Funded Projects

The purpose of this collaborative project is to study neuronal mechanisms associated with social stress. In particular we will test whether the energy producing systems, known as mitochondria, in a specific set of brain cells are important to confer resilience to stressful stimuli. This research may lead to treatments of stress and anxiety disorders. 

Our goal is to develop the next generation of neural interfaces that match the resolution and performance of the biological circuitry. We will focus on two signature efforts to spearhead the necessary advances: high-density wire bundles for electrical recording and stimulation, and analog and digital bi-directional retinal prostheses for restoration of vision.

The Stanford Brain Rejuvenation Project is an initiative by leading aging researchers, neuroscientists, chemists, and engineers to understand the basis of brain aging and rejuvenation and how they relate to neurodegeneration.

Combining a detailed understanding of brain circuits with technology that modulates neural activity to develop improved ways of treating mental health conditions.

The goal is to forge an inter-disciplinary collaboration between physicists, biologists, chemists, and translational medical scientists by inventing new ways of visualizing the brain, from individual molecules to neuronal circuits to entire brain regions, from a normally functioning neuron to a diseased brain.

Creating an incubator for next-generation neural interface platforms.

Developing technology to interface with the brain and create intelligent prosthetics.

Breaches barriers in our understanding of stroke to develop therapies and improve stroke recovery.

Our ability to detect and interpret sounds relies on specialized sensory cells within the snail-shaped hearing organ of the inner ear—the cochlea. These hair cells sense physical movement and then convert that mechanical stimulus into a biological signal that we perceive as sound. These mechano-sensory cells perform this task within microseconds and can do so for sub-nanomechanical stimuli.

My proposed visit to the Van De Ville lab is centered on the idea to expand our methods beyond brain tumors to other neurological diseases using the Van De Ville lab’s expertise in neuro-imaging. Imaging genomics has been focused mainly on oncology; however, other neurological diseases can be studied in the same way.

Brain data analyses involves many steps and every step is prone to errors and uncertainties. Ignoring uncertainties can potentially leading to overconfident conclusions. To improve reproducibility it is important to propagate errors throughout the anlaysis.

Humans naturally learn to generate and process complicated sequential patterns. For example, a concert pianist can learn an enormous repertoire of memorized music. In neuroscience, it is widely thought that synaptic plasticity – the process by which the connections between neurons change response to experience – underlies such remarkable behavior.

Human movement results from the coordination of muscles, tendons, joints, and other physiological elements.

The NeuroPlant Initiative aims to leverage a botanical armamentarium to manipulate the brain — by building a pipeline to explore chemicals synthesized in plants as potential new treatments for neurological disease and as a window into the chemistry of the brain.

Investigating how the brain develops from infancy to adulthood across species, focusing on how the interplay between structural development, functional development, experience and affect brain computations and ultimately behavior.

Developing brain organoids – three dimensional brain tissues grown in the lab – to study human brain development, evolution and neuropsychiatric disorders.

Creating new tools to help neuroscientists bridge the study of genes and proteins operating in the brain to the study of brain circuits and systems, which could lead to a deeper understanding of brain function and disease.

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.

Schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease second only to malaria in its human health and economic impact on tropical nations.

Developing brain organoids and assembloids – three dimensional brain tissues grown in the lab – to study human brain development, evolution and neuropsychiatric disorders.

Creating new tools to help neuroscientists bridge the study of genes and proteins operating in the brain to the study of brain circuits and systems, which could lead to a deeper understanding of brain function and disease.