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Studies in human neuroscience supported by BRAIN range from developing new tools and methods for imaging and mapping brain activity, to investigating the neural basis of behavior and cognition, to developing innovative treatments for brain disorders such as epilepsy and Parkinson's disease. By bringing together experts from a wide range of scientific fields, the NIH BRAIN Initiative offers a unique opportunity to address some of the most pressing questions in neuroscience and to pave the way for new discoveries and treatments in the years to come.
Investigative Human Neuroscience Program
The NIH BRAIN Initiative funds research on investigative human neuroscience through the Research Opportunities in Humans (ROH) program. This program provides support for research projects focused on investigative neuroscience with intracranial access to recording and manipulating the brain directly.
Investigations within the human brain offer revolutionary, but challenging, opportunities for experimental investigation in how the human brain senses, thinks, perceives, remembers, plans, registers emotions, activates movements, engages language, and makes decisions. By leveraging surgical procedures with direct access to the brain, there is the opportunity to design experiments specifically about human neuroscience in ways that are both uniquely human and otherwise impossible. While fundamental basic research often provides insights relevant to disorders of the nervous system, this program is not intended to generate research that is explicitly disease therapeutic.
The ROH program also considers the neuroethical considerations that go with recruiting patients to participate in experimental procedures that go beyond the therapeutic standards of care to benefit advances in human neuroscience, but not their personal medical needs. Medical risks must be minimized and managed along with proper informed consent for recruitment.
Contact
For questions or to share a draft of your aims:
Exploratory Research on Humans (R61)
BRAINeROH@ninds.nih.gov
Research on Humans (U01)
BRAINResOppHu@ninds.nih.gov
Related Information
For more information on support for human brain imaging technology development, visit the Neuroimaging Technologies Across Scales page.
For more information about the basic research effort to develop new tools and approaches in support of a more comprehensive mechanistic understanding of the neural basis of behavior, visit the Brain Behavior Quantification and Synchronization program .
Therapeutic Human Neuroscience Program
The NIH BRAIN Initiative supports first in human, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulated clinical trials of novel invasive and non-invasive technologies to address disorders of the central nervous system, including neurological, neuropsychiatric, and sensory conditions. These investigational trials must also address circuit level activation of the central nervous system. Conditions under investigation include Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, depression, stroke, tremor, bipolar disorder, Tourette syndrome, deafness, and paralysis, among others.
Contact
For questions or to share a draft of your aims: ninds-devices@ninds.nih.gov
Understanding Circuits Program
For more information about the basic research effort to develop new tools and approaches in support of a more comprehensive mechanistic understanding of the neural basis of behavior, visit the Brain Behavior Quantification and Synchronization program .