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This request for applications (RFA) was intended to advance understanding of the circuit basis for behavioral and cognitive alterations relevant to autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The goal was to determine the downstream consequences of autism-associated genetic perturbations on neural circuitry, with an emphasis on how collections of neurons operate in concert during autism-relevant behaviors. The program sought applications for investigations of neural circuits in awake, behaving rodent models of autism. SFARI worked closely with awarded investigative teams on all major aspects of the project, including selection of rodent models, data coordination and dissemination. Priority was given to projects focused on behaviors for which the underlying circuits are reasonably well established, with experiments including electrical or optical multi-neuronal recordings within microcircuits or macrocircuits. Studies needed to be centered on brain activity in awake, behaving animals. Recordings needed to be carried out in two or more rodent models of autism to find commonalities and distinctions between models. Competitive applications were expected from labs proposing to apply their established technical capabilities to the study of autism rodent models.

SPARK is a SFARI initiative intended to recruit, engage and retain a community of 50,000 individuals with autism, and their family members, in the United States. This research cohort includes children and adults who span the full autism spectrum and individuals of all socio-demographic backgrounds. Through this RFA, SFARI supported additional U.S.-based clinical sites for the purpose of recruiting individuals with ASD and their family members to participate in SPARK. Selected sites received funding on an annual basis and were responsible for recruitment planning, outreach and recruitment, return of results, data entry, and tracking progress over time. SPARK participants contribute medical and behavioral information online, collect and mail in saliva samples for DNA analysis, and have the opportunity to participate in additional research studies through the study's research match program. Individuals who enroll in SPARK have access to both aggregate and individual behavioral results from their participation, and can elect to receive genetic results should a genetic cause of their autism be identified.

Grants awarded through the Cross-Species Studies of ASD RFA are intended to support multi-disciplinary teams of PIs with expertise in both human and animal research to perform coordinated cross-species studies to advance our understanding of ASD-relevant behaviors and their underlying neurobiological mechanisms, with the potential for developing novel biomarkers or interventions. The program supports research on ASD-relevant behaviors and their underlying neurobiological mechanisms conducted in parallel across human and non-human animals. Because the focus is on translation across species, in addition to being relevant to ASD, the behaviors under study need to be conserved across species and able to be measured objectively and quantitatively. Three domains SFARI recognizes as fitting these criteria include sensory function, motor function and sleep, although other behaviors are considered if there is a strong argument that they meet these criteria. Beyond measuring behaviors in parallel across species, special emphasis is placed on furthering our understanding of the underlying neurobiological mechanisms with an eye towards developing novel biomarkers or interventions.

The goal of the Pilot Progression Award is to provide continuing support for projects initiated during SFARI Pilot awards that have advanced significantly and produced insights that justify an extension. This mechanism is intended for projects that generated promising preliminary data during their initial Pilot funding and remain relevant to autism spectrum disorders research but may not yet be suited for funding from other sources like NIH. The Pilot Progression Award is not meant to provide additional time and budget to support the completion of original Pilot aims, but instead to support extensions or expansions of these projects, such as expanding the number of genetic models studied, moving to the next logical level of mechanistic understanding, or broadening experiments to include additional behaviors or brain regions. Applicants are encouraged to provide evidence of attempts to obtain funding for proposed work from other sources. Applications will be reviewed first by the SFARI science team, and then a subset will be peer-reviewed by an external review panel.

The Linking Early Neurodevelopment to Neural Circuit Outcomes RFA aims to bridge the gap in our understanding of whether and how developmental phenotypes caused by autism risk gene mutation lead to altered circuit formation and function. The objective of this RFA is to bridge this critical gap in understanding how developmental events impact later processes of circuit formation and function in ASD. SFARI strongly encourages proposals involving close collaboration between investigators from a range of backgrounds, such as developmental neurobiologists and circuit neuroscientists, in order to convincingly demonstrate causal links between disparate phenotypes in the chosen model(s). The program envisions bringing together scientists from a range of backgrounds to collaboratively conduct thorough characterizations of how early developmental events result in alterations to ASD-relevant neural circuitry in carefully chosen models.