NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research

About

The NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research is a collaborative framework that includes the NIH Office of the Director together with NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices that support research on the nervous system. By pooling resources and expertise, Blueprint identifies cross-cutting areas of research and confronts challenges too large for any single Institute or Center.

Since its inception in 2004, Blueprint has supported the development of new research initiatives, training opportunities, and tools and resources to assist the neuroscience community.

Mission

The NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research aims to accelerate transformative discoveries in brain function in health, aging, and disease.

Blueprint Research Initiatives

The NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research supports both large-scale scientific programs and smaller research projects, which are catalyzing cross-cutting research with the potential to transform our basic understanding of the brain and our approaches to treating brain disorders. Explore Blueprint’s scientific research areas below.

Blueprint MedTech

Blueprint MedTech program aims to accelerate patient access to groundbreaking, safe, and effective medical devices. The program will provide support to sufficiently develop and de-risk technologies to the point where additional investments are warranted from industry partners, investors, and government.

For more information: Blueprint MedTech

Blueprint Neurotherapeutics Network (BPN) Program for Small Molecules

Cooperative agreement and SBIR Fast-Track award programs support small molecule drug discovery and development.  These programs are designed to maintain the grantees’ intellectual property while providing non-dilutive funding.

For more information: Blueprint Neurotherapeutics Network (BPN) Program

Blueprint Neurotherapeutics Network for Biologics (BPN Biologics)

The BPN Biologics program focuses on the development of diverse biotherapeutic modalities – including but not limited to antibodies, peptides, proteins, oligonucleotides, gene and cell therapies, and other emerging modalities – for the treatment of nervous system disorders. The program supports investigator-led translational projects, from lead optimization to first-in-human trials and provides resources to bridge critical gaps. 

For more information: Blueprint Neurotherapeutics Network for Biologics (BPN Biologics)

NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research Initiative on Interoception

The NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research Initiative on Interoception is a two-phase effort to advance understanding of how organisms sense, interpret, integrate, and regulate internal bodily signals. Advancing interoception research is pivotal for health promotion and disease prevention, as impaired interoceptive function underlies conditions such as obesity, diabetes, anxiety, depression, substance use disorders, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, autism, chronic pain, PTSD, IBS, fibromyalgia, and cardiovascular diseases. In alignment with NIH’s priorities for innovation and multidisciplinary science, Phase I (FY21–FY25) focuses on mapping the neural circuits connecting peripheral organs with the central nervous system, supporting collaborative projects at multiple biological levels through RFA-AT-21-003. Findings will provide a foundation for future translational and clinical research on interoception’s role in nervous system and systemic disorders.

Phase II (FY26–FY30) will further advance and coordinate interoception research across the NIH, as outlined in NOT-AT-25-005 with funding opportunity forthcoming in August 2025. Through the BPCCIR U24 cooperative agreement, this phase will establish multidisciplinary teams, foster collaboration, and build digital platforms to bridge brain and body research. By breaking traditional biomedical boundaries, the initiative aims to yield novel strategies for understanding, preventing, and treating some of the nation’s most pressing health challenges, ultimately improving population health and addressing root causes of chronic and mental health disorders.

Training

The NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research is strongly committed to building the next generation of neuroscientists. Current training programs include:

The Jointly Sponsored Institutional Predoctoral Training Program in the Neurosciences (JSPTPN – T32) 

JSPTPN supports broad and fundamental research training in the neurosciences. This opportunity is a program within the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research in conjunction with the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) and the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). The primary objective of the JSPTPN is to prepare individuals for careers in neuroscience that have a significant impact on the health-related research needs of the nation. Questions should be directed to the Scientific Program Contacts: Ashlee Van’t Veer and  Lauren Ullrich.

For more information: JSPTPN

NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research: Computational Training in Neuroscience and Behavior (T90/R90)

The primary goal of this training opportunity is to expose undergraduate and graduate students to a wide range of neuroscience and behavioral questions, quantitative methods, and experimental systems to ensure a strong dual foundation in clinical and quantitative science. This foundation is expected to give trainees the ability to adopt new computational theory and methodology and apply these methods to relevant questions in health and disease.

NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research Short Courses in Neurotherapeutics Development (R25)

The goal of this training opportunity is to develop and implement short courses on neurotherapeutics development for academic neuroscientists. The short courses will provide participants with a sufficient overview of the neurotherapeutics development process to (1) understand the steps required for therapeutics development, (2) anticipate and overcome common challenges in the process, and (3) interact effectively with collaborators who have expertise in various aspects of therapeutics development.

Research Tools

The NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research supports the development and dissemination of new research tools and resources to assist neuroscience researchers and clinicians, including clinical research assessments and genetic, neuroimaging, and informatics tools. Explore Blueprint-supported scientific resources below. 

NeuroImaging Tools and Resources Collaboratory (NITRC) 

NITRC is a free one-stop-shop for science researchers that need resources such as neuroimaging analysis software, publicly available data sets, or computing power.

For more information: NeuroImaging Tools and Resources Collaboratory (NITRC)

NIH Toolbox for Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function 

The NIH Toolbox provides brief, easy-to-administer tests of motor, cognitive, sensory and emotional function that can be used by researchers and clinicians in a variety of settings, with a particular emphasis on measuring outcomes both in longitudinal epidemiologic studies and prevention or intervention trials. The battery has been normed and validated across the lifespan in subjects ages 3-85 and its use ensures that assessment methods and results can be used for comparisons across existing and future studies. By providing a “common currency” for the study of neurological research, the NIH Toolbox enables economies of scale and enhances efficiency. The NIH Toolbox is capable of monitoring neurological and behavioral function over time and measuring key constructs across developmental stages. The NIH works directly with Northwestern University to distribute and maintain the NIH Toolbox.  

For more information: NIH Toolbox for Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function

NIH Infant and Toddler (Baby) Toolbox 

The NIH Infant and Toddler Toolbox (aka the “NIH Baby Toolbox” or NBT) is a neurodevelopmental measurement tool for both research and clinical use in children 1- to 42-months of age and primarily includes direct/objective child assessment but also parent/guardian report, where appropriate. The NIH Baby Toolbox is designed largely from existing, published, and validated tests and protocols that have been used and accepted in the cognitive-, social-, behavioral-, and neuroscience-developmental fields. The NIH Baby Toolbox is inexpensive to obtain, easy to administer within a relatively brief time frame appropriate to the population being studied (35-75 minutes), and able to capture multiple domains of neurodevelopment. These domains include: Cognition & Executive Function, Language, Numeracy/Early Mathematics, Self-Regulation, Social Functioning, and Motor function. This work represents an extension of the current and widely used NIH Toolbox® for Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function suite of assessment tools for use in persons 3 years to 85 years of age. The NIH Baby Toolbox uses an iPad to enable innovative, direct assessment technologies, such as built-in eye-tracking and short clips of video recording to enable accurate, objective scoring of behaviors, and device recorded reaction times and speed of habituation. Computer-assisted item scoring automatically generates component scores (raw, change-sensitive, and norm-referenced scores). The complete battery is available in both English and Spanish. 

For more information: NIH Infant and Toddler (Baby) Toolbox

NIH NeuroBioBank

Since 2013, the NIH NeuroBioBank has catalyzed scientific discovery through the centralization of resources aimed at the collection and distribution of human post-mortem brain tissue.

For more information: NIH NeuroBioBank

Blueprint Past Initiatives

Human Connectome Project 

Concluded in 2021, The Human Connectome Project (HCP) was an ambitious effort to map the neural pathways of the human brain to connect its structure to function and behavior. The project helped acquire and share data about the structural and functional connectivity of the human brain. 

For more information: Human Connectome Project

Connectome Programs

Lifespan Connectome

Expanded data collection to healthy subjects of all ages including children and older adults. 

Disease Connectome

Expanded data on the structural and functional connectome in Alzheimer’s disease subtypes; low vision, blindness, and sight restoration; epilepsy; anxiety and depression in adolescents; familial and sporadic frontotemporal degeneration; early psychosis; brain aging and dementia. 

Data Coordinating Center

The Connectome Coordination Facility maintains a central data repository for Human Connectome data collected from the original HCP consortia as well as other research laboratories. The Coordination Facility also offers a help desk to advise the research community about the best data collection strategies that will allow harmonization between new and existing data.  Information about the HCP can be found at the Connectome Coordination Facility web site. The long term storage of HCP data is being provided by the NIMH Data Archive.

Participating Institutes, Centers, and Offices

The NIH Office of the Director and these NIH Institutes and Centers participate in the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research:

• National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)

• National Eye Institute (NEI) 

• National Institute on Aging (NIA)

• National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

• National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB)

• Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

• National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)  

• National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR)

• National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) 

• National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) 

• National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)

• Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)