BRAIN Initiative: Brain Behavior Quantification and Synchronization (R61/R33 Clinical Trial Optional)
This grant supports developing and validating tools to precisely measure human behavior and link it to brain activity.
This grant is no longer accepting proposals
National Institutes of Health has archived this opportunity.
Funder: National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Due Dates: January 22, 2025 (New Application) | January 22, 2025 (Renewal/Resubmission/Revision)
Funding Amounts: Approximately $10 million total funding available to support 8-10 awards in FY2026; project period up to 5 years (R61 up to 4 years, R33 up to 2 years)
Summary: Supports development and validation of next-generation tools to precisely quantify human behaviors and synchronize them with brain activity recordings.
Key Information: Biphasic R61/R33 mechanism; clinical trial optional in R33 phase; requires Plan for Enhancing Diverse Perspectives (PEDP) and neuroethics considerations; multi-disciplinary teams encouraged.
Description
This funding opportunity supports the development and validation of innovative hardware, software, and analytic tools to precisely quantify human behavior and link these measurements with simultaneously recorded brain activity. The goal is to achieve multi-modal, high-accuracy, high-specificity, and high-temporal resolution behavioral quantification that can be integrated with neural data to better understand brain-behavior relationships.
The award uses a phased R61/R33 mechanism:
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R61 Phase: Focuses on novel tool development to capture complex behavioral data in real time. Tools should overcome current limitations by enabling multi-modal data capture (e.g., movement, vocalization, facial expressions combined with physiological measures), less obtrusive and ambulatory monitoring, extended storage and telemetry for long-term data collection, environmental sensing, and innovative remote sensing technologies.
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R33 Phase: Focuses on integrating and synchronizing the developed tools with established methods for recording human brain activity. This phase may optionally include a clinical trial component involving neuromodulation or neurostimulation to study mechanistic questions about brain-behavior relationships. Clinical trials must be mechanistic or basic experimental studies involving humans (BESH) and not aimed at therapeutic interventions.
The initiative encourages applications from multi-disciplinary teams with expertise spanning behavioral science, neurobiology, computer/data science, engineering, biostatistics, neuroethics, and artificial intelligence. Studies involving non-human animals or comparative animal-human studies are not responsive.
The program emphasizes inclusivity and requires a Plan for Enhancing Diverse Perspectives (PEDP) to promote diversity in scientific teams, research environments, and participant populations. Ethical considerations must be addressed, including the inclusion of a neuroethicist on the team and detailed neuroethics considerations in the application.
Research should aim to develop tools suitable for use across the lifespan, in diverse sociocultural settings, and in NIH-designated U.S. health disparity populations. Quality assurance, data annotation, open sharing, and dissemination plans are required.
