The National Science Foundation (NSF) funds Neurotechnology Hubs and innovative tools to advance research on Brain & Behavior

– Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty neu­ro­sci­en­tist Chris Xu will study how brains pro­duce behav­ior in species across a range of sizes.

NSF issues awards to advance a nation­al research infra­struc­ture for neu­ro­science (press release by the Nation­al Sci­ence Foundation):

“The Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion (NSF) has made 17 Next Gen­er­a­tion Net­works for Neu­ro­science (Neu­roNex) awards to aid the research com­mu­ni­ty as it pur­sues one of its grand­est chal­lenges: under­stand­ing the brain.

These projects will sup­port the devel­op­ment of inno­v­a­tive, acces­si­ble and shared capa­bil­i­ties and resources, as well as the­o­ret­i­cal frame­works and com­pu­ta­tion­al mod­el­ing to advance neu­ro­science research…

Nine of the new awards are for Neu­roNex Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy Hubs, which will focus on the devel­op­ment, refine­ment and dis­sem­i­na­tion of inno­v­a­tive neu­rotech­nolo­gies. These hubs will provide:

• Nov­el trans­genic and mol­e­c­u­lar approach­es to mea­sure and manip­u­late cir­cuit activity.
• Nov­el instru­men­ta­tion and genet­ic approach­es for imag­ing struc­ture and dynam­ics of neur­al circuits.
• New mate­ri­als and devices for large-scale elec­tri­cal record­ings of neur­al activity.

In addi­tion, NSF issued six small­er Neu­roNex Inno­va­tion awards, focused on devel­op­ing poten­tial­ly rev­o­lu­tion­ary, ear­ly-stage tools that can be inte­grat­ed with oth­er Neu­roNex projects. All Neu­roNex awards will also sup­port work­force train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. The com­ple­men­tary nature of the tech­nolo­gies and the mutu­al syn­er­gies between the tech­nolo­gies and the the­o­ries hold the promise of ush­er­ing in new ways of con­duct­ing neu­ro­science research. Neu­roNex Inno­va­tion awards:

• South­west Mag­ne­to­ge­net­ics Project (SoMa): Jacob Robin­son, Rice University
• Towards auto­mat­ic analy­sis of mul­ti-ter­abyte cleared brains: Joshua Vogel­stein, Johns Hop­kins University
• A nation­al resource for mesoscale and con­nec­tom­ic brain map­ping: Narayanan (Bob­by) Kasthuri, Uni­ver­si­ty of Chicago
• Behav­ioral tech­nolo­gies: Adam Kepecs, Cold Spring Har­bor Laboratory
• Chem­i­cal and genet­ic meth­ods to mea­sure and manip­u­late neu­rons with light: Evan Miller, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berkeley
• Volt­age to Light Trans­duc­ers (VoLT) col­lab­o­ra­tive: Fran­cois St-Pierre, Bay­lor Col­lege of Medicine”

The Awards in Context

• NSF Under­stand­ing the Brain Initiative
• To Be (Your Con­nec­tome), or Not to Be (Your Genome)
• 10 Neu­rotech­nolo­gies About to Trans­form Brain Enhance­ment and Brain Health
• Eight research teams work­ing with DARPA to dis­cov­er best ways to acti­vate neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and accel­er­ate learning