Project Grant R21EY036219
- Federal Project Grant Award Summary The National Eye Institute (NEI) awarded a Project Grant totaling $615,414 to The Regents of the University of Colorado-Denver on April 1, 2026, under the Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867). This four-year research initiative, concluding March 31, 2030, focuses on identifying the principles of functional connectivity within Layer 2/3 of the ferret primary visual cortex (V1). The research aims to advance understanding of how selective visual responses emerge...
- This $540,971 Project Grant award from the National Eye Institute's Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867) supports research at Northwestern University to classify and study the subcellular compartmentalization of displaced amacrine cells in the mouse retina. The key goals are to: 1) Establish a multimodal classification of displaced amacrine cell types by aligning morpho-electric properties with transcriptomic data, and 2) Measure the functional compartmentalization within amacrine cell neurites...
- This Project Grant award of $248,999.00 from the National Eye Institute's Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867) supports research at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University to investigate how neuronal synaptic activity and neurotransmitters influence retinal angiogenesis and the development of the blood-retinal barrier. The research aims to elucidate the role of glutamate release on deep retinal vascular plexus formation and barrier maturation, and...
- Federal Grant Award Summary The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) received a $122,075 Project Grant award from the National Eye Institute (NEI) under the Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867), effective April 15, 2026, with completion by March 31, 2028. This research initiative investigates the molecular mechanisms underlying developmental plasticity in the primary visual cortex (V1), with emphasis on understanding how sensory experience regulates neural circuit organization. The...
- Federal Grant Award Summary The National Eye Institute (NEI) awarded the University of California, Los Angeles a $132,173 Project Grant effective May 1, 2026, through April 30, 2028, under the Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867). This research project, titled "Linking Physiology, Computation and Circuitry in the Primate Visual Cortex," will deliver scientific research products advancing understanding of canonical computations in the primate visual system. The primary deliverables...
- Federal Project Grant Award Summary The National Eye Institute (NEI), under the Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867), awarded Columbia University's Health Sciences Division a $156,302 Project Grant (Award Date: March 1, 2026; Completion Date: August 31, 2028) to conduct research characterizing representational geometry and learning across primate visual streams. The project will deliver fundamental neuroscience research products including empirical findings on how the primate visual system...
- This federal Project Grant award of $562,215 from the National Eye Institute's Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867) will support a research project at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to study the representation of cone photoreceptors in the primary visual cortex (V1) of the brain. The key goals of this research are to: 1) Determine the number and types of cone photoreceptors that comprise the receptive fields of individual V1 neurons, particularly near the fovea; 2) Measure the...
- Federal Project Grant Award Summary The National Eye Institute (NEI), under its Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867), awarded $1,703,489 to President and Fellows of Harvard College/Harvard Medical School (awarded September 15, 2025; completion date January 31, 2029) to conduct integrated research on the neural and computational mechanisms underlying preferential viewing behavior in primates. The project will deliver research products including empirical findings on how visual preferences are...
- Federal Grant Award Summary The University of Texas at Austin received a $696,503 Project Grant from the National Eye Institute (NEI) under the Vision Research program (CFDA 93.867), effective April 1, 2026 through March 31, 2031. This five-year award supports fundamental neuroscience research examining the cellular and circuit mechanisms underlying invariant visual representations in the brain. Specifically, the project investigates how the visual cortex constructs direction-selective neurons...
- The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded a $1,385,000 Project Grant under the Trans-NIH Research Support program (CFDA 93.310) to the Allen Institute, a non-profit research organization, to develop novel techniques for measuring the input-output operations of individual neurons in the mouse cortex. The project aims to overcome challenges in understanding how neurons in the mammalian brain transform their synaptic inputs into outputs, which is critical for designing effective brain-machine...
VISUAL FUNCTION OF TRANSCRIPTOMICALLY DEFINED GLUTAMATERGIC NEURONS - PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT PRIMARY VISUAL CORTEX (V1) PROCESSES VISUAL INFORMATION ALONG PARALLEL PATHWAYS AND DISTRIBUTES THE RESULTS TO HIGH LEVEL CORTICAL AREAS AND SUBCORTICAL TARGETS. IN MICE, A SPECIES THAT LACKS A STRONG, COLUMNAR ORGANIZATION, NEURONS CARRYING INFORMATION FROM DIFFERENT STREAMS ARE SPATIALLY INTERMIXED, BUT NEVERTHELESS CONNECT WITH SPECIFICITY, BOTH WITHIN AND ACROSS AREAS. HOW ARE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN NEURONS ESTABLISHED ON SUCH A FINE SCALE DESPITE THE SPATIAL INTERMIXING OF NEURONS? WE HYPOTHESIZE THAT THE VISUAL PROPERTIES OF RECEPTIVE FIELDS OF V1 NEURONS CORRELATE WITH TRANSCRIPTOMIC CELL TYPES, WHICH FURTHER GUIDE THEIR PROJECTION PATTERNS AND ORCHESTRATE THE WIRING OF LOCAL CONNECTIONS. WE WILL ESTABLISH IF THERE IS A CORRELATION BETWEEN CELL TYPE AND VISUAL FUNCTION IN V1. OUR STRATEGY CONSISTS OF THE FOLLOWING STEPS. STEP 1) EXPRESS GCAMP8 IN A SPARSE SET OF L2/3 NEURONS UNDER THE CONTROL OF TAMOXIFEN. STEP 2) USE VOLUMETRIC, IN-VIVO 2-PHOTON CALCIUM IMAGING TO EXTENSIVELY CHARACTERIZE THE VISUAL PROPERTIES OF THE LABELED NEURONS. STEP 3) PROCESS THE TISSUE USING EXPANSION-ASSISTED ITERATIVE FISH (EASI-FISH) TO YIELD THE TRANSCRIPTOMIC SIGNATURES OF CELLS WITHIN THE VOLUME. IMPORTANTLY, WE WILL DETERMINE WHICH CELLS EXPRESS GCAMP8 THAT WILL PROVIDE THE LANDMARKS FOR ALIGNMENT. STEP 4) ALIGNMENT BETWEEN IN-VIVO RECORDINGS AND TRANSCRIPTOMIC DATA USING GCAMP6 EXPRESSION. STEP 5) CLUSTERING OF NEURONS ACCORDING TO VISUAL PROPERTIES AND TRANSCRIPTOMIC SIGNATURE. THE PROJECT ADDRESSES ONE OF NEI'S PRIORITIES: TO IMPROVE THE UNDERSTANDING OF NEURAL ACTIVITY AND MOLECULAR EVENTS IN THE FORMATION OF CENTRAL VISUAL CIRCUITS. SUCCESS IN THIS PROJECT WILL DELIVER THE FIRST DATABASE OF EXCITATORY CELLS IN L2/3 OF THE MOUSE CONTAINING A CHARACTERIZATION OF THEIR VISUAL PROPERTIES, CORTICAL LOCATION, AND TRANSCRIPTOMIC SIGNATURES. WE WILL TEST IF BASIC PROPERTIES OF VISUAL NEURONS, SUCH AS THEIR RECEPTIVE FIELD LINEARITY, CORRELATE WITH CELL TYPES. THE WORK WILL PAVE THE WAY TO STUDY CRITICAL QUESTIONS ABOUT HOW EARLY VISUAL EXPERIENCE INTERACTS WITH GENETIC PROGRAMS THAT LEAD TO CELL DIFFERENTIATION AND THEIR CONNECTIVITY IN A FUTURE R01.
Mod # | Description | ReasonForModification | Federal Obligation | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not listed | $196.9k | 7/30/25 | ||
| Not listed | $228.7k | 5/23/24 |