NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research

About Blueprint

 

The Blueprint is a collaborative framework that includes the NIH Office of the Director and the 15 NIH Institutes and Centers that support research on the nervous system. By pooling resources and expertise, the Blueprint identifies cross-cutting areas of research, and confronts challenges too large for any single Institute or Center.

The Blueprint makes collaboration a day-to-day part of how the NIH does business in neuroscience, complementing the basic missions of Blueprint partners. During each fiscal year, the partners contribute a small percentage of their funds to a common pool. Since the Blueprint's inception in 2004, this pool has comprised less than 1 percent of the total neuroscience research budget of the partners.

Blueprint Grand Challenges

In 2009, the 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 will use state-of-the-art neuroimaging technology to explore the connectivity of the healthy adult human brain.  This news release describes the HCP in lay terms.
• The Grand Challenge on Pain seeks in part to bring researchers from the neuroplasticity field into the pain field, and supplements have been made available to set up these collaborations under an existing NIH grant.  In the next two years, this Grand Challenge will be expanded to promote larger collaborative projects on the transition from acute to chronic pain and to train new investigators in state-of-the-art methods for studying pain.
• Planning is underway for a Neurotherapeutics Grand Challenge that will set up a pipeline to move candidate drugs for neurological disorders through preclinical development into early clinical trials.

Blueprint Resources

Since its inception in 2004, the Blueprint has supported the development of new tools, training opportunities and other resources to assist neuroscientists.  The NIH Neuroscience Resources section of the Blueprint home page contains detailed information about these resources, some of which emerged from the Blueprint's focus on three major themes - neurodegeneration, neurodevelopment, and neuroplasticity - from fiscal years 2007 to 2009. Examples of Blueprint-supported resources include:

• The Gene Expression Nervous System Atlas (GENSAT) and the Cre Driver Network are projects to develop, characterize and distribute transgenic mouse lines (GFP reporters and Cre drivers) to serve as tools for research on the central nervous system
• The Neuroimaging Informatics Tools and Resources Clearinghouse (NITRC) is a web-based clearinghouse that helps researchers find, compare and rate neuroimaging informatics tools and resources.
• 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 a dozen online databases.
• The NIH Toolbox for Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function is a set of integrated tools for measuring neurological and behavioral function, and for generating data that can be used and compared across diverse clinical studies.

Further information about the Blueprint's history and goals is available in a 2006 article in the Journal of Neuroscience.