Funded Awards

Neuroimaging methods such as functional MRI and magneto- / electroencephalography (MEG/EEG) cannot directly reveal causal relationships between regional brain activity and behavior.

Motivation and Objectives Why are ion channels localized in subcellular dendritic compartments and is there a tight coupling of the observed localization with neuron function?

The underlying mechanisms of brain stimulation in humans are poorly understood, especially at the level of gene expression.

The objective of this project is to develop new bioanalytical methods for exploring brain chemistry dynamics in vivo. Monitoring the concentration dynamics of neurochemicals in vivo is vital for studying brain function, diseases, and treatments.

Cardiac arrest in infants is a medical emergency requiring rapid resuscitation to restore circulation. However, resuscitation often results in significant brain injury, caused by ischemia/reperfusion injury.

PROJECT SUMMARY Identifying how neurons are connected to each other in the brain is an important and necessary step towards understanding how brain activity gives rise to behavior, and how it is perturbed by disease.

Project Summary Cell signaling pathways in the brain are an essential part of a complex system regulating the activity and coordination of neuronal networks.

Project Summary Pharmacological probes are widely used to study the nervous system. Despite often exhibiting exquisite specificity for target receptors, due to diffusion, traditional small molecule drugs act slowly and with spatial imprecision.

Motor neurons connect to muscles and comprise the major output of the nervous system. Patterns of neural activity in motor neurons cause temporally precise muscle contractions, producing coordinated and flexible behavior.

PROJECT SUMMARY/ ABSTRACT Advances in neurotechnologies are producing large and complex datasets at unprecedented rate.

PROJECT SUMMARY Understanding how information is processed in the mammalian neocortex has been a longstanding question in neuroscience. While the action potential is the fundamental bit of information, how these spikes encode representations and drive behavior remains unclear.

Project Summary How do distributed neural circuits drive purposeful movements from the complex musculoskeletal system?

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT In humans, damage to a brain region called the retrosplenial cortex leads to pronounced spatial disorientation and severe retrograde and anterograde memory deficits.

Non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) has attracted considerable interest in the cognitive neuroscience community, providing an important basic research tool to study brain function, with emerging clinical applications to enhance function in individuals with neurological disorders.

Abstract Precisely timed activation of genetically targeted cells is a powerful tool for studying neural circuits. Neuronal modulation (activating or inhibiting select neurons) allows us to investigate how neural activity causes changes in animal behavior.

Feedback and feedforward gating of sensory signaling through timing in the thalamocortical loop Nearly all sensory experience begins in the periphery, generating sensory signals travelling through the thalamus before reaching neocortex.