication and testing of implanted magnetic microcoils to stimulate neurons… Optogenetic-induced seizure model to enhance understanding of interneuron roles… New optical technique to identify voltage activity patterns in specific cell types…

Novel implantable magnetic microcoils stimulate cortical cells and consistently drive behavioral responses

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.