The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative: Secondary Analysis and Archiving of BRAIN Initiative Data

Presenter:

Greg Farber, Ph.D. and Ming Zhan, Ph.D.
Office of Technology Development and Coordination

Goal:

This concept aims to encourage support of secondary analysis of the large existing datasets relevant to the goals of the BRAIN Initiative. Support would be provided for innovative analysis of relevant existing datasets using conventional or novel analytic methods, data science techniques, and machine learning approaches. Support may also be requested to prepare and submit existing data into any of the BRAIN Initiative data archives. The goal of this concept is to promote studies that seek to significantly advance new discoveries and accelerate the pace of research of the BRAIN Initiative through harnessing big data and machine learning opportunities. Awardees would be expected to enhance the value of existing data, improve the overall data integration and analysis capability, and strengthen the rigor and reproducibility of BRAIN Initiative related data.

Rationale:

When NIMH previously released a BRAIN Initiative Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) aligned with this concept (RFA-MH-20-120 ), it was unclear whether the research community would respond to a secondary data analysis FOA. As the BRAIN Initiative continues, we anticipate continued needs for secondary analysis and archiving of the data that are being generated.