Browse wide-ranging research at the frontiers of neuroscience supported by Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute grants, awards, and training fellowships.
Projects
Tracking Parkinson’s Disease with transformer models of everyday looking behaviors
It is more common nowadays for people to have their own wearable devices to measure physiological signals like heart rate and respiration to keep track of physical diseases. However, monitoring decline in cognitive functions or development of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s (PD), is still complex and tricky.
Microglia-Mediated Astrocyte Activation in Chronic Pain
While acute pain is an important biological signal in response to injured tissue, chronic pain occurs when the pain signaling outlasts the initial injury and has deleterious effects on health and quality of life. Chronic pain represents an enormous public health burden with few therapeutic options.
Developing a dopamine and neural systems model of anhedonia
More than 60 million people in the United States currently suffer from a serious mental illness, and the associated financial, productivity and human suffering costs are only projected to rise in the near future.
Cognitive remediation of distraction to reduce striatal dysregulation and improve clinical outcomes for individuals with psychosis
The ability to ignore distracters is impaired for individuals with psychosis. This impairment negatively impacts treatment effectiveness and the ability of individuals with psychosis to function fully.
Simultaneous 15O-PET and MRI of cerebral blood flow and cerebrovascular reserve
Continuous blood flow to the brain is needed for neural tissues to survive. Noninvasive imaging of cerebral blood flow (CBF) in humans is challenging, but is critically useful to understand normal brain physiology and to help patients with cerebrovascular disorders such as stroke.
Determining the microstructural basis of diffusion MRI
The aim of this project is to improve the accuracy and reliability of dMRI fiber tracking through comparison with a gold standard that unambiguously relates the measured water diffusion patterns to the underlying tissue structure.
Sustained release of growth factors from bioengineered synthetic "cells" for treating spinal cord injury
Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a debilitating condition that affects young adults between the ages of 16 and 30, which leads to lifelong medical and financial burdens. SCI still results in a decreased quality-of-life and lower life expectancy for patients. This is due in part to the lack of a regenerative-based therapeutic approach to treating SCI in the clinic.
Reprogramming organismal lifespan through modulation of neuropeptidergic circuits
Aging is the number one risk factor for debilitating diseases such as neurodegeneration. Can manipulation of neurons in the brain alter the body’s physiological state to extend lifespan? Neuropeptides are key modulators of short-term homeostasis such as feeding, temperature, and sleep.
How do Schwann cells sort and myelinate axons in the developing peripheral nervous system?
Schwann cells (SCs) sort and myelinate peripheral axons, and impairments in either process can cause long-term disability. There are no therapeutic strategies for targeting SC dysfunction, underscoring the need to investigate mechanisms of sorting and myelination. Both processes require highly motile SC cytoplasmic protrusions, but the basis of this motility is unclear.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Epileptogenesis
Absence epilepsy is a form of pediatric epilepsy which causes seizures with brief lapses in awareness. Electron microscopy results in a murine model of absence epilepsy support the hypothesis that maladaptive myelination plays a role in disease progression.
Wearable stimulation for sensorimotor rehabilitation
Vibrotactile stimulation provides powerful somatosensory and proprioceptive input to the nervous system.
Mechanisms of myelin membrane expansion
Myelin is the protective covering that surrounds nerve fibers to accelerate communication between different parts of the nervous system. Damage to myelin occurs in diseases such as multiple sclerosis, which compromises nerve signaling and impairs motor and cognitive function.
Design and development of a high-performance intra-cortical speech BCI
Many neurological injuries and diseases such as brainstem stroke and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) result in severe speech impairment, drastically reducing quality of life. Recent progress in brain-computer interfaces (BCI) has allowed these individuals to communicate, but performance is still far lower than typical spoken conversation speeds.
Leveraging screenomics to identify mental illness: Detecting bipolar disorder through computational analysis of smartphone screen data
Mental illnesses like bipolar disorder affect millions of people around the world, but early symptoms are often difficult to detect. Working across the disciplines of clinical psychology, communication, and computer science, my research will develop a novel computational tool to identify signals of mania and depression in real-time.
Optimizing computational modeling of traumatic brain injury with machine learning: biomechanics and beyond
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) has become a global health hazard. If undetected, the brain damage of TBI can accumulate, calling for better TBI modeling and warning systems. TBI modeling involves three stages: head impact kinematics, brain deformation, and injuries.
Mechanistic insights into glycerophospholipid metabolism in the lysosome
Phospholipid dysregulation is implicated in the pathogenesis of lysosomal storage disorders (LSDs). We found that glycerophosphodiesters (GPDs) accumulate in lysosomes derived from Batten disease models, a life-limiting LSD whose pathological mechanism remains elusive. GPDs are the degradation products of glycerophospholipid catabolism by phospholipases.