BRAIN Initiative: Team-Research BRAIN Circuit Programs - TeamBCP (U19 Basic Experimental Studies with Humans Required)

The BRAIN Initiative: Team-Research BRAIN Circuit Programs - TeamBCP (U19 Basic Experimental Studies with Humans Required) is an opportunity for advanced grant funding dedicated to the intersection of neuroscience and behavior. The grant intends to support a wide array of research, with a special focus on understanding brain circuits in relation to behavior. This may involve study into sensation, perception, emotion, motivation, cognition, decision-making, motor control, communication, or homeostasis.

The grant is open to integrated, interdisciplinary research teams with experiences in either previous BRAIN technology projects or interdisciplinary initiatives. Applications from new projects aiming to examine circuit functions relative to behavior are also welcomed. The teams should preferably use advanced innovative technologies and their research project should be designed to yield meaningful results within a period of five years or more.

The grant period will span five years, potentially renewable once, and teams are encouraged to present predictive models as part of their deliverables. The research should involve theory-driven experimental designs, and actively record neural activity patterns and their subsequent behaviors or perceptions. It is advisable for teams to incorporate quantitative and mechanistic models when necessary, which would be guided by preset theoretical constructs.

The potential research areas can include different model systems ranging from invertebrates to humans, as long as they are properly justified. Teams should include experts from various fields such as neurobiology, physics, engineering, mathematics, computer science, data science and statistics to foster interdisciplinary collaboration.

Grant recipients will be required to manage their data and analysis in a prototype framework which is developed for and used in the U19 project, before being shared with other U19 awardees for further improvement and development. Budget allocations for the grant should correlate with the multi-component teams required for the interdisciplinary research.