Michael Kienzler, Chemistry

Title of Project: Photoswitchable activators and inhibitors for the modulation of KCNQ channel function

TBD

Deborah Schneider, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Stop, Feel, Go: How Emotions Affect Our Ability to Stop and Think

We all know emotions can interfere with decision-making, but exactly how does this work? This project tests how different types of emotional content—words we read or hear, and facial expressions—affect our ability to stop automatic responses. By understanding these relationships, we can better design research and interventions for people who struggle with impulse control and emotional regulation.

Natale Sciolino, Physiology and Neurobiology

Title of Project: Integrative Neuroscience of Addiction: Systems and Behavioral Effects of Ketamine Metabolites

Opioid use disorder causes severe withdrawal symptoms that current treatments often fail to address. Ketamine may ease these symptoms, but side effects limit its use. A metabolite, (2R,6R)-hydroxynorketamine (HNK), could offer a safer alternative, yet its role in withdrawal is unclear. Our project uses viral genetics, fiber photometry, and machine-learning behavior analysis to reveal how HNK influences key brain cell types during withdrawal—insights that could guide development of more effective therapies for opioid addiction.

Ian Stevenson, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Statistical Models of Neural Activity with Latent Variables

Neuroscience experiments typically measure only a small fraction of the neurons that might be relevant to a behavior or disorder. Our goal in this project is to develop new statistical models to describe measurements that are available (spikes and local fields) and, also, accurately identify hidden factors (latent variables) driving neural activity. We will test our data analysis using simulations and analyze public experimental datasets to better characterize neural function and dysfunction.

Hanlin Zhou, Geography, Sustainability, Community, and Urban Studies

Title of Project: Mapping the Mind's Flood Risk Map: An AI-driven Analysis of Human Flood Risk Perception

TBD

Stefanie Acevedo, Music Theory

Title of Project: Effects of athletic and musical training on synchronization in Javanese gamelan musical performance

Our research uses motion capture, EMG sensors, and behavioral experimentation to study sensorimotor synchronization during Javanese Gamelan performance, an Indonesian musical practice that is known for its “playability” by individuals with various levels of expertise. Javanese Gamelan represents a rich and complex social coordination phenomenon, and performances can involve multiple musicians coordinating complex nested rhythms. Due to the nature of musical performance, we hypothesize that both musical training and athletic training (understood as a type of temporally-mediated motor training) will influence the ability of subjects to synchronize in this musical environment. 

Tasso Tzingounis, Physiology & Neurobiology

Title of Project: KCNQ2 encephalopathy variants lead to global changes to the cortical phosphoproteome.

This project seeks to identify biological markers of KCNQ2 encephalopathy, a brain disorder linked to epilepsy, autism, and intellectual disabilities. As a common genetic cause of early-life epilepsy, KCNQ2 is frequently detected in genetic testing for children. Using advanced protein analysis techniques, the research will investigate how the disorder alters protein modifications in the brain. Aligned with IBACs' mission, the project explores how changes in brain cell activity during development shape the brain's structure and function.

Xingche Guo, Statistics

Title of Project: Integrative Modeling of Human Reward-Based Decision-Making in Behavioral Tasks

Human behavioral tasks reveal human decision processes, but studies focusing on a single task/study often miss the complexity and diversity of how people decide. This project combines data from multiple tasks and studies to address these gaps. By pooling diverse data, we will build a framework that captures varied decision strategies, improving prediction accuracy and broad applicability. Our work will deepen understanding of decision‑making and enhance mental health assessment.

Arielle Keller, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Investigating Attention in Mental Disorders with Personalized Neuroscience

Attention allows our brains to focus on important information amid abundant distractions, and attention impairments can be debilitating for daily living. We aim to understand how attention differs in young adults experiencing depression or anxiety. Participants will complete several attentionally-demanding tasks while undergoing brain scanning. We will identify links between the unique features of each person’s brain and their attention abilities to improve our understanding of attention in mental disorders and inform future treatment development.

Wenrui Li, Statistics

Title of Project: Network-guided learning methods for advancing functional brain data analysis in Alzheimer’s disease research

Analysis of functional brain data, such as fMRI data, offers great promise for aiding in diagnosing Alzheimer's disease (AD) and its stages. Incorporation of brain network when analyzing functional brain data has the potential to improve the power of identifying important neuroimaging signatures for early detection, disease progression, and treatment response. This project aims to develop novel brain network-guided learning methods to predict the cognitive performance and detect neuroimaging signatures associated with AD.

Diane Lillo-Martin, Linguistics

Title of Project: Sign Language Annotation, Archiving, and Sharing (SLAASh)

The goals of the SLAASh project are to promote and expand scientific research on sign languages by sharing video data from signers along with metadata, annotations, and other textual materials to make the video data computationally searchable. The funded project focuses on activities associated with moving the ASL Signbank to UConn, expanding the capabilities of the database, and preparing for sharing materials with other researchers.

Jim Magnuson, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Intermediate Language Models for modeling human language development, processing, and disorders

TBD

Katarina Millicevic, UCH Neuroscience

Title of Project: Understanding Early Brain Changes in Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer’s disease becomes irreversible after neurotoxic protein plaques accumulate. Early detection of subtle neuronal dysfunctions preceding plaque formation is essential. Evidence indicates that disruptions in neuronal communication—electrical signaling, synaptic potentials, and glutamate handling—occur early. Our study integrates measurements of amyloid‑β load, synaptic voltages, glutamate transients, and proteomic changes to develop an assay for early dysfunction detection, advancing diagnostics and enabling timely, effective interventions before irreversible damage ensues.

Scott Rich, Physiology and Neurobiology

Title of Project: Deciphering the mechanism of action of Vagus Nerve Stimulation in post-stroke rehabilitation

Despite the efficacy of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) in improving post-stroke motor rehabilitation, there is limited understanding of the precise mechanism by which these therapeutic effects are achieved. Such knowledge is crucial to design treatment protocols optimized specifically for this setting. This research endeavors to derive such mechanisms using a combination of novel clinical data and computational modeling, precisely tracing how VNS modulated brain activity relevant to motor rehabilitation.

Greg Sartor, Pharmacy

Title of Project: The impact of opioid withdrawal on effort-based decision making

Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a chronic relapsing condition that affects millions of people worldwide. OUD patients may also experience anhedonia, motivational deficits, or depression, leading to poor treatment outcomes and higher rates of relapse. Better strategies to address depression, anhedonia, and other motivational deficits in OUD patients may improve relapse rates and overall recovery. The goal of the IBACS seed grant is to study motivation deficits during opioid withdrawal using the effort-based choice task (collaboration with Dr. Salamone lab and the Murine Behavioral Neurogenetics Facility). If successful, we will use this model to develop therapeutics that restore motivational deficits during opioid withdrawal. 

Erika Skoe, Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences

Title of Project: The confluence of musical training and noise exposure on the aging brain and body

Not everyone ages at the same rate. Some populations face more pronounced age-related health deterioration form the accumulated impact of disease and life stressors, while in others, biological aging occurs at a slower pace. We plan to use this project to develop proof-of-concept data on biological markers of aging using neuroimaging markers of brain age, in combination with an assay of biochemical and genetic markers of biological aging. We focus on two modifiable risk factors for biological aging: one with claimed protective properties (musical training) and the other with deleterious properties (noise exposure). The significance of this line of work lies in its potential to deepen our understanding of the modifiable risk factors to healthy aging.

Sudha Srinivasan, Kinesiology

Title of Project: Changes in neural biomarkers following play-based upper extremity (UE) training in children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy (UCP)

Children with Unilateral Cerebral Palsy (UCP) have impairments lateralized to one side of their body due to asymmetric brain injury, with the upper extremity (UE) more involved than the lower extremity. Children face significant limitations during daily activities such as self-care, academics, and play, which negatively impacts their quality of life. Despite this unitary diagnosis, there is large heterogeneity among clinical profiles of children, driven by differences in the timing (before or after birth), cause (arterial or venous causes), location (brain malformations, periventricular white matter infarction, cortico-subcortical gray matter), and extent of brain injury (localized or diffuse injury), as well as the subsequent cortical reorganization. Identification of neural biomarkers underlying varying behavioral profiles can enhance our understanding of the impact of structural brain damage on subsequent function. Moreover, neural injury patterns may significantly influence children’s responsiveness to intensive behavioral interventions. Accurate characterization of the neural correlates of unimanual and bimanual sensorimotor function is crucial for individualized tailoring of rehabilitation interventions to the specific neurodevelopmental profiles of children with UCP and may be predictive of long-term outcomes among children. The project proposes to collect neuroimaging data from a subset of children (N=10) enrolled in a larger NIH-funded clinical trial designed to compare the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of 2 types of community-based play interventions on UE motor function among 30 children with UCP. If our hypotheses are upheld, we will collect pilot data supporting the efficacy of novel playful interventions to improve motor skills and neural function in children with UCP.

Whit Tabor, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Using Linguistic Theory to Design Efficient, Interpretable Large Language Models

Large Language Models (LLMs) have recently revolutionized AI.   However, they suffer from two problems:   (1) training a model requires gargantuan energy consumption; (2) we do not currently understand the principles behind their successes.  This project investigates how insights from linguistic theory may help discern principles that underlie the models’ verbal abilities and simultaneously allow us to train them more efficiently by prompting them to attend to theoretically relevant features.

Jun Yan, Statistics

Title of Project: Brain functional connectivity and Alzheimer's disease

Brain functional connectivity changes significantly from normal cognition to dementia. Early Alzheimer's disease (AD) affects brain function, making fMRI data valuable for early detection. This proposal aims to understand AD-related brain connectivity changes by: 1) Developing a deep learning framework to detect abnormal connectivity; 2) Exploring links between brain network differences and traits; and 3) Assessing connectivity changes and biomarkers. Statistical innovation will be applied to an existing dataset in collaboration with Dr. Panpan Zhang of Vanderbilt University.

Xiaojing Wang, Statistics

Title of Project: Fusion of Bayesian Statistics and Network Analytics to Understand Brain Function

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), as the leading cause of dementia, brings many challenges to quality of life and economics to the community, especially the aging community. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a promising biomarker for AD detection. In this project, we will develop novel, robust and interpretable Bayesian methods to reduce the impact of the noise on fMRI data and thus to improve the accuracy of functional brain networks learned from the data. The work will help associate the network-based predictors more precisely with cognitive biomarkers of AD and will make significant modeling advancement in AD.

Shengyun Gu, Linguistics

Title of Project: Processing iconicity: Insights from signing and non-signing minds

This study addresses two overarching questions regarding sign language linguistics and deaf cognition. First, how does the notion of iconicity (i.e., resemblance between form and meaning) possibly interact with a linguistic process called “weak hand drop” (i.e., a 1-handed realization of a 2-handed sign) in a deaf sign language? Second, whether and how deaf eyes may differ from hearing eyes in their perception of iconicity, as a result of knowing the sign language under consideration.

Flora Oswald, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Tracking Visual Attention to Environmental Signals of Belonging

Marginalized individuals often experience social identity threat, or concern about how they will be treated based on their marginalized identity, which is linked to downstream health disparities. Environmental cues, such as lacking representation, can activate this threat; conversely, cues indicating belonging – like a rainbow flag – can mitigate these detrimental effects. Our research uses eye-tracking technology to understand how marginalized individuals visually attend to environmental safety cues, highlighting the cognitive processing mechanisms underlying minority health disparities.

Yulia Bereshpolova and Maxim Volgusev, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Intracellular analysis of thalamic input to visual cortex in awake brain

Visual perception is dramatically influenced by changing level of alertness. While being awake and fully alert is optimal for vision, we still can detect and perceive visual stimuli while drifting to drowsiness and even light sleep states. The goal of our study is to understand how synaptic connections between the thalamus and cortical neurons which are responsible for mediating visual perception are changed during transition from the alert to drowsiness and light sleep and how these changes affect vision.

Xiaojing Wang, Neuroscience, UConn Health

Title of Project: Identifying the Cellular Composition of the Inferior Colliculus

The inferior colliculus (IC) is a major hub in the central auditory system and is implicated in tinnitus and speech processing difficulties. While different cell types in the IC have been identified, an un-biased approach that encompasses all cell types at once is still missing.

This project aims to establish a dataset of the cell types present in the IC of adult mice with normal hearing and after noise-induced hearing loss via single-nucleus RNA sequencing.

Brian Kelley, Neurosurgery, UConn Health

Title of Project: Neuronal Responses to Diffuse Axonal Injury

Diffuse axonal injury (DAI) is a major component of traumatic brain injury-related morbidity. Despite better understanding of DAI mechanisms, there have been minimal improvements in clinical outcomes. Recent basic science experiments show that neurons undergoing DAI within a region close to the cell body do not die. This unanticipated finding prompted the current study’s aim to determine the cellular mechanisms responsible for this observation. We anticipate our results will provide insights into this survival process.

Brittany Lee, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Investigating reading disability and comprehension using eye movements

Expository texts are informational texts that are particularly difficult for children to read and comprehend. They place greater cognitive demands on the reader compared to stories, making them especially challenging for children with reading disability. We will measure children's eye movements while they read different kinds of texts to better understand what makes expository comprehension so difficult for children with and without reading disability. With this knowledge, we hope to tailor reading instruction and intervention.

Mallory Perry-Eaddy, Nursing

Title of Project: Pediatric Recovery after sepSIS Treatment and the Microbiome (PERSIST-Microbiome)

Critically ill children who survive the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit are at increased risk of new cognitive dysfunction after they leave the hospital. While specific mechanisms have been considered, the underlying biological reasons are largely unknown. PERSIST-Microbiome aims to explore the potential role of the gut microbiome in critically ill children, especially those with inflammatory conditions such as sepsis and pneumonia, and their recovery after critical illness as it pertains to cognitive outcomes (i.e. gut-brain axis).

Gregory Sartor, Pharmaceutical Sciences

Title of Project: RNA-targeted Therapeutics for Substance Use Disorder

For several years, noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs) have been implicated in drug use and relapse, yet ncRNA-targeted therapeutics have not advanced to clinical studies. The lack of translational progress is largely due to the poor physicochemical properties of established RNA interference approaches. Recent innovations have revealed that small molecules can selectively target ncRNAs and produce physiological effects in vivo. Here, we will test and develop novel, ncRNA-targeted small molecules for the treatment of substance use disorder.

Erika Skoe, Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences

Title of Project: COVID-19 and Central Nervous System Dysfunction

COVID-19 is a global health crisis impacting the health of millions. While some recover fully, others develop a poorly understood post-viral syndrome characterized by “brain fog.” These symptoms have raised concerns that the virus, or its sequelae, may cause enduring neurocognitive symptoms from central nervous system (CNS) damage. In collaboration with Dartmouth Medical School, this study uses central auditory testing methods to study CNs function in control and patients with Post-Acute COVID Syndrome (PACS).

Ephraim Trakhtenberg, Neuroscience, UConn Health

Title of Project: Novel mechanisms inhibiting axonal regeneration after optic nerve injury

Dr. Trakhtenberg was awarded a seed grant that will fund an exploratory research project aimed at testing a novel hypothesis regarding the molecular mechanisms which inhibit regeneration of injured axons. Axons are the connections through which neurons in the brain communicate with each other over long distances. If these axons are disrupted by trauma or stroke, they will not regenerate spontaneously. In this project we will study the mechanisms which prevent injured axons from regenerating

Michael O'Neill, Molecular and Cell Biology

Title of Project: Transgenerational Epigenetic Effects on Neurodevelopment and Behavior

In collaboration with Dr. Holly Fitch and the Murine Behavioral Neurogenetics Facility we are investigating the transgenerational epigenetic effects on mouse behavior brought on by mutations in the Xlr family of genes on the X chromosome. Abnormal expression of these genes during spermatogenesis alters epigenetic signatures on DNA in sperm that appear to affect neurodevelopment of offspring. This research is relevant to our understanding the male bias in the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder.

James Dixon, Psychological Sciences 

Title of Project: Semantic of Collective Behavior

Humans are very good at perceiving the meaning of a group's behavior (e.g., an interested class, a volatile crowd). In team sports, such as soccer, the meaning of group behavior is clear to experienced observers and changes dynamically with the game. This project investigates how social information is carried in human collective behavior by combining state-of-the-art learning algorithms with physical models that rule the dynamics and kinematics of bodies in the domain of soccer.

Caroline Larson, Psychological Sciences 

Title of Project: Language-related brain activity project

The goal of this project is to better understand brain activity during language processing in individuals with language impairment. We will examine brain activity via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in young adults with language impairment who have versus do not have co-occurring Autism Spectrum Disorder. This work will identify patterns of language-related brain activity associated with language impairment that may be present regardless of co-occurring conditions. 

Whit Tabor, Psychological Sciences 

Title of Project: Transformative Compromise: How Social Groups Transcend Limiting Frames

When a community finds itself in conflict about an important choice, compromise may be needed.  Despite its necessity, compromise has a bad name---people generally prefer not to compromise if they can avoid it.  Nevertheless, sometimes the right amount of compromise can lead to transformation---the group may reach a new dynamic that is universally preferred.  We are exploring the conditions under which this does and does not happen via coordination-game experiments and computational modeling.

David Martinelli, Neuroscience

Title of Project: Creation of a novel mouse allele to investigate the role of the C1QL protein in the brain

Kevin Manning, Psychiatry

Title of Project: Testing Adaptive Interoception in Aging using Bladder Sensations and Simulated Driving

Social bladder control is predicated on interoceptive knowledge of bladder content.  Cognitive processes interpret and potentially modulate the sensory neural data stream about bladder volume to optimize homeostasis by resolving external experience with internal expectations1,2.  Thus cognitive aging could be one major contributor to disordered urinary perceptions, one that is relatively independent of the actual afferent data stream generated by bladder volumes3.  Yet existing research has not directly explored this possibility. Demonstrating the effect of cognitive aging on the ability to maintain normal urinary perceptions would offer a strong translational link to the laboratory-supported hypothesis that the aging bladder must be understood as reflecting a strained but resilient adaptive system that is subject to the influences of cognitive aging.  A necessary first step in this line of research is the development of an allostatic cognitive challenge which will be sufficiently sensitive to bladder changes and testable in a safe clinical environment. We will use driving simulation as a cognitive stressor and will manipulate the degree of driving difficulty encountered while recording subject reports of bladder fullness through cystometry.  PI Manning has expertise with the use of this driving simulation as a cognitive / allostatic challenge and will supervise this aspect of the testing.  PI Smith has expertise with cystometry (both in the laboratory and as director of the clinical UConn Urodynamics Unit). CO-PI Costello has expertise in cognitive aging and statistical analyses. The project will enable us to measure the impact of cognitive aging on perceptual and driving performance resilience, and directly contribute to pilot data for a NIA R-level grant involving the departments of Geriatrics, Psychiatry, and Urology.

Nicole Landi, Psychological Sciences

Title of Project: Decoding dyslexia: decoding the human mind