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This funding opportunity announcement (FOA), in support of the NIH Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, is one of several FOAs aimed at supporting transformative discoveries that will lead to breakthroughs in understanding human brain function. Guided by the long-term scientific plan, "BRAIN 2025: A Scientific Vision," this FOA specifically seeks to support efforts addressing core ethical issues associated with research focused on the human brain and resulting from emerging technologies and advancements supported by the BRAIN Initiative. Efforts supported under this FOA are intended to be both complementary and integrative with the transformative, breakthrough neuroscience discoveries supported through the BRAIN Initiative.

The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is aimed at revolutionizing neuroscience through 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. NIH has issued a variety of Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) that will support projects that apply technologies to understand neural circuit function in the context of specific circuits, resulting in a diverse portfolio of research into the fundamental biology of nervous system function. The purpose of this announcement is to notify the research community that NIH welcomes BRAIN Initiative applications targeting central nervous system nociceptive and pain circuits, as appropriate to the goals and requirements of specific BRAIN Initiative FOAs. Pain conditions represent an important public health problem and NIH continues to support research into pain pathologies through normal Institute and Center appropriations. However, pain and nociception are also components of normal nervous system function, and the BRAIN Initiative is committed to understanding pain circuits along with brain circuits underlying other sensory, motor, cognitive and emotional functions. It is expected that the unique opportunities of the BRAIN Initiative will enable production of detailed maps of pain circuits, and the adoption of powerful new tools for monitoring and modulating pain circuit activity, leading to significant advances in the understanding of pain and nociception. For a list of past and open BRAIN Initiative FOAs, see https://braininitiative.nih.gov/funding/.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) issued by the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA), National Institutes of Health, is a limited competition FOA encouraging a resource project (R28) application from a center currently supported under an existing grant, entitled Brain Tissue Resource Center for Alcohol Research to (i) develop a bank of brain tissues (fresh-frozen and formalin-fixed) from alcoholic and control cases with confirmed clinical and pathological diagnoses, (ii) develop and promote a prospective brain donor program in Australia (Using our Brains) to enhance the brain bank, (iii) establish an associated DNA (blood) bank from the brain donor group, and (iv) invite research groups with an interest in alcohol-related brain damage to submit applications for studies using these tissues.

The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) InitiativeSM is aimed at revolutionizing our understanding of the human brain. By accelerating the development and application of innovative technologies, researchers will be able to produce a new dynamic picture of the brain that, for the first time, will show how individual cells and complex neural circuits interact in both time and space. It is expected that the application of these new tools and technologies will ultimately lead to new ways to treat, cure, and even prevent brain disorders.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages applications from investigators that propose to study the developing brain or brain areas that play significant roles in mediating emotional and motivated behavior and in substance use and dependence.  All stages of brain development are of interest, but a new emphasis of the current reissue of this initiative is to support basic neuroscience research on fundamental mechanisms of brain development during prepuberty and the adolescent period in relation to the problems of substance abuse and co-morbidity with psychiatric disorders.  Topics of interest pertaining to brain development of this initiative include, but are not limited to, the euphoric properties of abused substances, actions of psychotherapeutic agents, and their consequences on memory, cognitive and emotional processes.  A major goal of this initiative is to understand how exposure to substances of abuse and environmental insults affects the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying nervous system development and neural circuit functions implicated in substance use and addiction. 

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA), in support of the NIH Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, aims to support early stage development of entirely new and novel noninvasive human brain imaging technologies and methods that will lead to transformative advances in our understanding of the human brain. The FOA solicits unusually bold and potentially transformative approaches and supports small-scale, proof-of-concept development based on exceptionally innovative, original and/or unconventional concepts.

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement [FOA] submitted through the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is to stimulate the development and validation of novel tools and analytical methods to target, identify and characterize non-neuronal cells in the brain. This FOA complements previous and ongoing cell-census and tool development efforts initiated under BRAIN, RFA-MH-14-215 and RFA-MH-14-216, that have focused almost exclusively on neuronal cells. The cutting-edge tools and methods developed under this opportunity should focus specifically on providing improved points of entry into non-neuronal cell-types (glial and vascular) to enable their inventory and characterization within the CNS and help define how these cells interact among each other and with neuronal cells to impact functional circuitries. Plans for validating the utility of the tool/technology/method and demonstrating its advantage over currently available approaches will be an essential feature of a successful application. Tools that can be used in several species or model organisms rather than in a single species are especially desirable.

The purpose of this Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is to encourage applications that will develop and validate novel tools to facilitate the detailed analysis of complex circuits and provide insights into cellular interactions that underlie brain function. The new tools and technologies should inform and/or exploit cell-type and/or circuit-level specificity. Plans for validating the utility of the tool/technology will be an essential feature of a successful application. The development of new genetic and non-genetic tools for delivering genes, proteins and chemicals to cells of interest or approaches that are expected to target specific cell types and/or circuits in the nervous system with greater precision and sensitivity than currently established methods are encouraged. Tools that can be used in a number of species/model organisms rather than those restricted to a single species are highly desired. Applications that provide approaches that break through existing technical barriers to substantially improve current capabilities are highly encouraged.

The purpose of this Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is to encourage applications that will develop and validate tools and resources to facilitate the detailed analysis of brain microconnectivity. Novel and augmented techniques are sought that will ultimately be broadly accessible to the neuroscience community for the interrogation of microconnectivity in healthy and diseased brains of model organisms and humans. Development of technologies that will significantly drive down the cost of connectomics would enable routine mapping of the microconnectivity on the same individuals that have been analyzed physiologically, or to compare normal and pathological tissues in substantial numbers of multiple individuals to assess variability. Advancements in both electron microscopy (EM) and super resolution light microscopic approaches are sought. Applications that propose to develop approaches that break through existing technical barriers to substantially improve current capabilities are highly encouraged. Proof-of-principle demonstrations and/or reference datasets enabling future development are welcome, as are improved approaches for automated segmentation and analysis strategies of neuronal structures in EM images.

The purpose of this Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is to encourage applications that will develop and validate tools and resources to facilitate the detailed analysis of brain microconnectivity. Novel and augmented techniques are sought that will ultimately be broadly accessible to the neuroscience community for the interrogation of microconnectivity in healthy and diseased brains of model organisms and humans. Development of technologies that will significantly drive down the cost of connectomics would enable routine mapping of the microconnectivity on the same individuals that have been analyzed physiologically, or to compare normal and pathological tissues in substantial numbers of multiple individuals to assess variability.  Advancements in both electron microscopy (EM) and super resolution light microscopic approaches are sought. Applications that propose to develop approaches that break through existing technical barriers to substantially improve current capabilities are highly encouraged. Proof-of-principle demonstrations and/or reference datasets enabling future development are welcome, as are improved approaches for automated segmentation and analysis strategies of neuronal structures in EM images.

The purpose of this Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is to encourage applications that will develop and validate novel tools to facilitate the detailed analysis of complex circuits and provide insights into cellular interactions that underlie brain function. The new tools and technologies should inform and/or exploit cell-type and/or circuit-level specificity. Plans for validating the utility of the tool/technology will be an essential feature of a successful application. The development of new genetic and non-genetic tools for delivering genes, proteins and chemicals to cells of interest or approaches that are expected to target specific cell types and/or circuits in the nervous system with greater precision and sensitivity than currently established methods are encouraged. Tools that can be used in a number of species/model organisms rather than those restricted to a single species are highly desired. Applications that provide approaches that break through existing technical barriers to substantially improve current capabilities are highly encouraged.   

To support generation of single cell datasets for one or more brain regions relevant to opioid use disorder and persistent HIV infection. If fully successful, this project will generate 1. A cellular parts list for selected NIDA-relevant brain regions, 2. Reveal how cell types within these brain regions differ from one another with respect to gene expression, 3. Reveal how cell types within these brain regions are altered by chronic opioid exposure providing potential novel therapeutic targets for opioid addiction, 4. Reveal how HIV infection in the CNS influences single cells, providing potential targets for improving HIV neurobiological sequelae, and 5. Uncover potential synergistic effects of chronic opioid exposure and HIV infection in the CNS.

The purpose of this Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is to encourage applications that will develop and validate novel tools to facilitate the detailed analysis of complex circuits and provide insights into cellular interactions that underlie brain function. The new tools and technologies should inform and/or exploit cell-type and/or circuit-level specificity. Plans for validating the utility of the tool/technology will be an essential feature of a successful application. The development of new genetic and non-genetic tools for delivering genes, proteins and chemicals to cells of interest or approaches that are expected to target specific cell types and/or circuits in the nervous system with greater precision and sensitivity than currently established methods are encouraged. Tools that can be used in a number of species/model organisms rather than those restricted to a single species are highly desired. Applications that provide approaches that break through existing technical barriers to substantially improve current capabilities are highly encouraged.

A central goal of the BRAIN Initiative is to understand how electrical and chemical signals code information in neural circuits and give rise to sensations, thoughts, emotions and actions. While currently available technologies can provide some understanding, they may not be sufficient to accomplish this goal. For example, non-invasive technologies are low resolution and/or provide indirect measures such as blood flow, which are imprecise; invasive technologies can provide information at the level of single neurons producing the fundamental biophysical signals, but they can only be applied to tens or hundreds of neurons, out of a total number in the human brain estimated at 85 billion. Other BRAIN FOAs seek to develop novel technology (RFA-NS-16-006) or to optimize existing technology ready for in-vivo proof-of-concept testing and collection of preliminary data (RFA-NS-16-007) for recording or manipulating neural activity on a scale that is beyond what is currently possible. This FOA seeks applications for unique and innovative technologies that are in an even earlier stage of development than that sought in other FOAs, including new and untested ideas that are in the initial stages of conceptualization.

The purpose of the BRAIN Initiative Fellows (F32) program is to enhance the research training of promising postdoctorates, early in their postdoctoral training period, who have the potential to become productive investigators in research areas that will advance the goals of the BRAIN Initiative. Applications are encouraged in any research area that is aligned with the BRAIN Initiative, including neuroethics. Applicants are expected to propose research training in an area that complements their predoctoral research. Formal training in quantitative perspectives and analytical tools is expected to be an integral part of the proposed research training plan. In order to maximize the training potential of the F32 award, this program encourages applications from individuals who have not yet completed their terminal doctoral degree and who expect to do so within 12 months of the application due date. On the application due date, candidates may not have completed more than 6 months of postdoctoral training.  

 The objective of this FOA is to support research in the discovery and characterization of the full spectrum of human-specific non-coding functional genomic elements across brain regions, cell types, and developmental time periods to elucidate their role(s) in the molecular pathophysiology of mental illness. It is expected that projects under this FOA will apply unbiased genome-wide approaches, computational methods, and experimental assays to identify and characterize functional genomic elements in both healthy and diseased human brains to correlate findings with development of mental illnesses and outcomes relevant to brain function and dysfunction.

The purpose of the BRAIN Initiative Fellows (F32) program is to enhance the research training of promising postdoctorates, early in their postdoctoral training period, who have the potential to become productive investigators in research areas that will advance the goals of the BRAIN Initiative. Applications are encouraged in any research area that is aligned with the BRAIN Initiative, including neuroethics. Applicants are expected to propose research training in an area that clearly complements their predoctoral research. Formal training in analytical tools appropriate for the proposed research is expected to be an integral component of the research training plan. In order to maximize the training potential of the F32 award, this program encourages applications from individuals who have not yet completed their terminal doctoral degree and who expect to do so within 12 months of the application due date. On the application due date, candidates may not have completed more than 12 months of postdoctoral training.

The purpose of the BRAIN Initiative Fellows (F32) program is to enhance the research training of promising postdoctorates, early in their postdoctoral training period, who have the potential to become productive investigators in research areas that will advance the goals of the BRAIN Initiative. Applications are encouraged in any research area that is aligned with the BRAIN Initiative, including neuroethics. Applicants are expected to propose research training in an area that clearly complements their predoctoral research. Formal training in analytical tools appropriate for the proposed research is expected to be an integral component of the research training plan. In order to maximize the training potential of the F32 award, this program encourages applications from individuals who have not yet completed their terminal doctoral degree and who expect to do so within 12 months of the application due date. On the application due date, candidates may not have completed more than 12 months of postdoctoral training.

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) supports efforts to disseminate resources and to integrate them into neuroscience research practice. Projects should be highly relevant to specific goals of the BRAIN Initiative, goals that are described in the planning document "BRAIN 2025: A Scientific Vision." They should engage in one or more of the following activities: distribution of tools and reagents; user training on the usage of new technologies or techniques; providing access to existing technology platforms and specialized facilities; minor improvements to increase the scale/efficiency of resource production and delivery; minor adaptations to meet the needs of a user community. Applications strictly focused on technology or software development, rather than dissemination of an existing resource, are not responsive to this FOA. Refinements to microscopes or tools necessary to customize them to the experimental needs of the end users are allowed. Projects should address compelling needs of neuroscience researchers working toward the goals of the BRAIN 2025 report that are otherwise unavailable or impractical in their current form.

The purpose of this FOA is to support generation of single cell RNA-sequencing datasets for at least one brain region relevant to persistent HIV infection and opioid use disorder. Applications that are not responsive to this FOA will be returned without review. To be responsive to this FOA, proposed projects should be framed to answer one or more vexing questions about persistent HIV infection in the CNS. The major thrust of the proposed project also MUST: exploit single nucleus or single cell transcriptomic assays with the goal of identifying the types of cells within at least one NIDA-relevant brain region (e.g. PFC, NAc, VTA, striatum, insula, or other appropriately justified region) and how the cell types and individual cells within that region differ from one another in terms of gene expression. focus on human post-mortem brain tissue from controls, individuals with chronic opioid exposure, HIV-infected individuals, and HIV-infected individuals with chronic opioid exposure. propose to detect HIV proteins or RNA or DNA within the single cells or nuclei to be assayed.