Principal Investigator: John L. R. Rubenstein UCSF Neuroscience

The goal of Rubenstein Lab research is to elucidate fundamental mechanisms that regulate development of the forebrain, with a focus on the cerebral cortex and basal ganglia. Our studies also extend into other regions of the embryo, including the developing face. Whenever possible, we attempt to investigate whether disruption of these mechanisms underlie human disorders, such as autism, schizophrenia, mental retardation, epilepsy and craniofacial disorders.

Web Information

Website:  rubensteinlab.ucsf.edu/ BRAIN Initiative Grant – “Identification of enhancers whose activity defines cortical interneuron types”

Contact Information

Email: john.rubenstein@ucsf.edu Phone: 415-476-7862 Address: John L.R. Rubenstein, M.D., Ph.D. Genetics, Development and Behavioral Sciences Building 1550 4th Street, 2nd Floor South, Room GD 284C University of California at San Francisco San Francisco, CA 94143-2611

About the Lab

Mission The goal of our research is to elucidate fundamental mechanisms that regulate development of the forebrain, with a focus on the cerebral cortex and basal ganglia. Our studies also extend into other regions of the embryo, including the developing face. Whenever possible, we attempt to investigate whether disruption of these mechanisms underlie human disorders, such as autism, schizophrenia, mental retardation, epilepsy and craniofacial disorders. We hope that our studies provide insights into new inroads for diagnosis, prevention and treatment of these disorders.

History Our research group began at Stanford in 1988 to ...

Principal Investigator: Massimo Scanziani UC San Diego’s Neuroscience

The goal of Scanziani Lab’s research is to understand the mechanisms by which elementary circuits of neurons control the spatial and temporal structure of cortical activity. Towards this goal they use in vivo and in vitro electrophysiological, imaging and anatomical techniques as well as behavioral approaches. Their model system is the rodent’s sensory cortex.

Web Information

Website:  scanzianilab.org/ Brain Initiative Grant – “Classifying Cortical Neurons by Correlating Transcriptome with Function”

Contact Information

Email: massimo@ucsd.edu Phone: (858) 822-3840 Address: Center for Neural Circuits and Behavior, Room 213 9500 Gilman Dr. La Jolla CA 92093-0634

Research

Sensations and thoughts result from the coordinated activity of neuronal populations in space and time. The goal of my research is to understand the mechanisms by which elementary circuits of neurons control the spatial and temporal structure of cortical activity. Towards this goal we use in vivo and in vitro electrophysiological, imaging and anatomical techniques as well as behavioral approaches. Our model system is the rodent’s sensory cortex.

Our work is revealing the logic and the mechanisms by which elementary circuits, the building blocks of cortical architecture, orchestrate cortical activity.

Publications

Visual Cortex

Xue M, Atallah BV, Scanziani M.

Equalizing exitation-inhibition ratios across visual cortical neurons.

Nature 511: 596-600 (2014) [pdf]

Bortone DS, Olsen SR, ...

Principal Investigator: Richard  Kramer UC Berkeley Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute

Kramer Lab studies utilize novel chemical reagents to modify the function of ion channels and synapses.  This Chemical-Biological approach is designed to allow non-invasive optical sensing and optical manipulation of channels and synapses in the nervous system. One major goal of this research is to develop the technology for restoring vision in degenerative blinding diseases.

Regulating native ion channels with light – we have sought a simple method for bestowing light-sensitivity onto neurons that does not require exogenous gene expression, but rather can be carried out on freshly obtained, relatively unadulterated, neural tissue.

Web Information

Website:  mcb.berkeley.edu/labs/kramer/ Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: rhkramer@berkeley.edu Phone: (510) 643-2406 Address: University of California Department of Molecular and Cell Biology 121 Life Sciences Addition Berkeley, CA 94720-3200

Research

Nerve cells communicate using electrical and chemical signals. Ion channels are the proteins that generate electrical signals in neurons, and synaptic transmission is the process that allows a neuron to communicate chemically with other cells.  Our studies utilize novel chemical reagents to modify the function of ion channels and synapses.  This Chemical-Biological approach is designed to allow non-invasive optical sensing and optical manipulation of channels and synapses in the nervous system. One major goal of ...

Director: Arnold Kriegstein UCSF Neuroscience

The Center’s organization is designed to foster collaborations derived from work on different organs and tissue systems. Accordingly, the laboratories and research efforts are organized along a series of pipelines, each focusing on a particular tissue or organ system, and including basic research as well as translational research directed toward clinical applications. A basic researcher and a clinician direct each pipeline.

The Ray and Dagmar Dolby Regeneration Medicine Building which will be located on the Parnassus Campus is the new headquarters for the Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research. Designed by New York architect Rafael Viñoly, it has a series of split-level floors with terraced grass roofs and solar orientation. Open labs flow into each other, with office/interaction areas located on the circulation route between the labs, allowing for the entire research community in the building to interact.

Web Information

Website:  stemcell.ucsf.edu/ BRAIN Initiative Grant –  “Mapping the Developing Human Neocortex by Massively Parallel Single Cell Analysis”

Contact Information

Email: KriegsteinA@stemcell.ucsf.edu Phone: (415) 476-0766 Address:35 Medical Center Way RMB-1038, Box 0525 San Francisco, CA 94143-0525

About

Since 1981, when the University of California, San Francisco’s Gail Martin, PhD, co-discovered embryonic stem cells in mice and coined the term embryonic stem cell, ...

Principal Investigator: Daniel H Geschwind UCLA Neuroscience

The Geschwind laboratory is dedicated to improve treatment and understanding of neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative conditions, focusing on autism spectrum disorders, dementia, neural repair, and inherited ataxia. The lab leverages the fields of genetics and genomics, coupled with basic neurobiology, to obtain a systems level understanding of disease. The lab has pioneered the application of gene expression and network methods in neurologic and psychiatric disease.

Web Information

Website:  geschwindlab.neurology.ucla.edu/node Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: individual contacts Phone: (310) 794-6570 Address: UCLA Neurogenetics Program 2309 Gonda Bldg, 695 Charles E. Young Dr. South Los Angeles, CA 90095-1761

Research

The Geschwind laboratory is dedicated to improve treatment and understanding of neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative conditions, focusing on autism spectrum disorders, dementia, neural repair, and inherited ataxia. Our work leverages the fields of genetics and genomics, coupled with basic neurobiology, to obtain a systems level understanding of disease. We have pioneered the application of gene expression and network methods in neurologic and psychiatric disease, working in collaboration with dozens of other laboratories to connect molecular pathways to nervous system function. Our over-arching goal is to develop new therapeutics for nervous system disorders for which disease-altering therapies are not currently available. Plot of a module of genes co-expressed during human cortical development. These ...

Principal Investigator: Roger Tsien Research Scientist: John Yu-Luen Lin UCSD Neuroscience

The multicolored fluorescent proteins developed in Tsien’s lab are used by scientists to track where and when certain genes are expressed in cells or in whole organisms. Typically, the gene coding for a protein of interest is fused with the gene for a fluorescent protein, which causes the protein of interest to glow inside the cell when the cell is irradiated with ultraviolet light and allows microscopists to track its location in real time. This is such a popular technique that it has added a new dimension to the fields of molecular biology, cell biology, and biochemistry.

In 2009 Tsien reported a new class far-red and infrared fluorescent proteins that have great potential in in vivo imaging.

Web Information

Website:  tsienlab.ucsd.edu/ Wikipedia Entry: wiki/Roger_Y._Tsien Brain Intiative Grant 

Contact Information

Phone: (858) 534-7009 Address: HHMI – UCSD 9500 Gilman Dr George Palade 310 La Jolla, CA 92093-0647

Research

Research Summary

Roger Tsien’s lab studies signal transduction, especially in neurons and cancer cells, with the help of designed molecules, imaging, and photochemical manipulation.

The overall goal of my laboratory is to gain a better understanding of signaling inside individual living cells, in neuronal networks, and in tumors. We ...

Principal Investigator: Joshua R  Sanes Neuroscience@Harvard

The Sanes Lab wants to learn how neural circuits are assembled in young animals and how they process information in adults. A particular focus is identification and analysis of synaptic recognition molecules responsible for the amazing specificity of connections that underlies complex neural processing. We use a combination of genetic, molecular, histological and electrophysiological approaches to address these issues.  Our main model system is the mouse retina.

Wild Type and Protocadherin-Mutant Starburst Amacrine Cells. Sanes Lab

Web Information

Website:  saneslab.mcb.harvard.edu Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: kpike@fas.harvard.edu Phone: 617-496-8787 Address: NW 335.30 Northwest Building 52 Oxford St Cambridge, MA  02138

Research

Key questions in neuroscience are: how are complex neural circuits assembled in young animals and how do they process information in adults? The retina may be the first part of the mammalian brain for which satisfactory answers to these questions will be obtained. The retina is about as complex as any other part of the brain, but it has several features that facilitate analysis: it is accessible, compact, and structurally regular, and we already know a lot about what it does. Visual information is passed from retinal photoreceptors to interneurons to retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) and then on to the rest of the ...

Principal Investigator: Pavel Osten Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Osten’s lab works on identification and analysis of brain regions, neural circuits, and connectivity pathways that are disrupted in genetic mouse models of autism and schizophrenia. Osten and colleagues have developed the first systematic approach to the study of neural circuits in mouse models of psychiatric diseases, based on a pipeline of anatomical and functional methods for analysis of mouse brain circuits employing serial two-photon (STP) tomography.

Still image from movie of how the Osten lab maps active brain regions at cellular resolution during social behavior. Eureka Alert

Web Information

Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: osten@cshl.edu Phone: (516) 367-6990 Address: One Bungtown Road Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724

Research

CSHL team introduces automated imaging to greatly speed whole-brain mapping efforts

Cold Springs Harbor News by Peter Tarr

Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. – A new technology developed by neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) transforms the way highly detailed anatomical images can be made of whole brains.  Until now, means of obtaining such images – used in cutting-edge projects to map the mammalian brain — have been painstakingly slow and available only to a handful of highly specialized research teams.

By ...

Director: Florian Engert Program in Neuroscience @Harvard 

The general goal of the laboratory is the comprehensive identification and examination of neural circuits controlling behavior using the larval zebrafish as a model system. To that end, we have established and quantified a series of visually induced behaviors and analyzed the individual resulting motor components.  An extended goal is the study of how changes or variations in the behavior are reflected in changes in the underlying neuronal activity.

Web Information

Website:  labs.mcb.harvard.edu/engert/ Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: lorian@mcb.harvard.edu Phone: 617-495-4382 Address: Harvard University BioLabs 16 Divinity Avenue Cambridge, MA 2138

Research

Introduction

The general goal of the laboratory is the comprehensive identification and examination of neural circuits controlling behavior using the larval zebrafish as a model system. To that end, we have established and quantified a series of visually induced behaviors and analyzed the individual resulting motor components. Using these assays in combination with various calcium indicators and two-photon microscopy we have monitored neuronal activity throughout the fish brain in an awake and intact preparation. An extended goal is the study of how changes or variations in the behavior are reflected in changes in the underlying neuronal activity. To that end, we have developed several quantitative learning assays and tools ...

Principal Investigator: Changhuei Yang Caltech Neuroscience

The Biophotonics Laboratory is focused on the development of novel tools that combine optics and microfluidics to tackle diagnostic and measurement problems in biology and medicine. The major techniques that are under development in the laboratory include the ePetri, Fourier Ptychographic microscopy, and time-reversal optical focusing.

Wide Field-of-view on-chip Fluorescence Microscopy.Because of the high specificity and high sensitivity of fluorescent probes, fluorescence microscopy plays a vital role in modern clinical diagnosis and biological research. However, due to its limited field-of-view (FOV), size, and cost, conventional microscopy is becoming a bottleneck in rapidly emerging and evolving areas such as large-scale genome screening, point-of-care diagnosis, and long-term cell imaging.We have developed a wide FOV on-chip fluorescence microscopy method based on the Talbot effect, termed fluorescence Talbot microscopy (FTM)

Web Information

Website:  biophot.caltech.edu/ BRAIN Initiative Grant – Time-Reversal Optical Focusing for Noninvasive Optogenetics

Contact Information

Email:  chyang@caltech.edu Phone: (626) 395-8922 Address: Moore Laboratory MC 136-93, 262 Moore:

About the Lab

The research of the Biophotonics Laboratory, led by Professor Changhuei Yang, is focused on the development of novel tools that combine optics and microfluidics to tackle diagnostic and measurement problems in biology and medicine. The major techniques that are under development in the laboratory ...

Principal Investigator: Oliver Hobert Columbia Neuroscience

The main focus of the laboratory is to understand the molecular mechanisms that generate the astounding diversity of cell types in a nervous system. Using the C.elegans model system, they have revealed a core regulatory logic for how terminal neuronal identity is controlled in several different neuron types and have demonstrated that these regulatory mechanisms are conserved in chordates.

Web Information

Website:   hobertlab.org/  Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: or38@columbia.edu Phone: (212) 305-0065 Address: 701 W. 168th St. HHSC 724 New York, NY 10032

Research

The main focus of the laboratory is to understand the molecular mechanisms that generate the astounding diversity of cell types in a nervous system. Using the C.elegans model system, we have revealed a core regulatory logic for how terminal neuronal identity is controlled in several different neuron types [1-6]. We have demonstrated that these regulatory mechanisms are conserved in chordates [4, 5]. These insights have allowed us to reprogram the identity of heterologous cell types to that of specific neuron types [7, 8]. Venturing into a little explored area of neuronal diversification, we have developed a novel paradigm to study asymmetry across the left/right axis [9, 10], by far the least understood axis in any nervous system, and identified a complex ...

Principal Investigator, Michael Dickinson Caltech Neuroscience 

The Dickinson Lab studies the neural and biomechanical basis of behavior in the fruit fly, Drosophila. We strive to build an integrated model of behavior that incorporates an understanding of morphology, neurobiology, muscle physiology, physics, and ecology. Although our research focuses primarily on flight control, we are interested in how animals transform sensory information into a code that controls motor output and behavior.

Fly in flight simulator. Dickinson Lab

Web Information

Website:   http://depts.washington.edu/flyarama/ (unavailable 7/29/15) Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: flyman@caltech.edu Phone: (626)395-5775 Address: The California Institute of Technology Mail Code 216-76 Pasadena, CA 91125

Research

Michael Dickinson received a Ph. D. in the Dept. of Zoology at UW in 1989. His dissertation project focused on the physiology of sensory cells on the wings of flies. It was this study of wing sensors that led to an interest in insect aerodynamics and flight control circuitry. He worked briefly at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, and served as an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Anatomy at the University of Chicago in 1991. He moved to the University of California, Berkeley in 1996 and was appointed as the Williams Professor in the Department of Integrative ...

Director, John Ngai Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute

The Ngai Lab focuses on the molecular mechanisms underlying the development and function of the vertebrate olfactory system using molecular, genomic, computational and behavioral approaches. The Ngai Lab is also leveraging high-throughput genomic and genome engineering techniques. Ngai Lab aims to make significant discoveries on the molecules, cells and circuits underlying the development, regeneration and function of the nervous system during normal processes and disease.

Web Information

Website:   https://sites.google.com/site/ngaineuro/home

Contact Information

Email:  jngai(at)berkeley.edu Phone: (510) 642-9887 Address: University of California, Berkeley Department of Molecular & Cell Biology 265 Life Sciences Addition #3200 Berkeley, CA 94720-3200

Research

Olfactory Stem Cells and Neural Regeneration

The generation of neuronal diversity in the nervous system requires the specification and differentiation of a multitude of cellular lineages. Successive developmental programs control the generation of individual neuronal types, cell migration, axon extension, and ultimately the formation of functional synaptic connections. The specific genetic programs underlying the differentiation of mature neurons from their progenitors remain incompletely characterized, in part because of the difficulty in studying neuronal progenitor cells in their native environments.

In the vertebrate olfactory system, primary sensory neurons are continuously regenerated throughout adult life via the proliferation and differentiation of multipotent neural progenitor cells. This feature makes the olfactory system particularly amenable for ...

MIT Neuroscience Principal Investigator: Ed Boyden, Ph.D.

The Synthetic Neurobiology Group develops tools that enable the mapping of the molecules and wiring of the brain, the recording and control of its neural dynamics, and the repair of its dysfunction.The Group applies these to the systematic analysis of brain computations, aiming to reveal the fundamental mechanisms of brain function, and yielding new, ground-truth therapeutic strategies for neurological and psychiatric disorders.

Optogenetics: molecules enabling neural control by light. From SBG website.

Web Information

Website:  syntheticneurobiology.org/

Contact Information

E-mail: esb@media.mit.edu

Phone:  (617) 324-3085

Address: Building E15: E15-421| 20 Ames St.| Cambridge, MA 02139

Research

Ultra-Multiplexed Nanoscale In Situ Proteomics for Understanding Synapse Types

Tools for Cells and Circuits (RFA MH-14-216) Edwards S. Boyden, Director of the Synthetic Neurobiology Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Dr. Boyden’s team will simultaneously image both the identities and locations of multiple proteins within individual synapses – made possible by a new technique called DNA-PAINT.

DNA-PAINT super-resolution image of microtubules inside a fixed HeLa cell using Atto 655–labeled imager strands (10,000 frames, 10-Hz frame rate). Inset, labeling and imaging schematic for DNA-PAINT in a cellular environment. ...

Principal Investigator: Sebastian Seung Princeton Neuroscience Institute

The Seung Lab uses techniques from machine learning and social computing to extract brain structure from light and electron microscopic images. EyeWire showcases our approach by mobilizing gamers from around the world to create 3D reconstructions of neurons by interacting with a deep convolutional network. The Seung Lab also develops computational methods for relating brain structure to function. Seung Lab is best known for our work on the reconstruction of neural circuits using serial electron microscopy.

EyeWire is a game that helps scientists map the brain. Image: EyeWire

Web Information

Website: http://seunglab.org/

Contact Information

E-mail: sseung@princeton.edu

Address: 153 Princeton Neuroscience Institute Washington Road Princeton, NJ 08544

Research

The Seung Lab uses techniques from machine learning and social computing to extract brain structure from light and electron microscopic images.  EyeWire showcases our approach by mobilizing gamers from around the world to create 3D reconstructions of neurons by interacting with a deep convolutional network.

The Seung Lab also develops computational methods for relating brain structure to function. To establish this relationship, we often reconstruct the connectivity of the same neurons after observation of their activity via two-photon imaging. We also classify neurons into cell types that have characteristic structural and functional properties. The latter approach was used to create a new model for how ...

Principal Investigator: Carlos D  Brody Princeton Neuroscience Institute

Brodylab’s focus is on novel quantitative behaviors that allow exploring high-level cognitive questions using powerful emerging tools for studying neural mechanisms in rats. The lab now uses rats to investigate the neural bases of decision making, working memory and executive control using a combination of high-throughput semiautomated behavior as well as computational, electrophysiological, pharmacological and optogenetic methods.

Web Information

Website:  brodylab.org/ Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: brody@princeton.edu Phone: (609) 258-7645 Address: Princeton University 119 Lewis Thomas Laboratory Washington Road Princeton, NJ 08544-1014

Research

What are we interested in?  Here’s an example: you’re browsing DVDs in a video store. You pick one up– you like it, perhaps you might buy it. But you’re not sure yet. You put it back down, and stroll down the aisle. You compare them; perhaps today you decide to buy the first DVD. What happened in your brain as you went through all this? What are the neural mechanisms that allow you to remember, for a few seconds, how much you liked the first DVD; to compare the two DVDs; to make a decision; to apply the rules of behavior appropriate for the context you’re in (here, a video store)? In other words, what are the neural mechanisms underlying our cognitive abilities? What ...

Principal Investigator: Lawrence Wald Neuroscience@Harvard

The Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging dual mission includes translational research using state-of-the-art imaging technologies and ongoing development of those technologies. The core technologies being developed and used at the Center include magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET) and more (see the navigation menu on the left for a complete list of the technologies). A key area of innovation is Multimodal Functional Neuroimaging, which involves the integration of two or more different imaging technologies.

Multimodal Functional Neuroimaging, which involves the integration of two or more different imaging technologies.

Web Information

Website:  www.martinos.org/ Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: info@martinos.org Phone: 617-726-3197 Address: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging 149 Thirteenth Street, Suite 2301 Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129

About

The Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital is one of the world’s premier research centers devoted to development and application of advanced biomedical imaging technologies. Our mission is to advance imaging in healthcare through technology development, translational research and education.

Located on the MGH Research Campus in Charlestown, the Center is home to roughly 100 faculty researchers and more than 200 affiliated and visiting faculty, postdoctoral research fellows and graduate students, who use advanced imaging technologies both separately ...