Computationally-Defined Behaviors in Psychiatry (R21 Clinical Trial Optional) | PAR 21 264

Opportunity Information: Apply for PAR 21 264

The National Institutes of Health, through the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), is offering a discretionary grant opportunity titled "Computationally-Defined Behaviors in Psychiatry (R21 Clinical Trial Optional)" under Funding Opportunity Number PAR 21 264 (CFDA 93.242). This announcement is a reissue of an earlier solicitation (RFA-MH-19-240) and uses the NIH R21 mechanism, which is generally designed to support early-stage, exploratory, or high-impact developmental research. The clinical trial component is optional, meaning applicants may propose work that does not involve a clinical trial, but they can also include certain trial-like elements if appropriate and consistent with NIH definitions and requirements.

The core goal of the program is to push psychiatry and mental health research toward more precise, computationally grounded measurements of behavior. NIMH is specifically looking for projects that apply computational approaches to create parametrically detailed behavioral assays. In practical terms, the agency wants tasks, paradigms, or assessment frameworks where behavior can be measured in a fine-grained way and mapped onto formal computational models with interpretable parameters. These behavioral assays should cover domains of function that are relevant to mental health, which can include areas like decision-making, learning, reward processing, cognitive control, social interaction, affective processing, perception, motivation, or other functional domains tied to psychiatric risk and resilience.

A key emphasis in this FOA is that the work should focus on human behavior and should test computational models in healthy subjects. The intent here is to establish strong foundational measures and model-based parameters in well-characterized non-clinical samples, where confounds related to illness state, medication, or chronic impairment are minimized. By validating the tasks and computational interpretations in healthy participants first, researchers can create clearer benchmarks for what "typical" parameter distributions look like and can better understand reliability, sensitivity, and the specific behavioral signatures their models capture.

NIMH also signals a strong forward-looking translational motivation. For future applications, the institute is particularly interested in behavioral measures, computational models, and model parameters that can be back-translated from humans to animals. This means the agency is encouraging investigators to design behavioral assays and computational constructs that can be implemented in analogous forms in animal models, so that the same kinds of computational readouts can be compared across species. The larger strategic value of this is to strengthen pre-clinical therapeutics development by linking animal work more directly to human-relevant behavioral constructs, rather than relying only on broad symptom proxies. In addition, NIMH notes interest in models that can be extended to clinical populations in the future, even if the immediate proposed studies focus on healthy participants. In other words, applicants should be thinking ahead about how their tasks and parameters could eventually be used to characterize psychiatric populations, stratify individuals, track treatment effects, or connect behavior to mechanisms.

Eligibility is broad and includes many common U.S. applicant types such as state, county, and local governments; public and state-controlled and private institutions of higher education; independent school districts; special district governments; and public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities. The opportunity is also open to federally recognized Native American tribal governments and other Native American tribal organizations, as well as nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status (as long as they are not institutions of higher education), for-profit organizations (other than small businesses), and small businesses. The FOA explicitly highlights additional eligible applicant categories such as Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), Hispanic-serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), faith-based or community-based organizations, regional organizations, eligible federal agencies, U.S. territories or possessions, and even non-U.S. entities (foreign organizations). This breadth suggests NIMH is aiming to attract a wide range of methodological expertise and populations, including applicants positioned to bring diverse perspectives and settings to computational behavioral measurement work.

From the published source data, the original closing date listed for this opportunity was 2023-09-25, and the announcement was created on 2021-07-07. The award ceiling and expected number of awards are not specified in the provided details, which is not unusual in some summaries and typically means applicants should consult the full FOA text and NIH budget guidance for allowable costs, project period expectations, and any institute-specific funding considerations. Overall, this program is best understood as an invitation to build and rigorously test computationally explicit behavioral assays in humans, generate interpretable model parameters tied to mental-health relevant functioning, and do so in a way that supports eventual cross-species translation and later extension into clinical research and therapeutics development.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Computationally-Defined Behaviors in Psychiatry (R21 Clinical Trial Optional)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.242.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2021-07-07.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2023-09-25. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

Apply for PAR 21 264

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