Project Grant R21EY026382

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke awarded Cornell University a $686,023 Cooperative Agreement on July 8, 2026, to develop non-invasive optical imaging technology for visualizing brain structure and function at the cellular level. Cornell will advance three-photon microscopy (3PM) imaging techniques and develop new lasers to increase three-photon fluorescence signal by approximately 10,000 times. This advancement will enable visualization of mouse brain activity with...

The National Science Foundation awarded a $266,000 Project Grant to Columbia University under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships federal grant program (CFDA 47.084) to develop a wearable noninvasive brain imaging device using near-infrared light-based time-domain diffuse optical tomography. The device aims to improve clinical outcomes in neurology by enabling measurement of deep brain blood flow, which is difficult to measure with current technologies. The grant will support...

The Johns Hopkins University was awarded a $2,008,605 Project Grant under the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke's 21st Century Cures Act - Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative (CFDA 93.372). The grant funding will support the development of an "Autonomous Rapidly Adaptive Multiphoton Microscope for Neural Recording and Stimulation." This adaptive multiphoton microscope system will leverage hybrid volumetric scanning,...

The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering awarded Duke University $1,523,343 on March 10, 2026, under the Discovery and Applied Research for Technological Innovations to Improve Human Health program (CFDA 93.286) to develop four-dimensional smart epidermal photoacoustic tomography (4D-SEPAT) technology for real-time, longitudinal functional brain imaging in behaving non-human primates. The 4D-SEPAT system integrates soft ultrasound transducer arrays with integrated shape...

The National Science Foundation Office of Integrative Activities awarded a $231,682 Project Grant to the University of Alabama under the Integrative Activities federal grant program (CFDA 47.083) to develop an aberration-free computational framework for transcranial photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) brain imaging. Over the two year period from January 2023 to December 2024, a faculty fellow and graduate student will work with experts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to...

This $300,000 Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) supports the development of a new optical microscopy technology called "Space-Time-Pulsed Engineered-Excitation for Diffraction-Free Imaging (SPEEDI)." The technology utilizes exotic space-time wave packets to enable high-resolution fluorescence imaging of deep brain tissue without the light scrambling issues of conventional microscopy. The research aims to advance imaging...

This $423,151 CAREER grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) supports the development of a new ultrasound imaging technology to enable high-resolution functional mapping of the human brain. The project aims to overcome limitations of current brain imaging methods by leveraging deep learning and ultrafast ultrasound imaging to achieve microscopic spatial resolution and deeper tissue penetration. If successful, this transformative new imaging...

This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) provides $434,716 to the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center to develop a set of optical tools for capturing and interpreting high-speed recordings of neural activity across the entire zebrafish brain. The key objectives are to create fluorescent voltage sensors, optical microscopes, and signal processing algorithms that can simultaneously monitor millisecond-scale bursts of neural...

The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering awarded the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill $570,612 on April 7, 2026, under the Discovery and Applied Research for Technological Innovations to Improve Human Health program (CFDA 93.286) to develop advanced volumetric ultrasound systems for functional imaging and multi-targeted closed-loop neuromodulation. The project addresses current limitations in ultrasonic neuromodulation by moving beyond MRI-dependent targeting...

The National Science Foundation awarded Neuraltrak, Inc. a $1.25 million cooperative agreement on June 15, 2026, under the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program (CFDA 47.084) to develop AI-powered methods for generating high-quality three-dimensional computed tomography images from limited-angle X-ray data acquired by standard mobile surgical imaging systems. The project addresses a clinical gap: conventional mobile X-ray systems produce primarily two-dimensional images because...