Funder: National Institutes of Health
Due Dates: July 9, 2026 (Application) | February 8, 2027 (Application) | October 4, 2027 (Final application deadline)
Funding Amounts: $10 million estimated first-year funding for approximately 3–6 awards; uncapped project budgets; maximum 3 years
Summary: Supports scalable technologies and data pipelines for generating and interpreting brain-wide connectivity maps.
Key Information: Clinical trials and foreign subawards/subcontracts are not allowed; funded teams must participate in the BRAIN CONNECTS Network.
Description
The NIH BRAIN Initiative’s BRAIN CONNECTS program supports Specialized Projects developing current or emerging technologies for comprehensive brain connectivity atlases, emphasizing human, non-human primate, and mouse brains. This U01 cooperative agreement funds improvements across the connectivity pipeline, including data collection, reconstruction, analysis, integration, dissemination, and interpretation. Projects may optimize existing technologies or pursue entirely new, disruptive, and potentially risky approaches.
The goal is faster, more precise, and more cost-effective generation and interpretation of brain-wide wiring diagrams, laying foundations for neural circuit-based approaches to preventing and treating brain disorders. Projects are expected to complement existing BRAIN CONNECTS awards with distinct capabilities. Technologies should be sufficiently scalable to enable brain-wide mapping during a subsequent five-year follow-on period, if not earlier.
