2026 Scientific Innovations Award

2026 Scientific Innovations Award is sponsored by Brain Research Foundation. Supports innovative, high-impact neuroscience research projects in established U. S.

labs led by senior investigators.

Scientific Innovations Award | Neurological Studies & Awards Skip to content BRAIN RESEARCH FOUNDATION Scientific Innovations Award BRF’s annual Scientific Innovations Award supports creative, cutting edge research in well-established research laboratories, under the direction of distinguished investigators. Scientific Innovations Award Guidelines The 2027 Scientific Innovations Award (SIA) opens on April 1, 2027.

If your institution did not receive an invitation directly from BRF via e-mail, then you are not eligible to apply . To learn more about institutional eligibility and our application guidelines, click below.

If you and your team are on the cusp of making a neurological scientific discovery that will impact society and the medical, scientific or structural approaches taken to brain disease, disorders or development and learning, you could be eligible to apply for our Scientific Innovation Award. Below are just some of the innovative scientific studies BRF have funded to date.

Investigations supported by Scientific Innovations Awards yield high-impact findings and result in major grant applications and significant publications in respected journals. All Years 2025 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 Robert Froemke Ph. D.

, NYU School of Medicine The Neuroscience of Families: Social Behavior in Naturalistic Controlled Environments Animals can work together in groups to achieve specific aims with higher success rates than if acting alone. For communally-living and consociating species such as humans and rodents, group dynamics… Ken Prehoda, Ph. D.

, University of Oregon Brain Regeneration Dynamics Using the Transparent Fish Danionella Cerebrum Regenerative medicine may one day enable us to repair brain damage caused by injury and disease. While humans and other mammals cannot regenerate the central nervous system, fish have an… Doris Tsao, Ph. D.

, University of California, Berkeley Understanding how psychedelics affect top-down belief propagation in the primate brain Our research will try to understand how special substances called psychedelics can help the brain see the world differently. When people are sad or worried, their brains sometimes get “stuck”… James J DiCarlo, M. D.

, Ph. D. , Massachusetts Institute of Technology Using Computer Models of the Neural Mechanisms of Visual Processing to Non-Invasively Modulate Brain States DiCarlo’s research team is exploring an innovative approach to address emotional challenges, such as anxiety and depression.

Traditional treatments for these disorders can be complex and often cause unpleasant side effects,… Eiman Azim, Ph. D. , The Salk Institute for Biological Studies Learning from Error: Defining how Cerebellar Circuits Drive Adaptation in a Changing World The ability to move effectively through the world is one of the most important functions of the brain.

However, the world and the body are constantly changing, meaning the signals… Hillel Adesnik, Ph. D. , University of California, Berkeley All Optically Probing the Neural Codes of Perception in the Primate Brain How patterns of action potentials in space and time give rise to sensory experience is among the most enduring mysteries of biology.

Despite decades of experiments correlating brain activity patterns… Chaolin Zhang, Ph. D.

, Columbia University Human-specific Alternative Splicing, BrainDevelopment, and Ciliopathies Like movie frames needing to be edited to tell an engaging story, pieces of genetic information stored in DNA for each gene need to be sliced and rejoined, through a… Apply for a Scientific Innovations Award Scientific Innovation Awards are $150,000 2-year grants directed at projects that may be too innovative and speculative for traditional funding sources, but still have a high likelihood of producing important findings.

The Principal Investigator (PI) must be an associate or full professor working in the field of neuroscience.