Browse wide-ranging research at the frontiers of neuroscience supported by Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute grants, awards, and training fellowships.
Projects
Elucidating the role of alternative polyadenylation in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD)
With an aging population, neurodegenerative disorders contribute increasingly to our global health burden with no cure or effective treatments. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are two neurodegenerative disorders that are distinct in clinical presentation (ALS impairs movement/breathing, whereas FTD impairs behavior/cognition).
Neuron-glia interactions in regulating protein aggregation in human cell models.
There is one characteristic of all neurodegenerative diseases: the accumulation and aggregation of abnormal proteins in the patient’s brain. These aggregations are thought to induce neuronal cell death and brain degeneration.
The origin of neurodegeneration: insight from a unique colonial chordate
With an aging population, neurodegenerative disorders contribute increasingly to our global health burden with no cure or effective treatments. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are two neurodegenerative disorders that are distinct in clinical presentation (ALS impairs movement/breathing, whereas FTD impairs behavior/cognition).
High-speed force probes for deconstructing the biophysics of mechanotransduction
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.
High-speed nanomechanical probing of auditory mechano-sensitive cells
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.
Quantitative imaging for multi-scale modeling of neurological diseases
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.
Improve reproducibility and transparency in the field of neuroimaging by applying nonparametricstatistical methods and writing R packages.
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.
Biologically plausible neural algorithms for learning structured sequences
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.