Federal Cooperative Agreement Summary

New York University School of Medicine received a $1.24 million Cooperative Agreement award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), effective March 15, 2026, through December 31, 2030. The award supports the development and validation of an integrated system for life-long, high-resolution monitoring of mouse colony life to advance understanding of neurobehavioral mechanisms underlying social behavior and familial structure. The collaborative research initiative brings together behavioral neuroscientists, theoretical researchers, and engineering expertise to leverage recent technological and computational advances—including wireless recording capabilities, cell- and circuit-specific methods for measuring brain activity, neural data analysis algorithms, and multi-animal behavioral interaction quantification—to study neural circuits for social and parental behavior in complex environments. This research addresses fundamental questions about how families adapt to environmental stressors and demonstrates neuroplasticity in the context of survival-critical decision-making.

The project capitalizes on recent methodological breakthroughs that now make feasible the longitudinal study of neural and behavioral mechanisms in mammalian family structures under conditions previously impossible to investigate. By establishing this integrated monitoring platform, the work will generate foundational knowledge applicable to understanding social behavior, parental caregiving, and adaptive responses to environmental challenges—research outcomes aligned with NIDA's mission to support basic and translational investigations that advance substance use disorder prevention and treatment through mechanistic understanding of behavior and neurobiology.