Monitor Neural Activity

Project Summary Uncertainty is an often pervasive, stressful experience that arises when making judgments about others' beliefs, intentions, or emotions (i.e., ambiguous social situations). Excessive uncertainty can have pernicious effects upon memory, mood, and physical and mental outcomes. Yet, we understand little of how judgments of social certainty form over time, the neural circuitry underlying these judgments, and how these judgments meaningfully differ from non-social uncertainty sources (e.g., calculations, perceptions).

Hypothalamic tanycytes have limited postnatal neurogenic competence, but the extrinsic and intrinsic factors that promote this are not well understood. My predoctoral research identified a defined developmental window during which neurogenic competence is lost from hypothalamic tanycytes. I have also identified the neurogenic bHLH transcription factor Ascl1 as a candidate activator of neurogenic competence in tanycytes and identified Shh signaling as potentially promoting the survival of tanycyte-derived neurons.

PROJECT SUMMARY Poor sleep is common in neurodevelopment disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), with up to 93% of ASD individuals reporting sleep problems. These problems worsen quality of life and core symptoms of ASD and likely precede an ASD diagnosis, suggesting they start early in life. The potential adverse impact of early life sleep disruption is supported by animal model studies showing long term functional consequences on behavior. However, little is known about the underlying molecular consequences of sleep deprivation (SD) early in life.

Project Summary Visual attention differences are a promising diagnostic marker for autism spectrum conditions (ASC). Yet, despite mounting evidence for group-level differences in visual attention, particularly for visual attention directed toward socially relevant information (i.e., “social gaze”) between autistic and non-autistic individuals, the source of gaze differences in autism remains unclear. Prominent theories of social gaze differences focus heavily on a particular category of visual stimuli, namely: faces.

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT After a stroke, walking ability can be compromised, which can lead to reduced quality of life and decreased ability to perform activities of daily living. Post-stroke walking recovery is mediated by nervous system reorganization (e.g., neuroplasticity), however our understanding of these processes related to improvements in walking function are limited due to the neurophysiological complexity of walking itself. Additionally, current practices of assessing stroke- impacted neuroplasticity are heavily focused on the motor system.

PROJECT SUMMARY The goal of this project is to provide the building blocks for an independent research program focused on the neural basis of reward-based memory across distributed brain networks. Humans and other animals experience events in the moments they occur while the brain has evolved powerful neural processes to re-activate the neurons encoding these events in the ‘time in-between’.

Project Summary The long-term objective of this project is to develop a revolutionary quantum mechanical solid-state magnetometer designed to non-invasively detect femtoTesla (fT) scale magnetic fields derived from the brain’s electrical activities during natural human experiences. The project has been designed to address the vision of the

Abstract Advances in non-invasive monitoring of human brain function under normal and pathological conditions will lead to breakthroughs in our understanding of the brain in health and disease, and lead to the development of devices available for everyday use, with applications such as monitoring patients with brain injuries or neurodegenerative disease, studies of brain function in natural environments, and brain-computer interfaces.

Project Summary Single cell transcriptomics has transformed the field of brain cell type classification, allowing simultaneous measurement of enough molecular features from enough cells to categorize neurons quantitively and with high conservation across brain areas and species.

Abstract: In this proposed research project, we seek to develop an advanced brain SPECT system that offers a unique hyperspectral imaging capability substantiated by an excellent energy resolution (e.g.,