Browse wide-ranging research at the frontiers of neuroscience supported by Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute grants, awards, and training fellowships.
Projects
Rejuvenating sleep to enhance brain resilience with age
Sleep is a critical behavioral state that fulfills essential needs for health, including clearing waste products (e.g., protein aggregates) from the brain. But sleep is not everlasting. As humans age, sleep quality strikingly deteriorates, and this decline is associated with dementias (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease).
Determining the role of circadian transcriptional control in myelin-forming precursors in neurodegeneration
The causes of neurodegenerative disorders like multiple sclerosis or Alzheimer’s disease are incompletely understood, hindering our ability to gain precise diagnoses and design effective therapeutics. Understanding how the circadian rhythms regulate myelin-forming precursors will impart unique insights into normal and aberrant myelination and will have a positive impact on developing therapeutic strategies to restructure myelin.
Answering research questions in neural control through crowdsourced challenges
Human movement results from the coordination of muscles, tendons, joints, and other physiological elements.
Modelling the Pupil Light Reflex for Non-Image Forming Vision
Although you’re aware of the light that you see, light also affects us in ways that you might not appreciate. These so called “non-image forming” (NIF) pathways were recently discovered, they start in the human eye before projecting to over a dozen brain regions. They modulate aspects of human function including our daily rhythms, our sleep patterns, the way we feel and the way we think.
Controlling schistosomiasis via CRISPR/CAS9-mediated gene drive
Schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease second only to malaria in its human health and economic impact on tropical nations.