Key Dates

Related Announcements

PA-20-184 - NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Basic Experimental Studies with Humans Required)

PA-20-185- NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

PA-20-195 - NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

PA-20-196 - NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21 Basic Experimental Studies with Humans Required)

Issued by

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

National Eye Institute (NEI)

National Institute on Aging (NIA)

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

Purpose

NIMH and participating institutes/centers (ICs) listed above are issuing this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) to encourage secondary analyses of data from the Human Connectome Project (HCP) including the multiple datasets in the Lifespan Human Connectome projects and the Human Connectomes Related to Human Disease. Applicants beyond the groups that originally collected the data are encouraged to apply. The analyses will serve to generate and evaluate hypotheses about the complex interrelationships among: brain structure, function and connectivity; cognitive, affective, sensory and motor processes; environmental factors; life event, social and psychosocial factors; genomic data, and clinical symptoms during development, aging, or disease. Details about the Lifespan and Disease Connectomes, including neuroimaging protocols and clinical and behavioral assessments, can be found at the Connectome Coordinating Facility website: https://www.humanconnectome.org/ and at the NIMH Data Archive (NDA) www.nda.nih.gov.

Background

Following the success of the original Human Connectome Project (Young Adult ages 21-35), the Neuroscience Blueprint of the NIH issued several Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) to extend the Connectome to studies across the lifespan: Lifespan HCP - Babies (age 0-5), Lifespan HCP- Development (age 5-21), Lifespan HCP- Young Adult (age 22-35), and Lifespan HCP- Aging (age 36-100). Additionally, some of NIH Institutes and Centers funded a series of studies to apply HCP-style data collection toward subject cohorts for or suffering from diseases or disorders affecting the brain. These studies, collectively referred to as the Human Connectome Studies Related to Human Disease (CRHD), are listed in the following table.

The Lifespan and Disease Connectome data were collected with the same scanners as original Young Adult HCP or with similar platforms (e.g. Siemens Prisma), using state of the art data acquisition sequences and image reconstruction algorithms and harmonized with the HCP. These studies are reaching their final stages of data acquisition and raw and processed data for complete cohorts are being released periodically. Collectively, the Lifespan and Disease Connectomes will provide data to the research community from approximately 8,000 individuals.

Research Objectives

Participating Institutes are encouraging the submission of secondary data analysis applications to address the following areas of interest:

• Studies that propose to discover imaging biomarkers to distinguish subgroups in the HCP data.
• Studies that propose to generate or test new hypotheses using the HCP data.
• Studies that propose to apply new computational tools or approaches to analyze the existing data.
• Studies that involve innovative analyses of existing HCP data combined with other relevant data sets such as the Adolescent and Brain Cognitive Development study or the UK Biobank that have collected data using techniques similar to the HCP.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to use computing resources within the NDA cloud environment rather than download the data to local servers. NDA staff will work with applicants to move their data analysis pipelines into the NDA environment. Making those data analysis pipelines available to others will increase rigor and reproducibility.

For years, imaging biomarkers have been considered to be intermediate phenotypes that provide evidence of the neurobiological mechanisms through which genetic variation acts to contribute to normal or disorder/disease phenotypes. The data have yet to validate fully this conceptualization, which seeks to correlate brain structure and function with various types of genetic data. This is likely the result of complex variability arising from both diagnostic heterogeneity and polygenicity where it is not possible to identify intermediate phenotype disease associations. Response to this NOSI should be mindful of this concern and have well-articulated plans to demonstrate feasibility.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to consider the risk for spurious findings when conducting multiple analyses and/or using large data sets and are encouraged to address this potential concern in the application. Applicants are also strongly encouraged to calculate and report effect size (e.g., percentage of variance explained), in addition to statistical significance, whenever possible. Applicants are strongly encouraged to consider the risk for spurious findings when conducting multiple analyses and/or using large data sets and are encouraged to address this potential concern in the application. Applicants are also strongly encouraged to calculate and report effect size (e.g., percentage of variance explained), in addition to statistical significance, whenever possible.

IC Specific Application and Submission Information:

Applicants must select the IC and associated FOA to use for submission of an application in response to the NOSI. The selection must align with the IC requirements listed in order to be considered responsive to that FOA. Non-responsive applications will be withdrawn from consideration for this initiative.

In addition, applicants using NIH Parent announcements (listed below) will be assigned to those ICs on this NOSI that have indicated those FOAs are acceptable and based on usual application-IC assignment practices.

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

NIDA supports research to understand substance use disorders. For the purposes of this NOSI, NIDA encourages applications that explore HCP data sets as reference and comparison for the analysis of substance use disorder studies. The abused substances of interest include opioids, cannabinoids, methamphetamine, nicotine, amphetamine, cocaine, barbiturates, and hallucinogens. The ultimate goals of these research projects are to understand the brain mechanisms underlying substance use disorder, tolerance, sensitization, and physical dependence to these substances and to inform future diagnoses, prevention, and treatment of substance use disorders. Note that NIDA will only use the R21 mechanism for applications submitted through this NOSI (PA-20-195 and PA-20-196).

NIDA FOAs for this NOSI include the following or their subsequent reissued equivalents:

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), The National Eye Institute (NEI), and The National Institute on Aging (NIA) applications to the following or their subsequent reissued equivalents:

Application and Submission Information

This Notice applies to due dates on or after February 5, 2021.

Submit applications for this initiative using one of the following FOAs or any reissues of these announcement through the expiration date of this notice:

PA-20-184: NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Basic Experimental Studies with Humans Required)

PA-20-185: NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

PA-20-195: NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

PA-20-196: NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21 Basic Experimental Studies with Humans Required)

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide and the funding opportunity announcement used for submission must be followed, with the following additions:

• For funding consideration, applicants must include NOT-MH-21-175 (without quotation marks) in the Agency Routing Identifier field (box 4B) of the SF424 R&R form. Applications without this information in box 4B will not be considered for this initiative.

Although NIMH is not listed as a Participating Organization in all the FOAs listed above, applications for this initiative will be accepted.

Applications nonresponsive to terms of this NOSI will be withdrawn from consideration for this initiative.

Inquiries

Scientific/Research Contact(s)

Yvonne Bennett, Ph.D.
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Telephone: 301-222-7094
Email: [email protected]

Cheri Wiggs, Ph.D.
National Eye Institute (NEI)
Telephone: 301-451-2020
Email: [email protected]

Erin E. Gray, Ph.D.
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
Telephone: 301-451-3968
Email: [email protected]

Susan Wright, Ph.D.
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Telephone: 301-402-6683
Email: [email protected]