Funded Projects

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.

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.

We propose a new line of research whose goal is to examine the druggability of a protein-protein interface involving ApoE, an apolipoprotein whose gene variants represent the strongest genetic risk factor for AD.

People with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) have different types of bacteria in their guts compared to people without neurological diseases. We will study which gut bacteria for people with PD to gain a better understanding of how gut bacteria contribute to inflammation in the body and in the brain or people with this condition. 

We propose to apply mass spectrometry techniques to measure BHB-Phe and other KD metabolites in children undergoing KD for refractory epilepsy at Stanford. Further, in a mouse model of refractory genetic epilepsy, we will compare targeted BHB-Phe treatment to full KD treatment using transcriptomics, EEG assessment of seizures and cognitive testing.

Why do all our brains mature and age in different ways, leading to different cognitive and behavioral outcomes? We envision a novel method that “copies” the information from the RNAs made by the neurons to sensor RNAs we artificially introduce into live animals. 

In this study, we aim to (i) perform a feasibility study to determine the acceptance and feasibility of performing such recordings in the AN and ARFID eating disorders population and (ii) test the hypothesis that the electrophysiologic monitoring of the brain and stomach is associated with a clinically validated behavioral measure of interoception involving water distention of the stomach.

    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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This proposal brings together faculty with this diverse expertise to develop the first gold standard test of auditory-vocal affect. Once developed, validated, and normed, we will deploy this test in the clinical context of autism to quantify impairments and direct neurobiological investigation.

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.

Vibrotactile stimulation provides powerful somatosensory and proprioceptive input to the nervous system.

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.

We will comprehensively define the gene network associated with mitochondrial dysfunction in Parkinson's disease using a cutting-edge technology, CRISPR, to understand how these nerve cells die in PD and how we can reverse the cell death to treat the disease.

Maternal infection is linked to increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. This proposal examines how virus-associated cytokines, specifically interferons, affect human neurons modeled in brain organoids or studied directly in fetal brain samples.