Neural Evidence Aggregation Tool (NEAT)

Background
The Defense Sciences Office (DSO) at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of novel assessment tools to elicit and aggregate preconscious signals for determining what people believe to be true. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary or incremental improvements to the existing state of practice. The program aims to revolutionize behavioral health screening to assist clinicians, minimize long term vulnerabilities, and maximize warfighter readiness.

Work Details
The NEAT program is soliciting proposals for TA1 and TA2. TA1 efforts should address all key R&D challenges, such as developing methods for converting Topics of Interest (TOI) into stimuli designed to evoke preconscious neural processing related to a person’s knowledge of a TOI, optimizing techniques for rapid and accurate detection and signal processing of neural processes evoked by TOI-related stimuli, and creating models that produce a metric of a person’s TOI knowledge by aggregating information obtained from various Event-Related Neural Responses (ERNRs).

TA2 will provide standardized testing and evaluation infrastructures for TA1. Both TAs must assume human subject testing will be considered Human Subjects Research (HSR) and plan for the necessary Institutional Review Board (IRB) and secondary Human Research Protection Office (HRPO) reviews.

Period of Performance
The anticipated individual awards include multiple awards for Technical Area 1 and a single award for Technical Area 2. The posting date was March 11, 2022, with proposers day on March 15, 2022. The abstract due date is March 29, 2022, FAQ submission deadline is April 9, 2022, and full proposal due date is May 23, 2022.

Place of Performance
No specific geographic location(s) for contract performance were provided.