Substance Use and Abuse, Risky Decision Making and HIV/AIDS (R21)

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Purpose. This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for R21 applications encourages exploratory, descriptive or hypothesis-generating research to understand the ways that people make decisions about engaging in behaviors that impact the risk of acquiring or transmitting HIV, or to adhere to treatments for HIV. Decision making processes may contribute to both substance use/abuse and other HIV acquisition or transmission risks. A better understanding of decision making processes in the context of brain neural networks and their associated functions would lead to the development of better strategies to reduce the frequency of HIV-risk behaviors. Therefore, this FOA encourages applications to study 1) cognitive, motivational or emotional mechanisms and/or 2) brain neuroendocrine and reinforcement systems that related to HIV-risk behaviors or treatment non-compliance. Interdisciplinary studies that incorporate approaches from psychology, economics, anthropology, sociology, decision sciences, neuroscience and computational modeling are encouraged. In no cases, should research involving animals be proposed. Such research would be considered non-responsive to this or the companion R01 and R03 FOAs . Mechanism of Support. This FOA will use the NIH Exploratory/Developmental (R21) award mechanism and runs in parallel with FOAs of identical scientific scope, PA-11-006, that encourages applications under the R01 and PA-11-008 that encourages applications under the R03 mechanism. Funds Available and Anticipated Number of Awards. Because the nature and scope of the proposed research will vary from application to application, it is anticipated that the size and duration of each award will also vary. The total amount awarded and the number of awards will depend upon quality, duration, and costs of the applications received.

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