Key Dates

Related Announcements

• May 26, 2022 - Silvio O. Conte Centers for Basic Neuroscience or Translational Mental Health Research (P50 Clinical Trial Optional). See Notice PAR-22-155
• November 16, 2021 - Basic Neurodevelopmental Biology of Circuits and Behavior (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed). See Notice PAR-22-066
• November 16, 2021 - Basic Neurodevelopmental Biology of Brain Circuits and Behavior (R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed). See Notice PAR-22-067
• May 19, 2021 - Academic Research Enhancement Award for Undergraduate-Focused Institutions (R15 Clinical Trial Not Allowed). See Notice PAR-21-155
• March 18, 2021 - Understanding and Modifying Temporal Dynamics of Coordinated Neural Activity (R01 Clinical Trial Optional). See Notice PAR-21-175
• March 18, 2021 - Understanding and Modifying Temporal Dynamics of Coordinated Neural Activity (R21 Clinical Trial Optional). See Notice PAR-21-176
• May 10, 2021- Joint NINDS/NIMH Exploratory Neuroscience Research Grant (R21 Clinical Trial Optional). See Notice PA-21-219
• May 7, 2020 - NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21 Basic Experimental Studies with Humans Required). See Notice PA-20-196
• May 7, 2020 - NIH Small Research Grant Program (Parent R03 Clinical Trial Not Allowed). See Notice PA-20-200
• May 5, 2020 - NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Required, Mechanistic Studies Only). See Notice PA-20-183
• May 5, 2020 - NIMH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant (R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed). See Notice PA-21-235
• May 5, 2020 - NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed). See Notice PA-20-185
• May 5, 2020 - NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Basic Experimental Studies with Humans Required). See Notice PA-20-184

Issued by

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

Purpose

Overview

The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is aimed at revolutionizing neuroscience through the development and application of innovative technologies to map neural circuits, monitor and modulate their activity, and understand how they contribute to thoughts, sensations, emotions, and behavior. To date, large-scale investment of resources and time through BRAIN has made significant progress in deepening the knowledge about the brain circuits that underlie mental health-relevant domains of function such as cognition, learning and memory, and social processing. Given remarkable progress in technology development, the neuroscience community is poised to apply these new technologies, and accumulated knowledge, to further understand these complex systems-level processes and how their dysfunction might be implicated in mental health illnesses. This NOSI encourages studies seeking to apply innovative BRAIN technologies to understand brain functions in the service of cognition, executive function, reward and motivation, social, or affective processing.

Background:

Since its inception in 2013, the BRAIN initiative has supported over 500 projects for over $1 billion to develop new technologies and tools to image, stimulate, record, manage data, and analyze complex signals from multiscale brain circuits. The NIH BRAIN initiative is presently at a critical juncture, embarking on its second phase through the recommendations of the BRAIN 2.0 report. After receiving input from the community, the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director (ACD) and the NIH director regarding opportunities for keeping pace with the evolving scientific landscape, and the ways to identify new opportunities for research and technology development and dissemination, the report The BRAIN Initiative 2.0: From Cells to Circuits, Toward Cures, was endorsed by the ACD and NIH Director. Moving forward NIH will carefully consider how to integrate the findings of The BRAIN Initiative ??????? 2.0: From Cells to Circuits, Toward Cures in future BRAIN Initiative priorities and investments. Thus, the development of new technologies under the BRAIN initiative 2.0 will be critical for the advancement of basic, translation, and clinical neuroscience toward a better understanding of origins, treatment, and ultimately prevention of mental illnesses and other brain disorders.

Goal

NIMH has a vested interest in ensuring that BRAIN technologies become rapidly integrated into mental health-relevant research projects. The goal of this NOSI is to express NIMH’s interest in leveraging these developments to understand nervous system function in the service of cognition, social, or affective processing. NIMH encourages the use of network- or cell-type-specific manipulations to causally probe circuit function. Applicants are encouraged to propose research to understand the functioning of brain circuits in healthy subjects as well as translational work.

For the purposes of this NOSI, NIMH is particularly interested in BRAIN tools that allow large, population-scale in vivo recording, imaging, or circuit manipulation during cognitive, social, or affective behavior.

Research Objectives

In order to significantly improve our understanding of the neural circuits that subserve cognitive functions, emotion regulation and social affective processes, NIMH is encouraging the submission of applications proposing to use the following types of tools/technologies developed through the BRAIN Initiative:

• Technologies that enable causal in vivo behavioral neuroscience experimental designs to probe functions of neural circuits implicated in the above-mentioned behavioral domains
• Technologies that analyze and manipulate complex circuits with the goal of providing comprehensive circuit diagrams
• Technologies that monitor neural activity and in vivo behaviors
• Technologies to access, manipulate, and monitor brain cell types in vivo during behaviors
• Technologies for large-scale monitoring and quantitative analysis of the behavioral and neurophysiological effects of neuronal activity manipulations using high-resolution, high-throughput approaches for multi-dimensional data sets
• Technologies that combine connectomics analysis with in vivo physiological recording during behavior to establish how circuits or network connectivity relates to functional activity
• Technologies that allow examination of developmental time course and/or sex differences in mental health-relevant circuit function
• Computational modeling approaches and data analysis

For a list of BRAIN Initiative technologies and tools that could potentially be applied in NIMH research applications, please see https://braininitiative.nih.gov/funding/funded-awards for a description of funded projects and their associated principal investigators (this NOSI encourages collaborations with BRAIN investigators). For a list of NIMH strategic research priorities, please see https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/strategic-planning-reports/index.shtml

Application and Submission Information

This notice applies to due dates on or after February 5, 2024, and subsequent receipt dates through May 10, 2027.

Submit applications for this initiative using one of the following notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) or any reissues of these announcements through the expiration date of this notice.

• PA-20-183 - NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Required, Mechanistic Studies Only)
• PA-20-185 - NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
• PA-20-184 - NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Basic Experimental Studies with Humans Required)
• PA-21-235 - NIMH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant (R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
• PA-20-196 - NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21 Basic Experimental Studies with Humans Required)
• PA-21-219 - Joint NINDS/NIMH Exploratory Neuroscience Research Grant (R21 Clinical Trial Optional)
• PA-20-200 - NIH Small Research Grant Program (Parent R03 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
• PAR-21-175 - Understanding and Modifying Temporal Dynamics of Coordinated Neural Activity (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)
• PAR-21-176 - Understanding and Modifying Temporal Dynamics of Coordinated Neural Activity (R21 Clinical Trial Optional)
• PAR-22-066 - Basic Neurodevelopmental Biology of Circuits and Behavior (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
• PAR-22-067 - Basic Neurodevelopmental Biology of Brain Circuits and Behavior (R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
• PAR-21-155 - Academic Research Enhancement Award for Undergraduate-Focused Institutions (R15 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
• PAR-22-155 - Silvio O. Conte Centers for Basic Neuroscience or Translational Mental Health Research (P50 Clinical Trial Optional)

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

• For funding consideration, applicants must include NOT-MH-24-290 (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.

Applications nonresponsive to terms of this NOSI will not be considered for the NOSI initiative.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to the Scientific/Research, Peer Review, and Financial/Grants Management contacts in Section VII of the listed notice of funding opportunity.

Scientific/Research Contact(s)

Siavash Vaziri, Ph.D.
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Telephone: 301-443-1576
Email: siavash.vaziri@nih.gov

Fernando Fernandez, Ph.D.
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Telephone: 301-443-1576
Email: fernando.fernandez@nih.gov