Funded Awards

PROJECT SUMMARY  A major goal of the BRAIN initiative is to understand neuronal connectivity and plasticity in the context of  animal behavior. The functions and connectivity&

Project Summary/Abstract The distributed brain network of the hippocampus supports memory and related cognitive abilities. Disruptions of this network occur in many neurological disorders such as epilepsy, brain injury, and neurodegenerative disease.

Summary While glial research has advanced in rodent models, significantly less progress has been made in understanding human-specific diversity of glia at a molecular and a functional level, both during development and in adulthood.

We experience the world as a continuous sequence of events, but we remember the events as segmented episodes (e.g., my sister’s wedding). During encoding, we associate a sequence of relevant events and segment deviant events.

Project Summary Approximately, 40% of TBI patients discharged from the hospital will develop long-term disability with 70% experiencing chronic cognitive impairments that disrupt vocational, social, and emotional functioning.

Playing a game of chess, driving a car, or even reading this sentence all require that the brain retain and integrate information over short periods of time. This retaining and integration of information is accomplished by working memory.

Perceptual decision-making is a complex cognitive function critical for health, reproductive success, and survival. In this process, an informed choice based on sensory evidence is made through engagement of circuits across the brain.

Project Summary (Overall: Cracking the Olfactory Code) Sensation drives perception, which informs decisions and actions. Olfaction is the main sense used by most animals to interact with the environment.

Neuroscientific data contain information from an incredible diversity of species, are generated by a plethora of devices, and encapsulate the results of scientific thinking and decision making.

Neuromodulation is crucial for information processing throughout the brain. Neuromodulators influence neuronal function by acting through G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) to alter neuronal excitability and synaptic transmission, which can then affect circuit functions.

Project Summary The overall premise of this proposal is to understand how the transformation of the signals from proprioceptive afferents within muscles leads to the representation of movements in somatosensory cortex.

Abstract Synaptic transmission is mainly mediated by classical neurotransmitters such as glutamate and g-amino butyric acid (GABA) which transduce fast information flow in the brain. This process is tightly regulated by neuromodu- lators including monoamines and neuropeptides.

PROJECT SUMMARY Synaptic dysfunction is a common feature of neuropsychiatric disease. For example, a hallmark of age-related neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s is synaptic fibrilization and aggregation of key proteins that participate in synapse and cell loss.

Optogenetics and chemo-optogenetics are powerful tools for modulating cell activities with light.

PROJECT SUMMARY In this proposal we aim to identify gene regulatory elements that permit the targeting and manipulation of brain circuit models of human brain function.

The initiation and maintenance of organized movement through the basal ganglia is strongly influenced by its feed-forward and feedback inhibitory architecture. The substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc) and pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN) contribute to the overall output of the basal ganglia.

Project Abstract Essential Tremor (ET) is a progressive disease that leads to significant disability and markedly diminished quality of life.

This proposed project focuses on quantifying the spatial and temporal diversity in cortical oxygen metabolism and neurovascular coupling, and informing next generation of biophysical models of the Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) measurements by integr

Microstimulation has been an invaluable tool for neuroscience researchers to infer functional connections between brain structures or causal links between structure and behavior.

Abstract  Understanding the exact cell-­type composition in the different regions of the human brain is a fundamental step  when trying to integrate physiological, behavioral, neur