Federal Grant Award Summary

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) awarded The Johns Hopkins University a Project Grant in the amount of $608,086 under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) effective March 24, 2026 through December 31, 2029. The research project, titled "The Functions of the Claustrum in Flexible Decision Making," investigates the neurobiological mechanisms underlying cognitive flexibility and decision-making processes in the brain. The funded research will generate scientific knowledge regarding how the claustrum—a poorly understood subcortical brain structure—contributes to flexible behavior by encoding decision variables and maintaining persistent neural activity in cortical regions associated with behavioral flexibility, particularly the medial prefrontal cortex and lateral orbitofrontal cortex.

The research deliverables will include peer-reviewed publications, empirical data, and mechanistic insights into claustrocortical neural circuits derived from behavioral experiments utilizing dynamic foraging and reversal learning tasks. The project will advance understanding of neural mechanisms disrupted in neuropsychiatric diseases characterized by impaired cognitive flexibility by identifying how distinct claustrocortical neuron populations modulate cortical activity and influence decision-making processes. These research outputs directly support NIMH's mission to transform the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses through basic neuroscience investigation and will contribute to the broader knowledge base regarding potential therapeutic targets for cognitive inflexibility in mental health disorders.