Sponsor Deadline for Letters of Intent (requested): 30 days in advance of the full proposal deadline

Sponsor Deadlines for Full Proposals: July 7, 2021; November 10, 2021

FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission (please note that for the July 7 deadline, proposals are due to FAS/SEAS/OSP on June 28, 2021)

Award Information: The combined budget for direct costs for the two-year project period may not exceed $450,000. No more than $225,000 may be requested in any single year. BRAIN Initiative intends to commit $2.5M per year to fund 10 awards.

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-21-013). Applications should be adventurous exploratory research projects that use innovative, methodologically-integrated approaches to understand how circuit activity gives rise to mental experience and behavior. These R34 awards will support an individual laboratory or a small multi-PD/PI group.

Sponsor Deadline for Letters of Intent (requested): 30 days in advance of the full proposal deadline

Sponsor Deadlines for Full Proposals: July 7, 2021; November 10, 2021

FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission (please note that for the July 7 deadline, proposals are due to FAS/SEAS/OSP on June 28, 2021)

Award Information: Application budgets are not limited. The maximum project period is 5 years. NIH intends to commit an estimated total of $15M to fund 20 awards.

This FOA solicits applications for research projects that seek to understand how circuit activity gives rise to mental experience and behavior using innovative, methodologically-integrated approaches. The goal is to support adventurous projects that can realize a potentially transformative outcome within 5 years. Applications are expected to address circuit function in the context of specific behaviors or neural systems, such as sensation, perception, attention, reasoning, intention, decision-making, emotion, navigation, communication, or homeostasis. Projects should link theory, data analysis, and/or computational approaches to experimental design and should produce predictive models (conceptual or quantitative). 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. Diverse species or experimental systems and a cross-species/comparative approach are welcome and should be chosen based on their power to address the specific question at hand and to reveal generalizable and fundamental neuroscience principles.

Sponsor Deadline for Letters of Intent (requested): 30 days in advance of the full proposal deadline

Sponsor Deadlines for Full Proposals: October 8, 2021; October 7, 2022; October 6, 2023

FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission

Award Information: Application budgets are not limited. The maximum project period is 3 years. NIH intends to commit an estimated total of $8M to fund 6-9 awards.

The purpose of this FOA is to encourage research 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.

Sponsor Deadline for Letters of Intent (requested): 30 days in advance of the full proposal deadline

Sponsor Deadlines for Full Proposals: November 23, 2021; July 12, 2022

FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission

Award Information: Application budgets are not limited. The maximum project period is 3 years. NIH intends to commit an estimated total of $2M per year to fund 2 to 4 awards.

This FOA from the BRAIN Initiative is intended to support the establishment of facilities at minority-serving institutions (MSIs) and Institutional Development Award (IDeA)-eligible institutions for scaled production and distribution of brain cell type-specific access and manipulation reagents. Reagents will be initially developed in pilot resource projects for brain cell type-specific access and manipulation across vertebrate species from the BRAIN Initiative Armamentarium project. Awardees under this FOA will work with the other Armamentarium awardees to manufacture and distribute the resources for use throughout the neuroscience community. It is envisioned that the awardees will work both with the Armamentarium community as well as with the neuroscience research community to optimize the new reagents. The types of reagents to be produced and distributed could include but are not limited to viral vectors, nucleic acid constructs, and nanoparticles designed for selective access to and manipulation of brain cell types. Such reagents will enable neuroscientists to probe circuit function with high precision in experimental animals and  ex vivo human tissue and cells. Facilities are needed to contribute to the production and distribution of BRAIN Initiative Armamentarium project reagents broadly to neuroscience users.

Sponsor Deadline for Letters of Intent (requested): 30 days in advance of the full proposal deadline

Sponsor Deadlines for Full Proposals: December 15, 2021; April 15, 2022; December 15, 2022; April 14, 2023; December 15, 2023

FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission

Award Information: For the F99 phase, award budgets are composed of stipends, tuition and fees, and institutional allowance. For the K00 phase, award budgets are composed of salaries and fringe benefits, research and career development support, and indirect costs. The D-SPAN F99/K00 award is meant to provide up to 6 years of support in two phases (up to 2 years in the F99 fellowship phase and up to 4 years in the K00 career development phase). The NIH Blueprint and BRAIN Initiative intend to commit up to $1,100,000 per fiscal year to fund approximately 25 awards per year. 

The purpose of the NIH Blueprint and BRAIN Initiative Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience (D-SPAN) Award is to support a defined pathway across career stages for outstanding graduate students from diverse backgrounds, including those from groups underrepresented in biomedical and behavioral sciences. This two-phase award will facilitate completion of the doctoral dissertation and transition of talented graduate students to strong neuroscience research postdoctoral positions, and will provide career development opportunities relevant to their long-term career goal of becoming independent neuroscience researchers. This FOA does not allow applicants to propose to lead an independent clinical trial, but does allow applicants to  propose research experience in a clinical trial led by a sponsor or co-sponsor. 

At the time of award, applicants are expected to require 1-2 years to complete their PhD dissertation research training (F99 phase) before transitioning to mentored postdoctoral research training (3-4 year K00 phase). The two award phases are intended to be continuous in time. F99 awardees are required to pursue their research training on a full-time basis, and K00 awardees are required to have a full-time appointment at the applicant institution, and to commit a minimum of 9 person months (or 75% of their full-time professional effort at the applicant institution) to their career development and research training. Before submitting the application, the applicant must identify an F99 sponsor(s) who will supervise the proposed mentored training experience. Applicants are not required to identify a sponsor for the K00 phase at time of the initial F99/K00 application. By the time of application, the individual must be a citizen or a non-citizen national of the United States or have been lawfully admitted for permanent residence.