The Schmitt Program on Integrative Brain Research (SPIBR) is a campus-wide initiative to promote our understanding of the nervous system and its disorders. The Program emphasizes novel, creative, interdisciplinary, and collaborative approaches to research and training that uniquely exploits talents from multiple laboratories and crosses traditional institutional boundaries.

Despite the generally acknowledged need and interest in ground-breaking approaches to biomedical research, recognition and funding through traditional support structures such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are difficult since these projects are inherently new and untested. The SPIBR targets such high-risk but high-impact initiatives in order to generate exciting preliminary research that will in turn catalyze support by the NIH and other major sources. The wisdom of this Program's mission is apparent in the extraordinary grant acquisition rate witnessed by its supported investigators over the years.

The SPIBR accomplishes its goals through the support of new research projects, training fellowships, visiting scientists, and symposia that fall within three areas:

1. Learning, Plasticity, and Memory
2. The Senses and Behavior
3. The Neurobiology of Aging and Disease

The Program catalyzes new directions of neuroscience research within these areas through interdisciplinary and collaborative research, spanning cognitive through systems to cellular and molecular approaches.

The Program is sponsored by the Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy, the Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences, and the Center for Aging and Developmental Biology, and is supported by the Kilian J. and Caroline F. Schmitt Foundation. A Program Committee comprised of Drs. Gary Paige (Program Chair), William O'Neill (Review Chair), Elissa Newport, and Harris Gelbard governs the selection process for the support mechanisms described above. The Program is administered through the Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy.