About the Vulnerable Brain Project Fundraiser
A Letter from Dr. Slater
We launched this initiative to better understand the neurochemistry of brain disorders which afflict vulnerable young persons, specifically eating disorders, autism spectrum disorders and anxiety disorders. While the illnesses are disparate, they all afflict the vulnerable young brain, hence our mission is termed the "Vulnerable Brain Project".
My motivation for catalyzing this project was my younger daughter’s struggle with anorexia nervosa. Thanks to great treatment and her own courage, my daughter is doing better, though these are lifelong struggles. Through her battle, I have become aware of the similarities between eating disorders and analogous disorders, and a rich body of evidence suggests overlap in the altered brain circuitry which perpetuates these self-destructive behaviors. A body of strong science and the narratives of those with these disorders suggest that they represent maladaptive ways of dealing with anxiety in young adulthood.
We, therefore, initially established the VBP to understand the neurobiology of anxiety. As our investigative team has grown, we have expanded our focus to a broader realm of behavioral disorders; our goal is to translate basic science research into clinical investigation and thereby develop effective therapies.
Research funding has been drastically reduced in the current era, and private philanthropy has become crucial to conduct basic and clinical research in the mental health realm. We hope our project interests you, and we hope for your support.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS OF VULNERABLE BRAIN PROJECT LABS
The Aoki Lab
The Aoki lab has shown a combination of ketamine and ketogentic diet prevents relapses in an anorexia mouse model. This work shows great promise for developing new treatments for anorexia in humans. Read more about this work on the Aoki lab website or in a recent publication in the journal Hippocampus.
The Basu Lab
The Basu lab has a new paper in Science that shows how the brain performs both pattern separation and completion according to external inputs and contextual demands. discovered a new feedback loop that controls how the brain processes the integration of sensory experiences and cognitive experiences. Better understanding of this circuit is crucial for the development of new interventions for disorders where sensory experiences are misrepresented such as autism spectrum disorders or PTSD. Read more about this work on the Basu lab website or the publication.
The Buzsáki lab
The Buzsáki lab continues to be very well published, including a paper in Science that investigates the diversity of inhibitory neuron subtypes and how they play key roles in cognitive function. Read more about work on the Buzsáki lab website or in the paper.
The Carter Lab
The Carter Lab has a new preprint article online that elegantly traces circuits involved in influencing frontal cortical function, which is so important for executive function and arousal. Read more about work from the Carter lab on their website or in a recent preprint.
The Froemke Lab
The Froemke Lab continues to make important contributions to our understanding of neuroplasticity. In a preprint now online, the lab demonstrates the changes in auditory cortex linked to maternal behavior such as retrieving pups. This work helps unravel the neural changes linked to perception and social behaviors. Read more about the work on the Froemke lab website or in the preprint.
The Hartley Lab
In the past year, the Hartley lab has investigated the kind of information and mental models children use to make decisions. Their recent paper shows that children leverage both structured knowledge of the environment and predictive representations of adaptive choices to drive flexible, value-guided decision making. Read more about the Hartley lab on their website or in a recent publication.
The Klann Lab
Dr. Klann’s lab has several preprints online that detail important work into the machinery of synaptic plasticity and memory. The first preprint investigates the role of microglia (the clean up cells of the brain) and metabolic coupling in activity-dependent protein synthesis, which is key for learning and memory. The second prepr outlines mechanisms controlling activity-induced mRNA translation in neurons to better understand the how the process is important in memory formation in health and disease. Read more about the research from the Klann lab on their website.
The Lin Lab
Dr. Lin’s lab has detailed in a preprint the neural circuits and plasticity involved in maternal aggression, a set of behaviors that are important for protecting offspring, but potentially costly and risky. The work lays the foundation for understanding the mechanisms that lead to this behavior and other related maternal behaviors. Learn more about their work on the Lin lab website or in this preprint.
The Tsien lab
The Tsien lab
The Tsien lab published in PNAS the structure of a key gene involved in calcium channel function that is affected inSchizophrenia. Understanding variants of this gene associated with disease is now laying the groundwork to better predict and treat developmental and psychiatric disorders. Read more about work from the Tsien lab on their website or in the publication.
Paul W. Glimcher, PhD
The central goal of the Glimcher laboratory is to develop and advance interdisciplinary models of human choice that combine insights from neuroscience, psychiatry, economics and psychology.
Using methods ranging from interventional clinical trials to brain imaging to computational models of neural calculations, the laboratory seeks to identify the brain-computations responsible for decision-making and to see how these mechanisms go awry in a number of psychiatric disorders. Of particular interest to the lab are disorders where we know decision-making is affected, like Substance Use Disorders, Major Depressive Disorder and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. In our studies of substance use disorder we have shown that relapses occur just after patients begin to become more risk-tolerant. We have developed clinical interventions based on this signal and are now running a clinical trial in which we are attempting to predict and prevent relapses. In the area of depression, we have recently demonstrated that a key variable in human decision-making, the so-called decisional reference point which won Daniel Kahneman the Nobel Prize in economics, is disordered in patients with depression
View latest advances in the Glimcher Lab
Paul Glimcher, PhD