Find Funding Opportunities

Reissue of:RFA-NS-18-029 and RFA-NS-20-029. This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is designed to support teams of investigators that seek to cross boundaries of interdisciplinary collaboration to elucidate the contributions of dynamic circuit activity to a specific behavioral or neural system. Applications are encouraged to propose adventurous and challenging goals that can only be tackled by a synergistic team-based approach and have the potential to be transformative and/or to enable significant advances. These studies at the exploratory stage are intended for the development of experimental capabilities and/or theoretical frameworks in preparation for a future competition for larger-scale or extended efforts, including the BRAIN TargetedBCP R01 or the multi-component, Team-Research BRAIN Circuit Programs (U19).The overall goal of this FOA is to enable a large-scale analysis of neural systems and circuits within the context and during the simultaneous measurement of an ethologically relevant behavior. Toward this end, teams are expected to assemble and leverage multi-disciplinary expertise, and to integrate experimental with computational and theoretical approaches. Teams are expected to bridge fields by incorporating rich information on cell-types, on circuit functionality and connectivity, in conjunction with sophisticated analyses of an ethologically relevant behavior of an organism or a well-defined neural system. Teams are also expected to aim for a mechanistic understanding of the circuits of the central nervous system (CNS) by applying cutting-edge methods such as those for large-scale recording, manipulation, and analysis of neural circuits across multiple regions of the CNS.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) supports Specialized Projects to develop current or emerging technologies to generate comprehensive atlases of brain connectivity, with an emphasis on human, non-human primate (NHP), and mouse. Projects validating approaches using other species are also permitted if well justified. Applications may address any aspects of the data collection, analysis, and dissemination pipelines, to enable faster and more cost-effective generation and interpretation of brain-wide wiring diagrams. Projects will offer distinct capabilities and competencies aimed at developing and optimizing current technologies or entirely new and potentially risky approaches. They will be integrated into the BRAIN CONNECTS Network, consisting of other Specialized Projects from this FOA, and Comprehensive Centers from its companion announcements, as a coordinated effort aimed at developing wiring diagrams that can span entire brains across multiple scales.

(Reissue of RFA-NS-18-030) This FOA solicits applications for research projects that use innovative, methodologically-integrated approaches to understand how circuit activity gives rise to mental experience and behavior. The goal is to support projects that can realize a meaningful outcome within 5 years. Applications should address circuit function in the context of specific neural systems such as sensation, perception, attention, reasoning, intention, decision-making, emotion, navigation, communication or homeostasis. Projects should link theory and data analysis to experimental design and should produce predictive models as deliverables. Projects should aim to improve the understanding of circuits of the central nervous system by systematically controlling stimuli and/or behavior while actively recording and/or manipulating dynamic patterns of neural activity. Projects can use non-human and human species, and applications should explain how the selected species offers ideal conditions for revealing general principles about the circuit basis of a specific behavior.

(Reissue of RFA-NS-18-014 and RFA-NS-21-014) This R34 FOA solicits applications that offer a limited scope of aims and an approach that will establish feasibility, validity, or other technically qualifying results that, if successful, would support, enable, and/or lay the groundwork for a potential, subsequent Targeted Brain Circuits Projects - TargetedBCP R01, as described in the companion FOA (RFA-NS-22-026). Applications should be exploratory research projects that use innovative, methodologically-integrated approaches to understand how circuit activity gives rise to mental experience and behavior.

This is a reissue to correct a few errors and omissions. This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages exploratory/developmental research grant applications, proposing the development of innovative, collaborative research projects on brain and other nervous system function and disorders throughout life, relevant to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Research on neurological, mental, behavioral, alcohol and substance use disorders may span the full range of science from basic to implementation research. Scientists in the United States (U.S.) or upper-middle income countries (UMICs) are eligible to partner with scientists in LMIC institutions. Scientists in upper middle-income LMICs (UMICs) are also eligible to partner directly with scientists at other LMIC institutions with or without out a US partner. Income categories used are as defined by the World Bank at http://data.worldbank.org/about/country-classifications/country-and-len…. These grants are expected to foster the development of more comprehensive research programs that contribute to the long-term goals of building sustainable research capacity in LMICs to address nervous system development, function and impairment throughout life and to lead to diagnostics, prevention, treatment and implementation strategies. The proposed work may also contribute to developing a base for research networking and evidence-based policy beyond the specific research project.

This is a reissue to correct errors and omissions. This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages grant applications for the conduct of innovative, collaborative research projects between U.S. and low- and middle-income country (LMIC) scientists, on brain and other nervous system function and disorders throughout life, relevant to LMICs (including neurological, mental, behavioral, alcohol and substance use disorders and spanning the full range of science from basic to implementation research). Scientists in upper middle-income LMICs (UMICs) are also eligible to partner directly with scientists at other LMIC institutions with or without out a US partner. Income categories are defined by the World Bank at http://data.worldbank.org/about/country-classifications/country-and-len….

Reissue of RFA-MH-20-128 This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) solicits applications to develop standards that describe experimental protocols that are being conducted as part of the BRAIN Initiative. It is expected that applications will solicit community input at all stages of the process. It is recommended that the first step of standard development will involve sharing data between different key groups in the experimental community in order to ensure that the developing standard will cover the way that all of those groups are collecting data. The developed standard is expected to be made widely available.

This Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) encourages the translation of the novel neurotechnologies, funded through the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative and overseen by the NIH Blueprint MedTech program. Academic and Small Business Concerns (SBCs) are encouraged to submit grant applications that propose non-clinical validation for subsequent clinical feasibility studies. Applications supporting the development and translation of groundbreaking neurotechnologies that fit within the mission of the BRAIN Initiative are encouraged.

This Notice encourages eligible awardees in the BRAIN Initiative community to apply for administrative supplements in response to PA-21-071, Research Supplements to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research (Admin Supp - Clinical Trial Not Allowed). The NIH has a strong interest in the diversity of the NIH-funded workforce (see NOT-OD-18-210) and encourages institutions to diversify their populations by enhancing the participation of individuals from groups identified as underrepresented in the biomedical, clinical, behavioral, and social sciences.