Funded Projects

Intraparenchymal transplantation of human neural stem cells (hNSCs) shows therapeutic potential for patients with chronic ischemic stroke. However, the underlying mechanisms of how hNSCs drive recovery remain elusive.

The cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) influences the development, maturation, and aging of the nervous system in ways that are not fully understood. TurboID, a synthetically engineered enzyme, can label CSF proteins to track their sources and development, providing insight into the roles the CSF plays in development, health, and disease.

This project aims to identify brain-based EEG markers of self-efficacy and self-regulation, which are the two critical treatment targets for people with chronic pain and comorbid heavy alcohol use. Such objective markers will assist in accurate diagnosis and assessment of treatment responses, which may enable a precision medicine approach for chronic pain and substance use disorders. 

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a complex, heterogeneous neurodegenerative disorder whose prevalence is increasing rapidly. Not only do patients experience motor symptoms, but many experience debilitating nonmotor symptoms caused by peripheral degeneration in the autonomic nervous system, including atrophy of the vagus nerve, and the enteric nervous system.

RNA sensors are a cutting edge tool in synthetic biology for probing complex molecular pathways and creating “smart” molecular circuits in cells. This team leverages state-of-the-art synthetic biology tools to understand how oligodendrocytes contribute to Alzheimer’s disease and other demyelinating disorders.

A major goal in systems neuroscience is to discover how patterns of activity in neural circuits produce and regulate behavior. Using synthetic biology tools, this team aims to develop first-in-class genetically encoded voltage integrators (GEVIns) capable of sensing and responding to both activation and inhibition of neurons.

The ketogenic diet, fasting, and ketone supplements switch the body's fuel source from carbs to fats, a state known as ketosis. This switch can be good for your brain, helping to keep it healthy and resilient to damage. In ketosis, your liver makes a special fat-derived fuel called beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB).

The ability of an infant to distinguish caregivers from strangers is fundamental for survival early in life. Across many taxa, newborns use olfactory cues to recognize caregivers. Caregiver odors induce proximity-seeking behavior and alleviate stress in neonatal mammals, including humans. Since all altricial animals rely on parental care for survival and children with developmental disorders (e.g., fragile X syndrome and autism) often have deficits in the olfactory system, it is essential to understand the mechanisms for linking caregiver odors with affiliative behavior.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease, characterized by progressive motor deficits such as tremor, muscle stiffness, and slowness of movement, affecting six million people worldwide. Despite ongoing efforts to discover the mechanisms underlying this disease, PD remains an incurable disorder.

Brain resilience—the ability to withstand adverse outcomes despite significant risk factors—is crucial in late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD), where the Apolipoprotein E4 (APOE4) gene is a major risk factor. Carrying APOE4 increases AD risk up to 15-fold compared to the ApoE3 allele.

Brain development is a complex process where cells must self-renew and differentiate at the right place and right time. Gene regulation during development involves sequences in the genome which affect the expression of genes locally, and transcription factors, proteins that bind these sequences and activate genes throughout the genome. At active regulatory sequences and genes, DNA is accessible to these proteins, while inactive DNA is tightly compacted.

Studying the brain circuits involved in aggression will help us tackle big social issues like hate crimes, antisocial behavior, and violence. Imagine if we could better understand why some people act aggressively towards others—we could use this knowledge to protect people from harm and create a world where everyone feels safe. Chemicals in our brain, such as dopamine and serotonin, affect neural activity to modulate behavior. When we experience something rewarding, like having good food or meeting friends, dopamine is released in the brain.

Over half of pediatric stroke survivors develop cognitive impairment, limiting their educational attainment and imposing significant financial and emotional burdens on survivors and their families. However, children’s chronic cognitive symptoms are poorly explained by stroke size or location.

Commonly used measures of interoception—the brain’s perception of the body’s internal state—only subjectively capture the body’s interpretation of hunger and satiety signaling. The Coleman Lab is developing objective, noninvasive, electrophysiologic approaches to assess human hunger and satiety signaling and how external senses modulate this signaling.

This project focuses on the brain’s “glycocalyx”—a complex network of sugars on the cell surface, which plays a crucial role in many brain functions including how neurons connect and communicate and how memories are formed and stored.

In epilepsy, a disease affecting 1% of all children, brain networks undergo maladaptive change (plasticity) and become predisposed to seizures. In the 30-40% of children with epilepsy who have medication-resistant seizures, the seizures become more frequent and severe over time, with concurrent loss of cognitive ability.

This team is developing a cutting-edge mixed reality application to improve the targeted delivery of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). TMS is increasingly being used as a treatment for psychiatric conditions, but the success of the treatment depends critically on its precise delivery.

There are over 6000 rare diseases which together affect millions of Americans. Many ultra-rare diseases are ‘orphan’ diseases, without any viable treatment strategies, one of these being human RhoBTB2 variants associated with severe developmental epileptic encephalopathy (DEE64).

This study will introduce a vascular-like electronic system that merges seamlessly with neural organoids, establishing an integrated vascular-electronic-neural network. This envisaged platform holds the promise of heralding a transformative phase in the evolution of human neural organoid research and elucidating the fundamental understanding on the roles of oxygen and nutrient perfusion during neural development.

Myelin, traditionally thought of as the brain's electrical insulator, has emerged as an active and dynamic regulator of brain functions including neuroprotection, learning, and memory. Myelin dysfunction and loss is increasingly found to be central to brain aging and neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's.

Maintaining the health and function of the aging brain is crucial to improving the quality of older people’s lives and reducing societal burden. Aging is often accompanied by a decline in memory for life events (episodic memory), especially in those at risk for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Yet some at-risk individuals manage to maintain memory function, which raises important questions about the brain mechanisms that underly memory resilience.

This proposal addresses three interconnected, yet independent aims focused on the neural mechanisms implicated in age-associated miscarriages. First, the proposal aims to construct a comprehensive neuro-uterine atlas delineating neuronal subtypes innervating the uterus, elucidating how innervation patterns and transcriptome profiles evolve with age. Second, the proposal aims to implement cutting-edge tissue clearing techniques on extracted uteri to discern alterations in uterine innervation patterns and signaling across the rodent estrous cycle and the first trimester of pregnancy.