Month: April 2017

Seed Grant Recipients 2016-2017

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IBACS Seed Grants provide funding for collaborative research projects across the brain and cognitive sciences. Seed Grants also support applications for equipment, research workshops, events, and other activities compatible with the mission of the Institute.

2016-2017 Recipients

Learn about the PIs and projects that received IBACS Seed Grants this year.

Ed Large, Karl Lerud, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Tracking down pitch perception in the human brain

We are investigating the neural correlates of pitch perception. When a complex sound is perceived, two questions can be asked: What is a precise characterization of the brain's response to it, and what determines the perceived pitch? The literature is currently ambiguous regarding whether the perception can be deduced from a measured neural response. We are combining two imaging modalities, structural MRI and EEG, to address these questions. We will record the brain's evoked EEG response to auditory stimuli, called the frequency following response (FFR), using a high-density electrode cap to boost the signal to noise ratio of the FFR. Next, using each individual participant's MRI scan, along with modern signal processing algorithms, we will localize the response to its neural sources. With this newly-detailed picture of the FFR, we will be able to describe the relationship between the brain's auditory signal processing and previously-collected pitch perception data more accurately than has previously been possible.

Tehran Davis, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Collective behavior in dissipative systems: flocking and fútbol

Our project is a multi-disciplinary effort to understand the origins of structure and behavior in multi-agent collectives. Collective behavior and large-scale group dynamics have become especially hot topics of research in the physical, biological, and cognitive sciences. Recent efforts suggest a physical principle of energy dissipation may be fundamental in driving to coordination of both living and non-living collectives. Here, we work to advance this idea by developing models of collective motion that identify and highlight similarities between the emergent coordination of collections of chemical particles and the emergent coordination of teams of professional soccer players.

Ephraim Trakhtenberg, Neuroscience

Title of Project: The molecular mechanisms of nerve regeneration after injury to the central nervous system.

Dr. Trakhtenberg (lead PI) and Dr. Crocker (co-PI) were awarded a seed grant that will fund an exploratory research project aimed at testing a novel hypothesis regarding why axonal connections, through which neurons in the brain communicate with each other over long distances, do not regenerate after traumatic or stroke injury.

Bernard Grela, Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences

Title of Project: Banana = Monkey or Apple? How Children with Language Impairments Categorize Objects

When placing objects into categories, preschool children organize objects by functional associations (banana with monkey). At around 6 years of age, this changes to organization by similarity (banana with other kinds of fruit). This shift is thought to be influenced by advanced language abilities. Children with language impairments are delayed in language development, therefore, this study intends to determine if their organization of objects is different from their typically developing peers.

Marie Coppola, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: CEDAR (Community Engagement in Deafness and Autism Research)

Including Deaf individuals as partners in research has advanced our understanding of sign language and Deaf culture; however, tensions remain between the Deaf community and researchers. Similar issues arise in the domain of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Are ASD and Deafness medical conditions in need of medical solutions (e.g., a cochlear implant, behavioral therapy), or cultural identities? This IBaCS Seed Grant will support a workshop aimed at promoting dialogue among stakeholders and researchers.

Mason Yeh, Neuroscience

Title of Project: Development of a 3D culture model of human cortical development

The goal of this project is to develop a three-dimensional cell culture system for growing cerebral organoids (sometimes referred to as “mini-brains”) from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). The human iPSC lines are derived from peripheral tissue or blood samples from individual subjects. Our long-term goal is to use this culture system to study molecular and cellular pathophysiology underlying autism and related neurodevelopmental disorders, with the hope of identifying novel targets for therapeutic intervention.

James Dixon, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics of Learning in Dissipative Networks

Learning remains one of the core mysteries in cognitive science. Why do living systems learn? And how could learning be instantiated in such different ways across so many different types of creatures? We propose to investigate the hypothesis that learning is actually the result of thermodynamic law expressed across the complex (and varied) media of living things. We plan to develop physical, analog networks that self-organize their own connections (and perhaps even their own nodes). These systems exhibit very complex behavior, but also have tractable thermodynamics. Thus, we can evaluate and manipulate key thermodynamic variables as the system behaves and learns. The project has implications for grounding a theory of adaptive behavior in thermodynamic principles.

Min Tang-Schomer, Pediatrics

Title of Project: Grow and control a human neuronal circuit in a dish

Neuronal networks constantly adapt to changing inputs during learning and memory. Network dynamics is extremely challenging to study with human or animals. Our lab has developed a neuronal circuit of cultured neurons with external electric control. We will introduce to the bioengineered circuit human patient-derived neurons and computational network analysis. We aim to forge a functional human neuronal circuit as a testbed for the next generation of neuromodulation prostheses and brain disorder therapies.

Alexander Jackson, Physiology & Neurobiology

Title of Project: Defining hypothalamic cells and circuits that orchestrate behavior

The lateral hypothalamus (LHA) is a linchpin in the coordination of many aspects of behavior and cognitive function, including arousal, attention, stress and reward. Disruption of neural circuits in this region is associated with disorders of sleep, feeding and motivated behavior, which profoundly affect our well-being and mental health. We propose to use new and informative cellular and molecular techniques to dissect the cells and circuits in the LHA that help to shape these behaviors.

Inge-Marie Eigsti, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Brain functions in individuals with an optimal outcome from autism spectrum disorder

In prior work, we showed that some individuals show clear Autism Spectrum Disorder prior to age 5, but later lose all symptoms; they seem to use unique brain networks to achieve this “optimal outcome” (OO).

We will study OO in two cohorts: individuals with an OO who are now young adults, allowing us to evaluate how they navigate the difficult transition into independence and young adulthood; and children who were diagnosed by us, who are now in their teens, allowing us to identify early childhood predictors of OO. An MRI study will investigate functional connectivity and integration of task-engaged networks.

 Damir Dzhafarov, Mathematics

Title of Project: UConn Logic Group

The UConn Logic Group is an active interdisciplinary research hub with over forty faculty and graduate student members from mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, and law. Logic is a subject that concerns language, computation, reasoning and problem-solving. As such, it is an important area of interest in many disciplines. This project aims to enhance the Groups' profile and activities, furthering UConn's reputation as a center for excellence in research and scholarship in logic and formal methods.

Dorit Bar-On, Philosophy

Title of Project: What's in a Word? A UConn Workshop

With over 50 participants, the workshop “What’s in a Word?” brought together linguists, psychologists, and philosophers of language from UConn, Yale, Harvard, MIT, Duke, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University for a two-day collaborative investigation of the status of words: the contrast between words and mere labels, word meanings and their relations to concepts, and words as potential points of entry into language (both in language acquisition and in trying to teach language to nonhuman animals).

Phillip P. Smith, Urology

Title of Project:  Integrative Bladder Control: Determining the Mechanisms of Brain Control over Bladder Sensations

Urinary control problems are often due to abnormal sensations about bladder content rather than disorders of bladder pressure. Bladder wall tension determines the bladder’s sensitivity to volume. The brain controls this tension via the sympathetic nervous system, allowing integration of information about bladder content with other physiologic processes. Urinary disorders can be understood as adaptive failures, rather than bladder disease. In this project we will examine the mechanism by which bladder tensions are created and regulated by brain control signals.

Joanne Conover, Physiology & Neurobiology

Title of Project: Mapping of Stem Cell Fate in the Normal and Hydrocephalic Developing Brain

In fetal development stem cells generate an ependymal lining, which covers the ventricle surface of the brain and functions as a barrier and transport system for cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) exchange. Hydrocephalus, an abnormal buildup of CSF, results in expansion of the ventricles and places extraordinary demands on the stem cell population. In the proposed experiments, we will map stem cell activity in normal and hydrocephalic brain tissue with an aim to identify neurodevelopmental consequences.

William Snyder, Linguistics

Title of Project: How children discover grammar

Our project is developing and testing new ways to study how children identify the grammatical rules of their native language. For example, several new techniques are based on tracking the moment-by-moment direction of a child's eye-gaze while listening to sentences. A key question is the precise nature of native-speaker grammatical knowledge. This information will have applications in early childhood education and the treatment of language disorders.

Akiko Nishiyama, Physiology & Neurobiology

Title of Project:  How do NG2 glial cells modulate neuronal function in the mouse brain?

This research project will analyze animal behavior following an induced loss of a specific glial cell population in the brain, known as NG2 cells.  The major goal of this effort is to determine whether these cells have a direct, functional effect on brain activity or have a more indirect, supportive role.  A better understanding of this important cell type will provide valuable insight into how brain activity is regulated.

John Salamone, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Specific activation of dopamine neurons to increase exertion of effort in motivational tasks

Fatigue/loss of energy is a very common psychiatric symptom. Anergia and reduced exertion of effort are debilitating features of depression and other disorders. Common antidepressants (e.g. SSRIs like PROZAC) are relatively ineffective at treating motivational dysfunction, and can induce or exacerbate these symptoms. Recent evidence implicates the neurotransmitter dopamine in effort-related symptoms, and this project will use pharmacogenetic methods to specifically activate dopamine neurons, which is expected to improve exertion of effort in rat models.

Inge-Marie Eigsti, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: A genomics, MRI and behavioral assessment of atypically strong reading abilities, or hyperlexia, in autism spectrum disorder

Some children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) also have unusually strong reading abilities, called hyperlexia. Our group will study the possibility that hyperlexia emerges because reading has co-opted the “reward” function that social interaction normally plays. Because the neural foundations of reading are very well understood, hyperlexia provides an exciting opportunity to study strong “circumscribed interests” in ASD, looking not just at behavior, but also brain activity and genetic correlates of hyperlexia.

Eiling Yee, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Understanding the Neural Basis of Ambiguous Word Comprehension via Brain Stimulation

The interpretation of most words varies based on the context in which they are encountered (e.g., <river>/<money> BANK).  We are using brain stimulation techniques to understand how different brain regions are responsible for representing the meanings of a word and how contextually inappropriate meanings can be suppressed.

Summer Graduate Fellows 2017

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IBACS Summer Graduate Fellowships provide three months of research funding to graduate students working on topics with relevance to the brain and cognitive sciences.

2017 Fellowship Recipients

Alexandria Battison, Physiology & Neurobiology

Current Research:  My research fits into IBaCS mission as it is inherently interdisciplinary; combining neuroscience experimental methods with mathematical and computer programming analysis methods. I was fortunate during my undergraduate career to have an interdisciplinary background, and my goal for my graduate work is to continue to bring engineering and physics into my neuroscience dissertation research. Most of my analysis work is taken from biomedical engineering and math and is applied to analyzing cortical firing patterns. I hope to push my research forward and continue to optimize my experimental methods in a way that will pull from physics and engineering.

Mary Baumgartner, Physiology & Neurobiology

Current Research: At its core, my research is focused on understanding the molecular regulatory programs underlying normal cortical development and cortical function. As a result, my research project is intrinsically interdisciplinary, spanning the fields of molecular biology, developmental biology, neuroscience, and behavioral sciences, and initiating extensive collaborations both within and between departments is necessary to answer the questions at the heart of my project. In addition to the broad range of approaches I am employing, a key resource at my disposal is a conditional knockout mouse line, in which I can target a minor spliceosome component for removal in specific tissues. Using this mouse line, I can separately parse out how minor splicing informs cortical development, and how this altered development impacts cortical function, and how minor splicing regulates the function of mature neurons. Subsequent use of comprehensive behavioral testing paradigms can then be used to elucidate whether the functions of specific cortical regions/circuits, such as those underlying attention and motor activity, are differentially sensitive to shifts in minor splicing-controlled gene expression.

Pietro Cerrone, Linguistics

Current Research: I conceive my interests in theoretical and experimental Morphology and its interfaces as a part of Cognitive Science. My ultimate goal is to contribute to the understanding of the language faculty and its processing, which requires interdisciplinary work, in particular, with cognitive psychologists and speech perception scientists, and, in general, with scholars whose research deals with how the human brain represents and processes language. I am currently involved in an speech perception and production project with Andrea Calabrese whose goal is to understand how English monolinguals categorize speech sounds of Polish and how they produce them.

Jessicas Contreras, Psychology

Current Research: Jessica is a deaf 1st year doctoral student in developmental psychology. She is interested in neurodiversity and how american sign language contribute to cognitive devopment. She is interesting in how language experience shape cognitive systems such as executive function and number development.

Ashley Dhaim, Psychology

Current Research: My research is focused on how action in a social context promotes the creation of a social coordination between individuals. I'm interested in how these dynamics change with experience and development between the ages of 3 and 10 years old and what implications they have on the development of higher level social cognition.

Akie Fujita, Biomedical Engineering & Physiology and Neurobiology

Current Research: My project is directed at characterizing the functional properties of a population of inhibitory neurons in the lateral hypothalamic area. These neurons have been implicated in the control of arousal, reward and feeding but their cellular and circuit-level properties are poorly understood.  Using a combination of electrophysiology, neuroanatomy, optogenetics and behavioral techniques, I will take a multidisciplinary approach to uncovering their electrical and neuromodulatory signatures, anatomical projections and role in homeostatic behavior.

Ryosuke Hattori, Linguistics

Current Research: This project uses the Intermodal Preferential Looking task on English-learning children, to seek a support for the “parametric” hypothesis, where positive setting of certain abstract parameters is considered to be prerequisite for two or more related constructions. It is my interest to find out if children’s comprehension level on these related constructions correlates with each other.

Lu Li, Mechanical Engineering

Current Research: We propose a 3D spatially heterogeneous neural tissue model of cortical motor neuron disease by co-culturing cortical and spinal motor neurons. We develop a bioprinting approach to precisely assemble neuron encapsulating gel blocks into 3D complex co-culture environment, which will offer an innovative system to study the role of target-derived signal on the development of cortical motor neurons in 3D and develop a better understanding of pathogenic mechanisms and identifying therapeutic targets for cortical motor neuron diseases.

Andre Lindsey, Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences

Current Research: My research is aimed at determining how language interacts with other domains of cognition and to determine how neurological injury affects that interaction. Consistent with the mission IBACS, the goal is a more comprehensive understanding of neurological functioning.

Maurici Lopez-Felip, Psychology

Current Research: My research project focuses on how the context in team sports influences the behavior of actors at both individual and collective-levels. The goals of this project are 1) to develop a model of multi-agent coordination and 2) to use this model to make testable predictions about player performance as it relates to perception-action and cognitive processes.  In a more advanced stage of the project, we will assess the the model's ability to predict catastrophic events (e.g., injuries, collisions, etc.).

Jin Lu, Computer Science and Engineering

Current Research: Schizophrenia and many other mental disorders are associated with impairment of working memory. Recent studies have identified a limited number of regions among which the brain network connectivity modulates working memory. However, other possible regions remain lack of thorough investigation. To build a valid memory model rather than merely correlation analysis, we plan to develop a machine learning approach to analyze brain network connectivity in individuals under different states (rest, n-back) by integrative modeling of fMRI images, EEG signals and cognitive survey variables.

Monica Ly, Psychology

Current Research: My current and proposed research would bridge clinical psychology and neuroscience, two fields that would gain tremendously from interaction rather than separation. By conducting this translational research, I hope to help set the groundwork for future research using simultaneous EEG-fMRI in topics that were previously limited by the incomplete neural picture provided by a single technique alone. The direct results of this work will help researchers select the system appropriate to their design and goals. The proposed research could incorporate aspects of bioengineering, cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology, and clinical psychology. I hope to collaborate with faculty in both the clinical and behavioral neuroscience divisions as well as BIRC faculty to integrate their perspectives to evaluate the scope and use of innovative neuroimaging technologies.

Shireena McGee, Psychology

Current Research: I aim to expand my research across traditional interdisciplinary sciences, incorporating research in learning, dynamical systems, education and the brain. I believe these fields are pertinently in-orthogonal in my line of work and must be mutually informative in order to find success in any one endeavor. Innovations in education are hidden in developmental psychology and neuroscience and it is my goal to work towards nurturing these interdisciplinary connections in order to make an impact on the way that the world receives and communicates information in diverse learning contexts.

Ashley Parker, Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences

Current Research: This project will examine concept formation in children with specific language impairment. The purpose of the study is to examine the dependency of language on the development of concept formation in children. Concept organization is critical in order to understand and identify the things we encounter in the world, and two examples of such organizational structure are taxonomic and thematic categories. The hypothesis is that if concept formation is dependent on language abilities, then we would expect children with SLI to be at a less mature stage of concept formation due to their deficit in language. Our research seeks to find if a shift to a taxonomic preference occurs in children with language impairment, as it does in typically developing school-aged children. If significant differences are found, this study will help us to explain children with language impairment’s delay in language acquisition.

Peter Perrino, Psychological Sciences

Current Research: An individual inherits many fundamental processes that form complex cognitive systems that are required for the development of language. It is believed that genetics play a pivotal role in the acquisition and retention of language and disruptions in genetic mechanisms have shown to cause language impairments, as seen in dyslexia and autism. We aim to target specific genes that have been implicated in language disorders and assess the behavioral and neuroanatomical consequences of manipulating the protein products associated with the genes via the use of transgenic mouse models. We can assess these models on various intermediate language phenotypes such as auditory processing and working memory. Following behavioral testing, we can investigate various neural substrates that may be underlying any anomalies observed, to further understand the gene-brain-behavior relationship. With the help of IBACS, the completion of our work will provide valuable insight to our understanding of the biological substrates of atypical language development. Future applications of data could allow for the development of early screening tools to identify at risk individuals as well as more targeted interventions using these genetic and anatomical markers.

Roberto Petrosino, Linguistics

Current Research: My current work is looking at ERP response to marked/non-marked and linguistic/non-linguistic sounds. Markedness is a broad concept that encodes how much frequent and complex a cognitive object is. As dealing with such a broad dimension, this project will provide new evidence on the role of markedness in encoding and analyzing sounds, and may ultimately be of broad interest to cognitive scientists working on speech perception across domains.

Adam Rainear, Communication

Current Research: My proposed research will focus on the factors which would promote safe and proper evacuation behavior in times of weather risks and crises. Using virtual reality, I hope to gain an understanding of what might enhance or impede safe evacuation, examine how new communication tools might influence risk messsage perception, and understand how individuals are processing and considering weather warnings under times of duress.

Jenelle Salisbury, Philosophy

Current Research: My research is centered around the issue of “the unity of consciousness” in philosophy of mind. The current project aims to explore what the neuroscience of information integration in the semantic representation network can bring to bear on this topic. In particular, I am interested in the neural mechanisms underlying information integration (questions such as whether integration requires a hub). This is relevant to explaining the kind of unity required for joint accessibility, and I also aim to explore its relevance to the kind of unity required for joint phenomenology.

Vivi Tecoulesco, Psychology

Current Research: In my research I am using ABRs to measure subcortical responses to and I am also using behavioral measures to map the language learning process. Letty Naigles in Developmental Psychology is my advisor; the goal of our research is to address how children with ASD learn language. She encouraged me to incorporate neural structure and function into my work. To that end I have been working with Erika Skoe to add ABR to my toolbox.
I am really interested in trying to bridge so called lower level subcortical processing with higher level, representational levels of language. In my opinion this is in line with the mission of IBACS. Additionally, as a trainee in the NBL program I am demonstrating my commitment to interdisciplinary work. Affiliating with IBACS with increase my opportunities to find projects to both join and/or initiate that strive to incorporate multiple perspectives as I believe our understanding of the brain and cognitive functioning is extremely more likely in this collaborative environment.

I plan to help the community by being open for collaboration, willingness to discuss my work and that of others, and hopefully doing good science that reflects well on the community.

Ryan Troha, Psychology

Current Research: The Connecticut Institute for Brain and Cognitive Sciences places a lot of focus on research integrating different scientific disciplines. I will accomplish this by combining social behavior research with electrophysiology and neurophysiology. Observational learning has been seen in humans, but lacks a behavioral paradigm that can measure this phenomenon in other animals. I am working towards developing such a paradigm which will then allow further investigation into the electrophysiological and neurobiological components underlying this important form of learning.

Given this great opportunity, I will work my hardest to fulfill the Institute’s goals. This means not only working to expand my personal research expertise but to also teach those around me, cross disciplinary boundaries, and promote the Institute’s research activities. I am excited to make the most of this opportunity granted to me by the Institute and take advantage of any chance to learn from others, teach others, and to build the research environment here at the University of Connecticut!

Yi Wei, Psychology

Current Research: I'm interested in auditory perception and processing in clinical population, particularly people with aphasia. I'm also interested in how auditory perception and processing can be used to help this population in their progress of recovery by innovate/modify/individualize current music therapy techniques.