![](https://webharvest.gov/congress115th/20190111203523im_/http://commonfund.nih.gov/sites/default/files/GettyImages_500720519.jpg)
Program Snapshot
All organs in the body are stimulated by nerves, which send signals that affect the organ’s function. Methods and medical devices that modulate these nerve signals are a potentially powerful way to treat many diseases and conditions, such as hypertension, heart failure, gastrointestinal disorders, type II diabetes, inflammatory disorders, and more. The Common Fund’s Stimulating Peripheral Activity to Relieve Conditions (SPARC) aims to transform our understanding of these nerve-organ interactions and ultimately advance the neuromodulation field toward precise treatment of diseases and conditions for which conventional therapies fall short.
![SPARC Female Neuron](/congress115th/20190111203523im_/http://commonfund.nih.gov/sites/default/files/SPARC%20Female%20Neuron-477462047.jpg)
- Capitalize on recent technology advances and anticipated new technology developments facilitated by the program to deliver detailed, predictive, functional and anatomical neural circuit maps that illustrate how peripheral nerves control various internal organ or organ system functions.
- Leverage recent biological discoveries to develop or improve technologies encompassing a wide range of capabilities and spanning numerous fields (e.g., device design and manufacture, bioengineering, electrical engineering, virology, and surface chemistry) that enable precise measurement and manipulation of nerve-organ interactions and their associated functions.
- Establish effective public-private partnerships to explore new therapeutic uses for existing approved neuromodulation technologies, and collaborations to discover the functional impact of neuromodulation therapies.
- Assemble data from other SPARC initiatives into a publicly available and centralized resource for the wider research community to access as well as provide new computer modeling methods and user-friendly computational tools.
SPARC Awards: Other Transactions (OT2 and OT3) and Cooperative Agreements (U18 and U01)
Use the organ icons below to explore the SPARC research portfolio.
Please be aware that some projects span multiple target organs.
This page last reviewed on January 7, 2019