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NIH Awards $1.4M Grant to Support Optogenetics Research

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A $1.4 million, three-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been awarded to Ryohei Yasuda, scientific director at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience and collaborator Wenbiao Gan, professor at the NYU Langone Medical Center, to develop optogenetic tools to analyze protein activity in neurons during synaptic and behavioral plasticity, a key process in understanding learning and memory in the brain.

Synaptic plasticity, learning and memory are regulated by protein signaling in the brain. Many forms of learning disabilities and other mental diseases may be caused by abnormal protein signaling. To address these brain disorders and diseases, it is crucial to understand on a molecular level the underlying processes within the brain that are involved in learning and memory.

"Synaptic plasticity is thought to be a basis of learning and memory of the brain," said Yasuda. "The work supported by this grant will improve our knowledge of the biochemical events that underlie synaptic plasticity and will provide significant insights into what happens in our brain on a molecular level when mental disorders occur."

This NIH grant was awarded as part of the federal Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN Initiative). This federal initiative dedicates funds to the most promising researchers and projects with the potential to advance our understanding of the human brain.
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Published: October 2016
Glossary
optogenetics
A discipline that combines optics and genetics to enable the use of light to stimulate and control cells in living tissue, typically neurons, which have been genetically modified to respond to light. Only the cells that have been modified to include light-sensitive proteins will be under control of the light. The ability to selectively target cells gives researchers precise control. Using light to control the excitation, inhibition and signaling pathways of specific cells or groups of...
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