BRAIN Initiative Integrated Approaches to Understanding Circuit Function in the Nervous System (U01) | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The funding opportunity BRAIN Initiative Integrated Approaches to Understanding Circuit Function in the Nervous System (U01) (Funding Opportunity Number RFA-NS-14-009) is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) cooperative agreement designed to push neuroscience toward a more complete, large-scale understanding of how neural circuits actually work in real time. The central goal is to support exploratory, team-based projects that integrate cutting-edge experimental methods with advanced data analysis and theory, so researchers can measure, perturb, and interpret circuit activity across multiple brain regions while animals engage in meaningful, naturalistic behaviors. Rather than funding small, single-lab efforts focused on isolated brain areas, this FOA is aimed at ambitious, cross-disciplinary studies that can connect neural dynamics to function in a specific behavioral domain or neural system, and that can serve as a springboard for larger, future awards.

A key emphasis of the announcement is integrated capability-building. Applicants are expected to develop and combine experimental, analytic, and theoretical tools that make it possible to study neural systems at scale. On the experimental side, NIH is looking for new and emerging approaches for large-scale recording and manipulation, especially approaches that can capture coordinated activity patterns across distributed circuits and that can test causality by intervening in those circuits. On the analytic and theoretical side, projects should not treat data processing as an afterthought. Instead, they should include sophisticated computational strategies and conceptual frameworks that help explain how dynamic patterns of neural activity contribute to circuit function. The intent is that theory and analysis meaningfully shape experimental design, and that experiments in turn provide data that can challenge and refine theoretical models.

Scientifically, the FOA asks applicants to focus on how dynamic circuit activity contributes to a clearly defined behavioral function or neural system. In practice, that means proposals should go beyond simply collecting large datasets and should instead articulate a concrete biological question where circuit-level dynamics matter, such as how distributed brain areas coordinate during decision-making, navigation, learning, communication, sensory processing, or other defined functions. Projects are expected to incorporate rich information about cell types, circuit connectivity, and circuit functionality. This includes attention to which kinds of neurons are involved, how they are connected within and across regions, and how their interactions unfold over time in ways that map onto behavior and computation. Another major requirement is that the work be performed alongside sophisticated analysis of ethologically relevant behaviors, meaning behaviors that are naturalistic and informative about real-world function, rather than overly simplified tasks that fail to capture the complexity of the neural system under study.

The program structure is a U01 cooperative agreement, which typically means NIH expects substantial programmatic involvement compared to a standard research project grant. While the specific coordination expectations depend on the full announcement, cooperative agreements generally involve closer communication with NIH scientific staff, potential milestones or go/no-go decision points, and an emphasis on developing resources, methods, or integrated approaches that align with broader program goals. In this case, the exploratory studies supported are explicitly positioned as preparatory work for a future competition for larger-scale awards, so applicants are expected to build proof-of-concept capabilities, demonstrate feasibility, and establish theoretical or analytic frameworks that could later be expanded.

In terms of who can apply, eligibility is broad and includes many types of organizations. Eligible applicants listed include public and private institutions of higher education, nonprofits (both 501(c)(3) and certain nonprofits without 501(c)(3) status), small businesses, for-profit organizations (including those other than small businesses), and a wide range of government entities such as state, county, city/township, special district governments, and certain housing authorities. The FOA also explicitly includes eligibility for a variety of minority-serving and community-focused institutions such as HBCUs, Hispanic-serving institutions, tribally controlled colleges and universities, and Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian serving institutions, among others. Importantly, non-U.S. entities are eligible: foreign organizations and foreign institutions may apply, non-U.S. components of U.S. organizations are eligible, and foreign components are allowed under NIH policy. The opportunity does not require cost sharing or matching.

From a funding and timing standpoint, the FOA was posted on December 17, 2013, with an application due date of March 24, 2014, and it carried an estimated total funding amount of $10,000,000. The activity categories listed in the source data span multiple NIH-relevant domains (including neurosciences, mental health, aging, vision, drug abuse, alcohol research, and technology innovation), reflecting the cross-cutting nature of large-scale circuit neuroscience and the BRAIN Initiative’s broad relevance to many NIH missions.

Overall, this opportunity is best understood as a BRAIN Initiative mechanism meant to accelerate a shift toward truly integrated circuit neuroscience: recording and perturbing large networks across brain regions, linking those measurements to detailed cell-type and connectivity information, analyzing complex behavioral outputs, and tying everything together with strong computational and theoretical grounding. The ideal application would look like a tightly coordinated collaboration among experimental neuroscientists, engineers and tool-builders, computational modelers, and data analysts, all organized around a specific, testable question about how distributed neural circuit dynamics produce a meaningful behavior or neural function, with a clear plan to generate capabilities and frameworks that can scale into future large, program-level efforts.

Browse more opportunities from the same agency: National Institutes of Health

Browse more opportunities from the same category: Education Environment Health Income Security and Social Services

Next opportunity: Concept Engineering

Previous opportunity: BRAIN Initiative Development and Validation of Novel Tools to Analyze Cell Specific and Circuit Specific Processes in the Brain (U01)

USGrants.org Applicant Portal:

Are you interested in learning about about how to apply for this government funding opportunity? You can create a free applicant account and receive instant access to our applicant portal that many business owners like you have benefited from.

Apply for RFA NS 14 009

 

[Watch] how do funding administrators access proposals?

Applicants also applied for:

Applicants who have applied for this opportunity (RFA NS 14 009) also looked into and applied for these:

 

Grant application guides and resources

It is always free to apply for government grants. However the process may be very complex depending on the funding opportunity you are applying for. Let us help you!

Apply for Grants

 

 

Premium leads for funding administrators, grant writers, and loan issuers

Thousands of people visit our website for their funding needs every day. When a user creates a grant proposal and files for submission, we pass the information on to funding administrators, grant writers, and government loan issuers.

If you manage government grant programs, provide grant writing services, or issue personal or government loans, we can help you reach your audience.

Subscribe to Leads

 

Request more information:

Would you like to learn more about this funding opportunity, similar opportunities to "RFA NS 14 009", eligibility, application service, and/or application tips? Submit an inquiry below:

Don't forget to subscribe to our grant alerts mailing list to receive weekly alerts on new and updated grant funding opportunities like this one in your email.