Funded Projects

This team will use their Neuroscience:Translate award to develop a large-scale bi-directional neural interface that will restore high-fidelity vision to people blinded by retinal degeneration.

This team will use their Neuroscience:Translate award to employ a novel therapeutic technique to correct pathogenic mutations causing Parkinson’s disease.

This team will use their Neuroscience:Translate award to develop an entirely new class of ischemic stroke treatment device that will lead to improved clot extraction to improve the success of endovascular thrombectomy.

This team will use their Neuroscience:Translate award to develop the first wearable ultrasound (US) device for the treatment of inflammatory diseases, such as Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Navigation through an environment to a remembered location is a critical skill we use every day. How does our brain accomplish such a task? Over the last few decades, several lines of evidence have suggested that a brain region called medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) supports navigation by encoding information our location and movement within an environment.

Many neurological diseases feature the death of neurons, but the mechanisms that mediate cell death in these disorders are unknown. Astrogliosis, the response of a cell-type called “astrocytes” to injury, is common to most diseases of the central nervous system (CNS), and recent studies in our lab suggest that some reactive astrocytes may release a protein that is potently toxic to neurons.

Understanding the relationship between structure and function in the human brain is a key interest in neuroscience. In recent years the focus is turning to understanding the role of the white matter in human cognition, brain function and neurological disorders.

Electrodes implanted in the brain have great potential, with applications in neurodegenerative disease, brain-computer interfaces, and more. However, the presence of electrodes in brain tissue causes a response known as gliosis, in which a scar forms around the electrode, reducing its effectiveness and access to neurons.

Stroke is the main cause of adult disability; 80% of survivors sustain motor (movement) deficits that interfere with activities of daily living. There exists no proven therapeutic strategy for motor recovery of the upper extremity following stroke.

A hallmark of the motor system is its ability to execute different skilled movements as the situation warrants, thanks to the flexibility of motor learning. Despite many behavioral studies on motor learning, the neural mechanisms of motor memory formation and modification remain unclear.

In the course of everyday functioning, animals (including humans) are constantly faced with real-world environments in which they are required to shift unpredictably between multiple, sometimes unfamiliar, tasks. But how brains support this rapid adaptation of decision making schema, and how they allocate resources towards learning novel tasks is largely unknown both neuroscientifically and algorithmically.

Yi Lui's project aims to use deep brain microstimulation (DBMS), which causes even less brain damage and has higher spatial resolution than DBS, for memory recovery.

Dr. Darian Hadjiabadi aims to identify higher-order features of neuronal circuits responsible for seizure initiation and propagation by quantifying mesoscale-network reorganization in genetic models of zebra sh that faithfully recapitulate seizure dynamics in humans.

Dr. Brandon Jay Bhasin will use engineering principles from modern control theory, experimental neuroscience and computational neuroscience to significantly advance understanding of how feedback driven plasticity in a tractable neural circuit is orchestrated across multiple synaptic sites and over various timescales so that circuit dynamics are changed to improve performance.

Project's stimulation method may provide a powerful tool to reduce disability after a stroke, and the wearable form factor allows users to receive intensive therapy during their normal daily routine

Developing an automated seizure detection and localization system based on deep neural networks, EEG data, and real-time video with the goal to dramatically increase neurologist diagnostic capabilities while improving quality of care.

Developing a protein-engineered nerve implant that mimics the biochemical and mechanical cues of native tissue in order to enhance the potential for neural regeneration following injury.

The project aims to alleviate this bottleneck by developing a weak supervision system that optimally deals with time-series data and takes advantage of multiple data modalities.

Developing a platform of biocompatible nanoparticles that uncage a drug payload upon ultrasound application.

Behavioral state—such as alertness or exhaustion—dramatically impacts how our brains function. Yet, in spite of the key role that it plays in cognition, how behavioral state influences brain function remains a central mystery in neuroscience.