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BIRC Trailblazer Awarded
Congratulations to Margaret Briggs-Gowan, PhD, Xiaomei Cong, PhD, Todd Constable, PhD, Fumiko Hoeft, MD, PhD, Helen Wu, PhD, Damion Grasso, PhD on receiving the BIRC Trailblazer award for their project Preliminary Longitudinal Study of Fetal, Neonatal and Infant MRI!
This proposal will ultimately contribute important foundational knowledge in the following areas: (1) neurodevelopmental outcomes of children exposed to drugs in the prenatal stage that may be dependent on the nature, timing, and dosage of environmental insult in addition to the child’s neurobiological-genetic- genomic factors and resilience/reserve; (2) timing of opportunities and modifiable targets; and (3) assessing underlying mechanisms of substance use disorder and withdrawal symptom across mother-infant/child generations. Ultimately, research such as ours may help to optimize circuit-based precision interventions in these vulnerable children that have rapidly increased in recent years.
Virtual Talk: Allyson Mackey, PhD, UPenn
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Fumiko Hoeft and Colleagues Receive NIH U24 Grant
Five new research networks totaling $3.13 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health will allow investigators to refine and test key concepts that advance the study of emotional well-being.
Fumiko Hoeft, Sandra Marshall, and Crystal Park, in collaboration with UConn InCHIP, UConn Neag School of Education, and UConn Research, have just received funding for their NIH U24 grant exploring the underlying mechanisms of mind-body interventions and measurement of Emotional Well Being. Utilizing imaging resources available at BIRC, this project will illuminate the role of emotional well-being in mind and body interventions as both an outcome itself and as a mechanism in improving mental and physical health outcomes. (Grant U24 AT011281-01; NICHD, OBSSR, and ODP are co-funding partners)
In addition to UConn, the list of research networks includes University of Alabama, University of Wisconsin-Madison, UCSF, and University of Rochester.
More information about the scope of this grant can be found on the NCCIH Research Blog
BIRC awarded CLAS equipment grant for EEG bundle
BIRC has been awarded a CLAS equipment grant for an “EEG Bundle” to be used with BIRC’s hdEEG system. This includes a combination of a Cedrus Stim Tracker and replacement of EEG caps.
The Cedrus Stim Tracker is a tool that accurately aligns the experimental stimuli presented and neuronal activity. While EEG purports to have excellent temporal resolution, it is only true if the experimental stimuli are generated and presented, and neural activity collected in sync. This is not as easy and automated as it should be; currently, even with the latest hdEEG systems, without a tool like the Cedrus Stim Tracker, as much as 30ms of variability is observed that can occur unpredictably and/or drift over time. This is an unacceptable large variability compared to the neural time-scale of a couple of milliseconds. Cedrus Stim Tracker tracks the precise onset and offset of various stimuli for every trial, and marks it directly in the EEG data file. This not only makes the researchers accurately analyze data and prevents “data smear”, but also facilitates data analyses by automating the tedious process of cross-checking and marking data manually. This is now becoming a necessary tool for all EEG experiments, especially those that require fine-grained temporal information, have multi-modal information (e.g. auditory and visual stimuli) delivered to the subjects, and eliminates the complexity and unreliability of other synchronization methods.
Virtual Talk: Dean Mobbs, Caltech
BIRC FY20 Highlights
Virtual Talk: Kou Murayama, Tübingen University
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Virtual Talk: Gyorgy Buzsaki, New York University
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Ask a Brain Scientist!
In these free sessions, Prof. Fumiko Hoeft will engage with children about the intricacies of the brain. Children (and parents!) will learn about brain science on everyday topics, ask questions they might have, and get a glimpse into how research is done by a scientist.
For kids aged 8-13, but anyone with a child’s heart for learning is welcome!
Each session can stand on its own. When children attend all sessions, they will receive a Junior Neuroscientist certificate.
To register and for more information, please visit Haskinsglobal.org
This program is supported by UConn, UCSF, Haskins Laboratory, Yale University, Made by Dyslexia, and The International Dyslexia Association