News

Second place design by Nicole Peltier

The Dana Foundation announced the winners of their first Sticker Design Contest for Brain Awareness Week (BAW) 2018! The submissions received showcased talent and creativity from brain enthusiasts all around the world, and the first, second, and third place winners were chosen by online polls open to the public. The contest received nearly 2,500 votes from around the world. It was a tight battle for the top spot.

Congratulation Nicole Peltier, who is in her fifth year as a PhD student in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester. Though she has no formal training in art, Peltier created her design as a fun challenge that combined her love for the brain with her creativity, she said.

Way to go Nicole!!

Shraddha Shah (G3) introduces students to systems-based research.

One of PONS's missions is to provide relevant neuroscience education to University of Rochester community members of all ages and backgrounds. On December 9, 2017, we provided an introduction to neuroscience for high school students and their mentors in the UR Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP) - UP TO MEDICINE. PONS members Monique Mendes (G3), Holly Beaulac (G3), Garrick Salois (G3), and Shraddha Shah (G3) revealed their reasons for pursuing neuroscience PhDs and provided brief overviews of their current research. STEP students also reviewed basic brain anatomy, asked questions about the field, and considered how experiments are conducted. We had a great time discussing neuroscience and were happy to meet such outstanding students!

More information about the missions of PONS and upcoming events can be found on our blog.

The brain’s complex network of neurons enables us to interpret and effortlessly navigate and interact with the world around us. But when these links are damaged due to injury or stroke, critical tasks like perception and movement can be disrupted. New research is helping scientists figure out how to harness the brain’s plasticity to rewire these lost connections, an advance that could accelerate the development of neuro-prosthetics.

A new study authored by Marc Schieber, M.D., Ph.D., and Kevin Mazurek, Ph.D. with the University of Rochester Medical Center Department of Neurology and the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, which appears today in the journal Neuron, shows that very low levels of electrical stimulation delivered directly to an area of the brain responsible for motor function can instruct an appropriate response or action, essentially replacing the signals we would normally receive from the parts of the brain that process what we hear, see, and feel.

“The analogy is what happens when we approach a red light,” said Schieber. “The light itself does not cause us to step on the brake, rather our brain has been trained to process this visual cue and send signals to another parts of the brain that control movement. In this study, what we describe is akin to replacing the red light with an electrical stimulation which the brain has learned to associate with the need to take an action that stops the car.”

Krishnan Padmanabhan, Ph.D.

Congratulate Krishnan on receiving one the this year's NIMH 2017 BRAINS awards.

The NIMH Biobehavioral Research Awards for Innovative New Scientists (BRAINS) award is intended to support the research and research career advancement of outstanding, exceptionally productive scientists who are in the early, formative stages of their careers and who plan to make a long term career commitment to research in specific mission areas of the NIMH. This award seeks to assist these individuals in launching an innovative clinical, translational, basic or services research program that holds the potential to profoundly transform the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of mental disorders. The NIMH BRAINS program will focus on the research priorities and gap areas identified in the NIMH Strategic Plan and the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project.

Rebecca Rausch successfully defended her PhD thesis on Friday, November 3rd!

Make sure to congratulate her when you see her.

Stephen Steadman '64, center, presents Kevin Mazurek, left, with the first place honor and audience prize at the Meliora Weekend competition for the Steadman Family Postdoctoral Associate Prize in Interdisciplinary Research. Steadman, who received a BS in physics from the University of Rochester, is a scientific administrator at the Laboratory for Nuclear Science and the Department of Physics at MIT. Melissa Sturge-Apple, dean of graduate studies, is at right. (University of Rochester photo / Bob Marcotte)

Even simple movements require the integration of information from multiple areas of the brain. This process breaks down when brain damage occurs, resulting in neurological disorders.

But what if researchers could find a way to bypass those damaged areas and maintain the flow of information?

Kevin Mazurek, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Marc Schieber, professor of neurology, described how the lab is making progress in doing just that. He finished in first place and took the audience prize as well in the Meliora Weekend competition for the Steadman Family Postdoctoral Associate Prize in Interdisciplinary Research.

Mazurek’s prizes were worth $1,250.

Using micro electrical stimulation in primates, “we’ve shown that we can deliver the information successfully to two functionally different areas of the brain,” Mazurek explained. “This is an important first step.”

The next steps in the research, which incorporates neurology, neuroscience, electrical engineering, and biomedical engineering, include expanding the ability to communicate information across a wide reach of brain areas. This could “potentially improve the quality of living for individuals with injuries such as stroke, traumatic brain injury, or Alzheimer’s disease.”

This is the second year of the competition.

It is open to all postdoctoral scholars and appointees in the School of Medicine and Dentistry, and in Arts, Sciences & Engineering. Four prizes are awarded for research that exemplifies the importance of cross- disciplinary approaches toward examining high impact questions of science. Prizes were awarded based on 3-minute oral presentations to a panel of judges.

This year’s topics ranged from “Recent Breakthroughs in Understanding the Brain’s Waste Removal System” to “Catalytic Solar-Driven Generation of H2 in Artificial Photosynthesis” – and the benefits of yoga in helping cancer patients cope with the side affects of chemotherapy.

The Center for Professional Development recently invited Neuroscience graduates Jennifer Stripay, PhD '16 and Ryan Dawes, PhD '16 to discuss their personal experience with navigating career choices and locating employment post-graduation. Their presentation was entitled "Navigating Career Choices" and had over 30 participants from various programs throughout the School of Medicine and Dentistry in attendance. The workshop provided participants with advice on networking, the application process, interviewing and negotiating tips. Following the workshop, participants were invited to utilize skills learned from the workshop to network one-on-one with Jennifer and Ryan in the Forbes Mezzanine. The Graduate Education & Postdoctoral Affairs Office and CPD would like to thank the SMD Advancement Team for helping to co-sponsor this event!

On Tuesday, October 17, 2017, PONS teamed up with the BCS & Neuroscience Undergraduate Council(BNUC), SIGN, and NSFG to host a Graduate/Medical Student Panel for those interested in pursuing an advanced degree in Neuroscience or Neurology.

About 20 undergraduate attendees asked questions of our panel of Neuroscience PhD, MD/PhD, and Neurology MD students currently enrolled at the University of Rochester's School of Medicine and Dentistry. Our panelists included 2nd Year NGP PhD students Emily Warner and Neal Shah, 1st Year NGP MD/PhD student Karl Foley, and 1st Year MD student Josh Geiger. BNUC Co-President Herman Li and PONS President Holly Beaulac moderated the event.

Each panelist shared their individual journeys including performing undergraduate research, job shadowing/internships, and teaching/outreach opportunities. Topics discussed included strategies for determining the right program for one's interests, standing out as an applicant during admissions/interviews, and being productive while limiting stress when acquiring an advanced degree. We want to thank all of our panelists and attendees for a great turnout and lively discourse!

For more information on upcoming Neuro-events, please visit our homepage

Can a workout regimen for your mind and body help to fend off Alzheimer’s disease?

Physical and mental activity have been shown to boost brain function in different ways, but a new study will look to see if the benefits of engaging in a rigorously designed program that includes both aerobic exercise and brain training will complement each other, producing greater gains in cognition than if both activities had been done independently.

Feng Vankee Lin, Ph.D., R.N., assistant professor in the University of Rochester School of Nursing, the Departments of Neuroscience, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Neurology, and Psychiatry, and director of the Cog-T Laboratory promoting successful aging, and Fang Yu, Ph.D., R.N., G.N.P.-B.C., F.G.S.A., F.A.A.N., associate professor at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, are principal investigators on the five-year, $3.67 million grant from the National Institute of Aging.

“This is the first trial to test the synergistic effects of a combined program of aerobic exercise and cognitive training on cognition and mechanisms relevant to Alzheimer’s disease-associated neurodegeneration in older adults with mild cognitive impairment,” said Lin.

Heather Natola, Ph.D.

Heather Natola successfully defended her PhD thesis on Tuesday, October 3rd!

Make sure to congratulate her when you see her.

URMC Drug to be Tested for Delirium and Dementia Following Surgery; Also Brain Disorder ALS

For those caring for elderly parents or grandparents, this scene may be familiar: Grandma falls and fractures her hip. Grandma has surgery to repair the broken hip. Grandma comes out of surgery delirious and confused; she can’t remember simple things, or focus on more than one thing at a time.

More than half of older adults suffer from delirium after surgery that may progress to dementia, a condition called postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD). There are no good treatments for postoperative cognitive dysfunction, which is associated with increased illness and death. Estimates suggest that caring for patients with POCD costs more than $150 billion a year.

A team of researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and Duke University Medical Center is addressing the problem, with the help of a five-year, $2.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Aging at the National Institutes of Health.

What causes postoperative cognitive dysfunction?

What causes postoperative cognitive dysfunction is not entirely understood, but the body’s immune response to surgery and subsequent inflammation throughout the body – including in the brain – likely play a role. The team, led by Niccolo Terrando, Ph.D. at Duke, will test in animal models a drug developed in the laboratory of Harris A. “Handy” Gelbard, M.D., Ph.D. at URMC. Called URMC-099, the drug tamps down the body’s immune response and reduces inflammation.

A new study published in the journal Brain Behavior and Immunity appears to challenge the theory that cells in the brain’s immune system are the culprit behind the neurological damage that occurs in children exposed to alcohol while in the womb.

“In order to develop treatments for this condition, we must first understand how alcohol affects the developing brain,” said Ania Majewska, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and lead author of the study. “While the hypothesis that dysfunctional immune cells play a role in fetal alcohol syndrome is logical and enticing, it appears that this idea may be a scientific dead end.”

Exposure to alcohol in the womb can lead to fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), a condition that causes lifelong physical and cognitive impairments, and for which there is no available treatment. The symptoms suffered by individuals with FASD can range from poor impulse control and attention, learning disabilities, compromised fine motor skills, and delays in the ability of the brain to process visual and auditory information. FASD is diagnosed in about one out of every 100 babies born in the U.S.

The University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) is participating in what is being characterized as the largest long-term study of brain development and child health. The study will follow the biological and behavioral development of more than 10,000 children from ages 9-10 through early adulthood.

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study was created by the National Institutes of Health to evaluate the developmental period during which the brain undergoes dramatic changes. The study will seek to better understand how children's experiences impact brain maturation and other aspects of their lives, including academic achievement, social development, behavior, and overall health.

"Adolescence is a time of extraordinary physical, emotional, and intellectual growth," said John Foxe, Ph.D., director of the Del Monte Neuroscience Institute and principal investigator of the URMC ABCD Study. "Yet there is a great deal that we don't know about how experiences such as participation in sports or music programs, screen time, sleep patterns, and long-term exposure to medications and stimulants impact their transition to adulthood."

The Microglial Fractalkine Receptor is not Required for Activity-Dependent Plasticity in the Mouse Visual System

Microglia have recently been implicated as key regulators of activity-dependent plasticity, where they contribute to the removal of inappropriate or excess synapses. However, the molecular mechanisms that mediate this microglial function are still not well understood. Although multiple studies have implicated fractalkine signaling as a mediator of microglia–neuron communications during synaptic plasticity, it is unclear whether this is a universal signaling mechanism or whether its role is limited to specific brain regions and stages of the lifespan. Here, we examined whether fractalkine signaling mediates microglial contributions to activity-dependent plasticity in the developing and adolescent visual system. Using genetic ablation of fractalkine's cognate receptor, CX3CR1, and both ex vivo characterization and in vivo imaging in mice, we examined whether fractalkine signaling is required for microglial dynamics and modulation of synapses, as well as activity-dependent plasticity in the visual system. We did not find a role for fractalkine signaling in mediating microglial properties during visual plasticity. Ablation of CX3CR1 had no effect on microglial density, distribution, morphology, or motility, in either adolescent or young adult mice across brain regions that include the visual cortex. Ablation of CX3CR1 also had no effect on baseline synaptic turnover or contact dynamics between microglia and neurons. Finally, we found that fractalkine signaling is not required for either early or late forms of activity-dependent visual system plasticity. These findings suggest that fractalkine is not a universal regulator of synaptic plasticity, but rather has heterogeneous roles in specific brain regions and life stages.

Ross Maddox, PhD

Ross Maddox's lab has posted the preprint for his latest paper on biorXiv! They showed that it's possible to measure the response of the auditory brainstem to natural speech using EEG.

Speech is an ecologically essential signal whose processing begins in the subcortical nuclei of the auditory brainstem, but there are few experimental options for studying these early responses under natural conditions. While encoding of continuous natural speech has been successfully probed in the cortex with neurophysiological tools such as electro- and magnetoencephalography, the rapidity of subcortical response components combined with unfavorable signal to noise ratios has prevented application of those methods to the brainstem. Instead, experiments have used thousands of repetitions of simple stimuli such as clicks, tonebursts, or brief spoken syllables, with deviations from those paradigms leading to ambiguity in the neural origins of measured responses. In this study we developed and tested a new way to measure the auditory brainstem response to ongoing, naturally uttered speech. We found a high degree of morphological similarity between the speech-evoked auditory brainstem responses (ABR) and the standard click-evoked ABR, notably a preserved wave V, the most prominent voltage peak in the standard click-evoked ABR. Because this method yields distinct peaks at latencies too short to originate from the cortex, the responses measured can be unambiguously determined to be subcortical in origin. The use of naturally uttered speech to evoke the ABR allows the design of engaging behavioral tasks, facilitating new investigations of the effects of cognitive processes like language processing and attention on brainstem processing.

Four Neuroscience Graduate Program first year students were presented with Convocation 2017 Awards.

• Katherine Andersh was the recipient of the Irving L. Spar Award
• Karl Foley received the Walle J.H. Nauta Award for Excellence in the Neurosciences
• Berke Karaahmet was the recipient of the Merritt and Marjorie Cleveland Fellowship Award
• Allison Murphy was the recipient of the J. Newell Stannard Graduate Student Scholarship Award

Katherine Andersh

Karl Foley

Berke Karaahmet

Allison Murphy

Maybe you've recently suffered a stroke and are now starting therapy, trying to regain speech, motor functions, and possibly improve memory. But your vision is damaged, too, and there's no therapy available.
Yet.
Krystel Huxlin, director of research and the James V. Aquavella Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Rochester Medical Center's Flaum Eye Institute, has been working in her lab over the last ten years to change that. Here's how she sums up her latest results, published earlier this year in the journal Neurology:

"If people do exactly what we tell them and they don't cheat, the success rate has been in our hands a 100 percent."

Huxlin spoke at the inaugural Light & Sound Interactive conference in Rochester, jointly sponsored by the University of Rochester and the Rochester Institute of Technology, as part of a panel on blindness and visual impairment that addressed corrective, restorative and rehabilitative approaches.

The CARE Network, a program that helps support students in distress, is now available for SMD graduate students. Students, faculty and staff are encouraged to submit a referral to the CARE Network if they believe that a student is in or headed towards distress, are aware of an act of discrimination on campus, or have a general concern for a student. The CARE Network provides recommendations to campus and community resources, outlets for safe spaces, and coaches on communication skills to work through difficult discussions and situations. You can submit a referral and/or learn more about the CARE Network at www.rochester.edu/CARE.

Join us in congratulating Ally for receiving this award from the Society for Neuroscience. The award will support travel to this year’s meeting in Washington, DC, and a special poster session for all trainees at the meeting. Ally will also benefit from admission to Professional Development Workshops, and presentation of her poster in the meeting at-large, Wednesday November 15.

“Researchers have long fixed their attention on eye-tracking in detecting autism spectrum disorders, but now they may have discovered a new tool that could lead to earlier diagnosis and intervention.” the research is by John Foxe, the Kilian J. and Caroline F. Schmitt Professor in Neuroscience and chair of the Department of Neuroscience.

In a July 12 article in the European Journal of Neuroscience, researchers at the University of Rochester linked differences in the cerebellar vermis (in the rear of the cerebellum, which controls the development of human movement, social skills and emotional development) to the plasticity of saccadic or rapid eye movements within a subgroup of people with disorders on the autism spectrum (ASD).

Rapid eye movements (also known as saccade) may be the key, say Edward G. Freeman, Ph.D., and John J. Foxe Ph.D. These eye movements-typically quick, precise and accurate in healthy eyes-occur when we shift our gaze between objects and are important in interacting with the world. Sometimes though, in people with ASD, the movements can "over- or undershoot the intended target locations," they wrote in the study.

A new study out in European Journal of Neuroscience could herald a new tool that helps physicians identify a sub-group of people with Autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The test, which consists of measuring rapid eye movements, may indicate deficits in an area of the brain that plays an important role in emotional and social development.

“These findings build upon a growing field of research that show that eye movement could serve as a window into a part of the brain that plays a role in a number of neurological and development disorders, such as Autism,” said John Foxe, Ph.D., director of the University of Rochester Medical Center Del Monte Neuroscience Institute and co-author of the study.

ASD is characterized by a wide range of symptoms that can vary in severity from person to person. This unpredictability not only presents a challenge for diagnosis, but also how best to devise a course of treatment. Identifying the specific phenotype of the disorder is, therefore, an essential first step to providing effective care.

Matt Cavanaugh successfully defended his PhD thesis on Monday, July 17th! Matt will be staying at the URMC as a post-doc with Dr. Steve Feldon. Matt will be running a clinical trial, under Dr. Feldon, on the training program they developed in lab to bring it through the FDA approval process.

John O'Donnell successfully defended his PhD thesis on Monday, July 17th! John will be starting a post-doc with Dr. Joel Perlmutter at Washington University in Saint Louis this fall, studying neuromodulators in cognitive decline in Parkinson's Disease.

Astrocytes help coordinate communication
between neurons. The one on the left is
derived from a healthy brain and the one on
the right is from an individual diagnosed
with schizophrenia.

New research has identified the culprit behind the wiring problems in the brains of people with schizophrenia. When researchers transplanted human brain cells generated from individuals diagnosed with childhood-onset schizophrenia into mice, the animal’s nerve cell networks did not mature properly and the mice exhibited the same anti-social and anxious behaviors seen in people with the disease.

“The findings of this study argue that glial cell dysfunction may be the basis of childhood-onset schizophrenia,” said University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) neurologist Steve Goldman, M.D., Ph.D., co-director of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine and lead author of the study which appears today in the journal Cell. “The inability of these cells to do their job, which is to help nerve cells build and maintain healthy and effective communication networks, appears to be a primary contributor to the disease.”

The National Institutes of Health has awarded a grant to URMC researchers exploring methods of making cognitive training more effective for older adults by improving their attitudes toward computers.

Feng Vankee Lin, Ph.D., RN, an SON assistant professor and director of the CogT Lab promoting successful aging, and Benjamin Chapman, Ph.D., MPH, associate professor of Psychiatry, are principal investigators on the $421,000, two-year study.

Computerized cognitive training methods, such as online “brain games” have been widely implemented among adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in recent years. However those interventions have not proven to be a consistently reliable method of improving or maintaining the cognitive health of older adults. Results are highly variable, and one possible explanation lies in how comfortable seniors feel using technology.

“The goal of this study is to generate a proof-of-concept for an intervention that may improve attitudes toward computers among those older adults with MCI,” said Lin, who is now principal or co-investigator on six current NIH grants. “Improving the intervention engagement of those individuals, we think, will then help us develop more effective computerized cognitive interventions in the future. It is the first study that we know of that strives to augment computerized cognitive training by addressing an attitudinal or affective element of the person.”

At the core of the study is the notion of person-centered care – integrating individuals’ preference throughout the process of intervention. The person-centered approached has been shown to improve engagement among older persons, including those with MCI, and pilot data collected at assisted-living facilities suggests that computer-led leisure activities promotes psychological well-being among older persons with MCI and may change their perception about technology. A computer used for fun activities may no longer seem daunting, complex, or irrelevant, but instead be seen as familiar and enjoyable.

“These results are consistent with a number of theories indicating that exposure to pleasurable experiences with an object or task improves several dimensions of attitudes, including affective and cognitive components, as well as behavior and motivation,” Lin said.

Grounded in this pilot data and the theory around it, investigators will lead a small randomized controlled trial among assisted-living residents to assess whether a period of computer-led leisure activities prior to cognitive training improves attitudes toward computers, engagement with the intervention, or cognitive outcomes.

Anton Porsteinsson, M.D., professor of Neurology, is a co-investigator on the grant, which is also receiving recruitment support from Dallas Nelson, M.D., and Sarah Howd, M.D., in the Department of Medicine’s Division of Geriatrics and Aging.

The ubiquitous human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) may play a critical role in impeding the brain’s ability to repair itself in diseases like multiple sclerosis. The findings, which appear in the journal Scientific Reports, may help explain the differences in severity in symptoms that many people with the disease experience.

“While latent HHV-6 – which can be found in cells throughout the brain – has been associated with demyelinating disorders like multiple sclerosis it has not been clear what role, if any, it plays in these diseases,” said Margot Mayer-Proschel, Ph.D., an associate professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center Department of Biomedical Genetics and co-author of the study. “These findings show that, while in the process of hiding from the immune system, the virus produces a protein that has the potential to impair the normal ability of cells in the brain to repair damaged myelin.”

Ed Freedman and John Foxe have just published preliminary data from a study examining eye movement changes in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), particularly looking at the role of the cerebellum (DOI: 10.1111/ejn.13625). The cerebellum, Latin for ‘little’ brain, sits at the base of brain, underneath the cerebral cortex. Although it has been called ‘mini’, the cerebellum actually has more neurons, or cells, than the cerebral cortex. Classically considered to play a role in the control of movements and the learning of motor patterns, it is now known to play a role in emotion and cognition through its connection to the rest of the brain. And, there is evidence that the structure of the cerebellum is altered in a sub-population of individuals with ASD.

In the current paper, Ed and John present the results of experiments tracking the rapid eye-movements made when looking from one object to another, or saccades, in individuals with ASD. Accuracy and precision are maintained by careful comparison of the movement command produced by the brain and the results of the actual movement. Any differences between these lead to adjustments of the commands for ensuing saccades. This type of sensorimotor adaptation is dependent on the proper functioning of the cerebellum. However, there is anatomical evidence that some people with an ASD have cerebella with slightly altered structure. If the cerebellar structure is altered, is its function also altered in this sub-group of people? Assessing the ability of people with an ASD to adapt saccade amplitudes is one way to determine whether this function of the cerebellum is altered in ASD.

Another point of interest is determining if the deficits in saccades relate to any of the other key symptoms observed in ASD.

If saccade adaptation deficits do turn out to be a consistent finding in a sub-group of children with ASD, this raises the possibility that saccade adaptation measures may have utility as an early-detection endophenotype. Changes in cerebellar structure most likely occur in utero and very recent work has shown that saccadic adaptation can be measured in children as young as 10-41 months of age is a most encouraging development indeed. - Ed and John

A recent scientific study shows that insufficient amount of sleep leads to the development of Alzheimer's disease. Researchers gain more evidence and are beginning to believe that lack and poor quality of sleep results to the fusion of Amyloids, proteins that bond together to form Alzheimer's plaques.

Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, the lead researcher from the University of Rochester Medical Center, explains the glymphatic system that is present in humans. She says that this system is 10 times more active when in slumber than when awake. The process allows cerebrospinal fluid to flow through spaces around the neurons of people's brains. This a method of purging unwanted proteins (Amyloids) and other wastes into the circulatory system garbage collectors and eventually flushes it out of the body.

In simple terms, Nedergaard explains that the brain has its own sanitation and public works department. It is like a network of sewer facilities mostly done during the brain's nightlife. An example of a housekeeping staff descending to building offices for a cleanup duty to avoid the lumping compound that causes Alzheimer's.

Rebecca Lowery and Edith Lord

Ania Majewska Speaking about Rebecca Lowery

Rebecca Lowery, Ph.D., a graduate of the laboratory of Dr. Ania Majewska, received the Vincent du Vigneaud Award at Commencement 2017 for her thesis titled "The Role of Microglia and Fractalkine Signaling in Experience-dependent Synaptic Plasticity".

This award is conferred by the Office of Graduate Education at the School of Medicine and Dentistry to a graduating student from any program whose thesis is judged superior and unique in potential for stimulating and extending research in the field. The award is given in honor of Vincent du Vigneaud, (1901-1978) who received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry (formerly known as Vital Economics) in 1927 at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, studying on the sulfur component of insulin.

Keshov Sharma, a second-year student in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP), presented work collected in part during his laboratory last summer at the SOBP Annual meeting in May. The study, “Dual Neural Connections between the Amygdala and the Ventromedial (BA25) and Dorsomedial (BA24) Prefrontal Cortex in the Macaque”, was inspired by recent data in rodents implicating separate subcircuits between amygdala and infralimbic cortex, and amygdala and the prelimbic cortex, in fear extinction and fear consolidation, respectively. To find a comparable bridge to human fear studies, we designed studies to examine this question in monkeys because of their relatively larger and more subdivided cortical architecture that parallels the human. Analyzing dual retrograde injections into proposed ‘homologues’ of these rodent cortical regions in monkeys, we found that cells projecting to these cortical regions were mostly intermixed in several specific amygdala subnuclei in primates. Moreover, a subpopulation of neurons projected to both prefrontal regions, indicating common neural modulation of these functionally dissociated areas. Thus, amygdala inputs to separable, functionally opposed cortical regions exist in close proximity to one another in specific parts of the amygdala, and some of these cells participate in both ‘subcircuits’. Understanding this organization may provide clues about how to ‘tip the balance’ between fear learning and fear extinction learning in higher species, including humans that suffer from illnesses characterized by aberrant fear learning.

The Center for Neural Development and Disease, led by Harris A. (Handy) Gelbard, M.D., Ph.D., since 2008, will now be the Center for NeuroTherapeutics Discovery, reflecting an increased emphasis on translation and the creation of intellectual property that will lead to new therapies for nervous system disorders.

Gelbard, professor of Neurology, Pediatrics, Neuroscience and Microbiology & Immunology, will continue as director. His research, coupled with the work of Charles Thornton, M.D., professor of Neurology and Neuroscience, and Marc Halterman, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of Neurology, Neuroscience and Pediatrics, will serve as the anchor of the new center. The trio has a strong track record of grants, publications, and patents, as well as academic and commercial relationships that they are actively pursuing to bring new treatments to the public.

“The Center for NeuroTherapeutics Discovery was developed out of the Center for Neural Development and Disease to create more visibility for academic and commercial partnerships as a necessary bridge for bringing new therapeutics forward,” said Gelbard. “This represents a way to do the best and most cutting edge science possible in a time when the traditional avenues towards funding academic research are changing rapidly.”

The center will bring together many investigators from across the Medical Center and River Campus to identify the mechanisms that lead to various neurological disorders, including HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder (Gelbard lab), myotonic dystrophy (Thornton lab) and stroke (Halterman lab). The center remains committed to its members that investigate the molecular signaling events that lead to nervous system disease during development and aging. Industry partnerships and resources will be sought to fast-track existing therapies or create new molecules that affect these disease mechanisms.

Treatments that harness the immune system to help regenerate damaged cells will be a major focus at the center; the team believes that this approach is broadly applicable to a range of acute and chronic neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease.

The 2017-2019 Dean’s Teaching Fellows have been named. Beau Abar, Ph.D., assistant professor of Emergency Medicine, has been named the Paul F. Griner Dean’s Teaching Fellow. Jessica Shand, M.D., MHS, assistant professor of Pediatrics, has been named the George L. Engel Dean’s Teaching Fellow. Katherine Greenberg, M.D., assistant professor of Adolescent Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology, has been named the Jules Cohen Dean’s Teaching Fellow. Linda Callahan, Ph.D., assistant professor of Neuroscience, has been named the Lawrence E. Young Dean’s Teaching Fellow.

The Dean’s Teaching Fellowship Program is a competitive endowed two-year program for faculty who are dedicated to academic careers in medical education. The mission of the program is to develop faculty who can prepare medical students, residents, and practicing physicians to become professionals who are responsive to society’s needs and the ever-changing health care system.

The program typically accepts four Fellows a year who attend a three-hour, bi-weekly seminar series focused on different areas of educational theory, research and teaching methods, educational technology, assessment, curriculum design, faculty development, leadership and career planning. During their time in the program, Fellows conduct a scholarly educational project that is directly translatable to their teaching role and will culminate in a publication or presentation at a national meeting.

Congrats to Halterman Lab Medical Student Intern, Giancarlo DiMaria for his Neuroscience Is…™ Rewarding winning video, “The Brain Scientist: Neuroscience is Rewarding.” Following a neurologist in the clinic and a neuroscientist in the lab, this video highlights the challenging but rewarding nature of a career in neuroscience.