Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute announces third round of seed grants

By Nathan Collins

Karen Parker
Karen Parker is among the faculty members awarded grants from the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute.

The Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute has announced its third round of seed grants to six interdisciplinary teams of researchers who collectively span departments from neurosurgery to music.

First awarded in 2015, the seed grants go to teams whose members bring together varied approaches and methods to the table to solve problems related to neuroscience. The grants are intended to help launch new collaborations and pilot risky but potentially high-reward research.

This year, the grants will go to 18 researchers from 13 departments in the schools of Engineering, Humanities and Sciences and Medicine. Their projects include the development of injectable photovoltaic cells that could be used to improve deep brain stimulation, a study of the effects of a particular gene on schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and an effort to understand how emotional affect is transmitted through speech and speech-like sounds such as whistling and singing.

Quantifying audio-vocal affect in human social communication

Sensory processing in a pre-seizure state

Genetic tools to determine circuit-specific roles of myelination

Investigating the role of a human-specific repeat element in neuropsychiatric disease risk and cerebellar function

Ultrasonic neural control and neuroimaging in the awake, mobile and behaving small rodent

Injectable photovoltaics for a wireless, gliosis-free neural stimulation interface