News

 

Award

BHI marked its 10th anniversary with the 2024 Research & Service Awards ceremony held on December 10 at the Zimmerli Art Museum in New Brunswick, honoring the exceptional contributions of BHI faculty to neuroscience research and service. The awards recognized outstanding achievements across four categories, recognizing faculty who have significantly impacted brain health research and service.

Award

We’re excited to announce the 2024-2025 Rutgers Brain Health Institute Trainee Travel Award winners! These outstanding neuroscience PhD, MD/PhD students, and post-docs were selected by BHI Focus Area Working Groups (FAWGs) and will each receive a $500 award from BHI to help cover the cost of attending a national or international conference focused on neuroscience or mental health research this year.

Award

Dr. Miriam Bocarsly, Assistant Professor at New Jersey Medical School and BHI Core Faculty, received the 2024 Young Investigator Award from the Tourette Association of America (TAA). Each awardee will receive a total of $150,000 across two years to support their groundbreaking work. Recognized for their exceptional commitment to understanding and advancing research in Tourette Syndrome, these individuals embody the spirit of innovation and the dedication required to foster meaningful advancements in the field.

Grant

Dr. Noelle Stiles, Assistant Professor of Neurology at the RWJMS and BHI Core Faculty, received an R00 grant from the National Eye Institute for the project “Restoring Sight to the Blind: Neural Imaging with Retinal Prostheses”. The study will investigate whether the sensory reorganization that occurs during blindness limits the restoration of vision with intraocular retinal prostheses, which may have implications for emerging alternative approaches such as stem cells and gene therapy as well.

Grant

Dr. Ray’s research mission is to examine the cognitive, behavioral, and brain mechanisms underlying opioid and cocaine addiction, and to develop new effective pharmacological and behavioral interventions to improve health outcomes. Dr. Ray utilized mindfulness to examine its efficacy in individuals with opioid and other substance use disorders. Results show mindfulness improves brain functioning and emotional regulation that has implications to reduce drug use and improve health outcomes.

Grant

Core faculty in the BHI and Princeton University have been awarded a five-year, $16 Million Silvio O. Conte Center for Translational Mental Health Research P50 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to study latent cause inference – a fundamental cognitive process crucial to understanding various normal cognitive processes as well as mental health conditions. Dr. Yael Niv, Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience at Princeton and Co-Director of the Rutgers-Princeton Center for Computational Cognitive Neuro-Psychiatry (CCNP) in the BHI, is the Principal Investigator of the P50 grant award.

Publication

Dr. Avram Holmes, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at RWJMS and Core Faculty Member of BHI and the Center for Advanced Human Brain Imaging Research (CAHBIR), published a new paper entitled “The cell-type underpinnings of the human functional cortical connectome” in Nature Neuroscience. The study reveals how different brain cell types collaborate to form large-scale functional networks in the human brain—systems that underpin sensory processing, decision-making, and more. By uncovering these cellular foundations, the research offers critical insights into cognition and mental health.

Publication

Matthew Gabrielle, a PhD student in Dr. Tibor Rohacs’s lab, published a new study titled “Phosphatidic acid is an endogenous negative regulator of PIEZO2 channels and mechanical sensitivity” in Nature Communications. The study identifies phosphatidic acid as a specific inhibitor of the mechanically-activated PIEZO2 ion channels. The team also demonstrates that interfering with cellular pathways that generate this lipid can modulate mechanical sensitivity both in isolated sensory neurons and in vivo in mice. The closely related PIEZO1 channels were not affected by phosphatidic acid, indicating the potential for developing specific PIEZO2 inhibitors that can be used to combat inflammatory pain.

Publication

Dr. Linden Parkes, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at RWJMS and BHI Core Faculty, published a new paper in Nature Protocols. The study, “A network control theory pipeline for studying the dynamics of the structural connectome”, decodes the connectome with network control theory-based software in Python and is selected as “This Week’s Featured Protocol”.

Commentary

BHI Core Faculty members Drs. Tibor Rohacs and Ying-Xian Pan shared their insights on recent news about the FDA’s approval of a new non-opioid painkiller from Vertex Pharmaceuticals. The drug, Journavx (suzetrigine), has been approved for the treatment of moderate to severe acute pain in adults.

Commentary

BHI core faculty members Drs. Michal Schnaider Beeri, David Zald, and Andrew Westbrook shared insights on a recent study investigating transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) as a potential treatment to slow cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s Disease. The study focuses on targeting a key brain network involved in memory, which is typically impacted early in the disease.

Commentary

A new study titled “Blood Biomarkers to Detect Alzheimer Disease in Primary Care and Secondary Care”, published in the journal JAMA, shows that the blood test correctly diagnosed Alzheimer’s in patients with memory issues about 90% of the time. BHI core faculty members Drs. Michal Schnaider Beeri and Marc Tambini shared insights on the study.

Commentary

Dr. Michal Schnaider Beeri, Director of the Herbert and Jacqueline Krieger Klein Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Research Center at BHI, shares insights on new research showing that APOE4 homozygosity represents a distinct genetic form of Alzheimer’s disease, published in Nature Medicine. Dr. Beeri describes the relevance of the new findings and highlights APOE and other Alzheimer’s disease research at Rutgers.