NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research

NIH Blueprint Overview The Blueprint Mission The NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research aims to accelerate transformative discoveries in brain function in health, aging, and disease. NIH Blueprint is a collaborative framework that includes the NIH Office of the Director together with NIH Institutes and Centers that support research on the nervous system. By pooling resources and expertise, Blueprint identifies cross-cutting areas of research and confronts challenges too large for any single Institute or Center. Since its inception in 2004, Blueprint has supported the development of new research tools, training opportunities, and resources to assist neuroscientists. In addition to supporting cross-cutting neuroscience activities like research training, workforce diversity, and therapeutic development, Blueprint also funds research initiatives. Topics have ranged from transforming our understanding of dynamic neuroimmune interactions to enhancing our fundamental knowledge of interoception, supporting the development of innovative tools and technologies to monitor and manipulate biomolecular condensates, and more. To learn about both current and past areas of research, visit the Blueprint Research Initiatives page. Blueprint Grand Challenges In 2009, the NIH Blueprint Grand Challenges were launched to catalyze research with the potential to transform our basic understanding of the brain and our approaches to treating brain disorders. The Human Connectome Project (HCP) was an ambitious effort to map the neural pathways of the human brain to connect its structure to function and behavior. Beginning in 2010, Blueprint awarded $40 million to two major research consortia which took complementary approaches to deciphering the brain’s complex wiring diagram. In five years, this highly coordinated effort mapped the connections of 1,200 healthy adults paired with behavioral assessments and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) results, resulting in the publication of over 100 papers. The MRI scanner system developed by HCP scientists was 4-8 times more powerful than conventional systems, providing ten-fold faster imaging times and better spatial resolution than ever before. While research participants in the original HCP studies were 22-35 years old, in 2015, Blueprint launched the Lifespan Connectome to extend data collection from healthy subjects of all ages. Altogether these projects mapped the long-distance brain connections and their variability in unprecedent detail in more than 3,000 children and adults across the United States. In 2014, Blueprint invested in collecting connectome data from subjects with certain clinical diagnoses. These disease connectome projects have paved the way toward a detailed understanding of how brain circuitry differs in psychiatric and neurologic illness. The Connectome Coordination Facility, funded by Blueprint in 2015, maintained a central data repository for Human Connectome data collected from the original HCP consortia as well as other research laboratories. The Coordination Facility also supported the research community with best data collection strategies, including data harmonization. The Grand Challenge on the Transition from Acute to Chronic Neuropathic Pain supported research to understand the changes in the nervous system that cause acute, temporary pain to become chronic. The initiative has supported multi-investigator projects partnering researchers in the pain field with researchers in the neuroplasticity field. Starting in 2010, Blueprint funded 12 R01 grants investigating various models, mechanisms, and plasticity in the transition to chronic pain, resulting in more than 330 publications related to pain and neural plasticity. Notably, the Blueprint Grand Challenge on the Transition from Acute to Chronic Neuropathic Pain helped to lay the groundwork for the NIH Common Fund Acute to Chronic Pain Signatures Initiative (A2CPS), which aims to identify a set of markers, or biosignatures, that will help to identify who is likely to transition to chronic pain after an acute injury or procedure and who is likely to recover. The Blueprint Neurotherapeutics Network (BPN) helps small labs develop new drugs for nervous system disorders. BPN provides research funding, plus access to millions of dollars’ worth of services and expertise to assist in every step of the drug development process, from laboratory studies to preparation for clinical trials. Since 2010, project teams across the U.S. have received funding to pursue drugs for conditions from vision loss to neurodegenerative disease to depression. A hallmark of the program is the research institution retains the intellectual property rights. Now in its thirteenth year, BPN for Small Molecules has awarded 37 grants resulting in seven Phase 1 clinical trials. The projects have raised more than $2 billion in investments across more than 10 projects to date, including several successful partnerships with industry advancing down the clinical path and presently four projects have advanced to Phase 3 clinical testing. Following the success of the BPN for Small Molecules, the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research established BPN for Biologics to support the development of biotherapeutics to treat nervous system disorders. This program covers the full spectrum of biologics, including biotechnology products and biologics-based therapies, gene-based therapies, cell therapies, and other novel emerging therapies. The BRAIN Initiative® The technical advances achieved in NIH Blueprint's Human Connectome Project transformed the field and allowed the neuroscience research community to aggregate and share data in unprecedented ways, and this foundational work is being continued through the Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative, or The BRAIN Initiative®. April 2013 marked the beginning of the BRAIN Initiative, a coordinated effort among public and private institutions and agencies aimed at revolutionizing our understanding of the human brain. NIH has a leading role in this effort. Blueprint was one of the inaugural sponsors of the BRAIN Initiative by investing $10 million in 2014 on initial high priority research areas and continues to partner with NIH BRAIN and invest in BRAIN research. Historic Blueprint Resources Since 2004, Blueprint has supported the development of new resources, tools, and opportunities for neuroscientists. From fiscal years 2007 to 2009, Blueprint focused on three major themes of neuroscience - neurodegeneration, neurodevelopment, and neuroplasticity. These efforts enabled unique funding opportunities and training programs, and helped establish new resources that continue to be available to researchers and the public. Some of these resources include: - The Gene Expression Nervous System Atlas (GENSAT) and the Cre Driver Network are projects that have developed, characterized and continue to distribute transgenic mouse lines (GFP reporters and Cre drivers) to serve as tools for research on the central nervous system. Over 100 lines are available from the Cre driver network and over 1400 (GFP and Cre) lines are available from GENSAT. - The Neuroimaging Informatics Tools and Resources Clearinghouse (NITRC) triad of services include a resources registry, data commons, and cloud-based virtual machine with popular neuroimaging software pre-installed. These services help researchers save time, meet data sharing requirements, and leverage cloud-based computing on increasingly larger data sets. - The Neuroscience Information Framework (NIF) is an online portal to neuroscience information that includes a customized search engine, a curated registry of resources and direct access to more than 100 databases. - The NIH Toolbox for Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function is a set of integrated tools for measuring neurologic and behavioral function, and for generating data that can be used and compared across diverse clinical studies. - The NIH Blueprint Enhancing Neuroscience Diversity through Undergraduate Research Experiences (ENDURE) supports undergraduates from underrepresented groups in a two-year neuroscience research program and encourages matriculation into PhD programs.