BRAIN Initiative: Exploratory Research Opportunities Using Invasive Neural Recording and Stimulating Technologies in the Human Brain (R61 Basic Experimental Studies with Humans Required)

Invasive surgical procedures offer the opportunity for unique intracranial interventions such as the ability to record and stimulate intracranially within precisely localized brain structures in humans. Human studies using invasive technology are often constrained by a limited number of patients and resources available to implement complex experimental protocols and need to be aggregated in a manner that addresses research questions with appropriate statistical power. Therefore, this RFA seeks applications to assemble diverse, integrated, multi-disciplinary teams that cross boundaries of interdisciplinary collaboration to overcome these fundamental barriers and to investigate high-impact questions in human neuroscience. The research should be offered as exploratory research and planning activities to establish feasibility, proof-of-principle and early-stage development that, if successful, would support, enable, and/or lay the groundwork for a potential, subsequent Research Opportunities Using Invasive Neural Recording and Stimulating Technologies in the Human Brain, as described in the companion FOA (RFA-NS-22-041). Projects should maximize opportunities to conduct innovative in vivo neuroscience research made available by direct access to the brain from invasive surgical procedures. Projects should employ approaches guided by specified theoretical constructs and by quantitative, mechanistic models where appropriate. Awardees will join a consortium working group, coordinated by the NIH, to identify consensus standards of practice, including neuroethical considerations, to collect and provide data for ancillary studies, and to aggregate and standardize data for dissemination among the wider scientific community.