Accelerating Integrative Research in Neuroscience and Cognitive Science (AIR-NCS)

Date: March 04, 2013

National Science Foundation
Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences
Directorate for Biological Sciences
Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering
Directorate for Engineering
Directorate for Education and Human Resources
Directorate for Mathematical & Physical Sciences

The National Science Foundation seeks proposals with the potential to transform neuroscience and cognitive science. We invite proposals that accelerate new integrative research across disciplines and across spatial and temporal scales of analysis in cognitive science and neuroscience. Such approaches will enhance our understanding of how the brain regulates the individual's biology, processes complex social and physical cues, and allows organisms to behave in and adapt to changing environments.

Research aimed at understanding the brain is currently supported by virtually all of the disciplinary Directorates within the National Science Foundation (see Directorate web pages for details). For example, NSF currently funds research to better understand:

• the genetic, molecular, and cellular mechanisms responsible for brain evolution, development, function, and behavior (Biological Sciences);
• neural coding, signal processing, and computation; cognitive aspects of human-device interactions; brain-machine interfaces; computational neuroscience; representation and learning; and technology to support human learning (Computer & Information Science & Engineering);
• brain function, neural coding, cellular/genetic mechanisms underlying neuron cell behaviors, technologies for neuroregeneration and rehabilitation, neuroimaging/sensing, and the brain-computer interface (Engineering);
• STEM learning, in ways that may either inform or can be informed by neuroscience and STEM education, including brain structure/function relations, neural networks, computational neuroscience, functional imaging, neuroplasticity, and adaptive systems (Education and Human Resources);
• the biophysical dynamics and chemical underpinnings of neural processes, and mathematical, statistical, and computational modeling at all analytical scales of brain function (Mathematical and Physical Sciences); and
• cognitive science and the neuroscience of cognition and behavior (such as language, thought, decision making, and social processes), using behavioral, neuroscience, and computational methods (Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences).

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