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The relationship between behavior and brain-wide activity is difficult to study in animal models. This is because the technology frequently used to view activity changes in the brain—magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)—generates high acoustic noise, which can stress the animal and is sensitive to movement, creating artifacts in the imaging.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia among older adults and is estimated to affect more than 6 million people in the United States. For decades, the underlying cause of Alzheimer’s disease remained elusive to researchers, and confirmed cases could only be diagnosed by brain biopsy (a procedure that involves removing a small tissue sample from the brain) or autopsy.

With the introduction of new techniques in molecular biology—such as clinical exome sequencing, whole-genome sequencing, RNA sequencing, and metabolomics—researchers are equipped with more tools than ever to understand the genetic basis of diseases that affect human health.

The National Xenopus Resource was established to maintain, generate and distribute critical animal stocks, disseminate new technology, and optimize animal husbandry techniques all for the purpose of promoting and enhancing the use of Xenopus as a biomedical research model.

With support from ORIP's S10 Shared Instrumentation Programs, researchers at The University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania are using supercomputers for radiomics studies on cancers and other disorders.

ORIP has reissued S10 notices of funding opportunities (NOFOs) as PAR-24-264, PAR-24-265, and PAR 24-326. These NOFOs support the purchase of state-of-the-art, commercially available instruments to be shared by NIH-funded investigators.