Accelerating the development of bioelectronic medicine: outcomes and innovations from the NIH SPARC initiative

The NIH Common Fund's SPARC (Stimulating Peripheral Activity to Relieve Conditions) program was launched in 2015 to catalyze bioelectronic medicine by advancing foundational knowledge of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and enabling clinical translation of novel bioelectronic medicines. While the program officially ended in 2025, activities related to the program are still ongoing through no-cost extensions, data sharing, and derivative efforts. We provide here an overview of the major outcomes of SPARC under its four focus areas: Anatomical and Functional Mapping, Technology Development, Translational Research, and Data/Modeling Infrastructure. In the Anatomical and Functional Mapping focus areas, teams generated cross-species, cross-organ ANS connectivity datasets, detailed nerve anatomy, along with detailed maps and connectivity resources to support query, visualization, and hypothesis-generation. Under the Technology Development focus area, teams developed new tools for recording and stimulating autonomic pathways and built computational pipelines for realistic neuromodulation simulations. Within the Translational Research, teams conducted pre-clinical and clinical proof-of-concept studies and used prize-driven efforts to accelerate clinically ready neuromodulation solutions. Data/Modeling Infrastructure teams built a durable open-science ecosystem enabling FAIR sharing, exploration, and reuse of SPARC datasets, models, and workflows by the broader community. Together, SPARC's integrated approach has lowered barriers to precision neuromodulation research and established reusable resources to sustain the field beyond the program.