Neuroscience People News

Jamie Maguire Awarded Charles H. Hood Foundation Child Health Research Award

Jamie Maguire, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, was recently granted the Charles H. Hood Foundation Child Health Research Award. The proposal entitled “Impact of Maternal Depression on Offspring Development” will investigate the role of maternal stress hormones in the negative impact of maternal depression on offspring development. This study will provide insight into the pathogenesis of postpartum depression as well as the associated deficits in child development.

John Kauer Quoted in ScienceNow Article

John Kauer, Neuroscience Professor Emeritus, was recently quoted in an article about the use of studying dogs' keen sense of smell in developing artificial smelling devices. The article ran in ScienceNow, a daily online news feature on the AAAS website.

To read the article please click here.

Supplemental Award to the Tufts Center for Neuroscience Research

The Tufts Center for Neuroscience Research (CNR) has just received a supplemental award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) to purchase equipment for three different medical school shared research cores: the CNR Electrophysiology, Behavior and Imaging Cores. The funds come at an opportune time, enhancing the CNR overall in its continued goal to support neuroscience research efforts and to promote collaborative interactions among neuroscientists at Tufts University and its affiliated hospitals. For more information about the CNR please click here.

*Leon Reijmers, PhD Named NIH New Innovator*

Leon Reijmers, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, is one of only 55 recipients of the National Institutes of Health Director’s New Innovator Award. The Award is supported by the NIH Common Fund’s Roadmap for Medical Research, with additional funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and supports early-career scientists who take innovative approaches to major challenges in biomedical research. This prestigious award totals $1.5 million over five years.

Reijmers’ research focuses on investigating the way memories are stored in the brain, specifically focusing on the proteins involved in long-term memory storage. In earlier research, Reijmers helped develop a transgenic mouse model that allows researchers to locate the neurons involved in the storage of memories. Reijmers’ current research uses the model to extract the messenger RNA that dictate which proteins are produced during the storage of a new memory. Additionally, the messenger RNA will be analyzed at different times to see how the proteins involved in the storage of new memories compare to the proteins involved in the maintenance of memories.

“The research methods we are pioneering at Tufts will help us understand the mechanisms of memory and, once refined, can be applied to the study of addiction, epilepsy, circadian rhythms, spinal cord regeneration, pain, brain development, and neuronal cell death,” said Reijmers.

More information on the NIH Director's New Innovator Award and the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research is available here.

CogniScent - Company with TUSM Neuroscience Roots - Featured in the Boston Globe

CogniScent, a company found by Neuroscience Emeritus Professors John Kauer, PhD and Barbara Talamo, PhD along with Neuroscience Alumni Joel White, PhD was recently featured in the Boston Globe.

Relying on their research of the oral factory system, Kauer, Talamo and White have developed an artificial nose that can detect explosives, toxic chemicals, mold and other hazardous organic compounds. They are also in the process of developing an electronic nose that could be used by emergency personal and first responders to alert them of the presence of toxic chemicals.

The full article can be accessed by clicking here. More information about CogniScent can be found at their website by clicking here.

Leon Reijmers Awarded Alzheimer's Association 2009 New Investigator Research Grant

Leon Reijmers, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, was recently named a 2009 Alzheimer’s Association New Investigator. He will receive a grant for his project “Imaging of Memory Circuits in the Presence of Soluble Amyloid-Beta”, during which he will use transgenic mice to look at the effects of soluble amyloid-beta on neural circuits that store a memory. The results will help explain the presence of cognitive impairments during the early stages of Alzheimer's disease.

Miho Terunuma named National American Heart Association Senior Scientist Award recipient

Miho Terunuma, a research associate in Steve Moss' lab, has recently been received a National American Heart Association Senior Scientist Award. Dr. Terunuma will examine the link between glutamate receptor activation and the regulation of AMPK-dependent phosphorylation of GABA_B receptors. Her work has the potential to make contributions to the development of novel therapeutics to enhance neuronal survival after ischemic injury.

Henry Hing Cheong Lee named Founder's Affiliate American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellowship recipient

Henry Lee, a postdoctoral fellow in Steve Moss' lab, has been named as the recipient of a Founder's Affiliate American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellowship Award. In his project Dr. Lee will attempt to determine if modified KCC2 membrane trafficking underlies compromised neuronal inhibition after ischemia. By performing these studies, he hopes to provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms that regulate the functional expression of KCC2 and by doing so facilitate the development of novel therapeutic strategies to enhance neuronal inhibition after ischemia to limit neuronal cell death.

Dr. Jamie Maguire to join the Department of Neuroscience, Tufts University School of Medicine

We're pleased to announce that Jamie Maguire, Ph.D., will join the faculty of the Department of Neuroscience in January 2010 as an Assistant Professor. Jamie received her B.S. in Neuroscience and B.A. in The History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh followed by her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at The George Washington University. She continued her training as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Istvan Mody at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Jamie’s research will build on her background investigating how synapses, and thereby synaptic transmission, become altered to render the brain susceptible to neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. Specifically, the goal of her research is to understand the interplay between steroid hormones, synaptic transmission, and neuronal excitability in health and disease. Stress is a trigger for many neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, ranging from epilepsy to postpartum depression. The goal of Jamie’s research is to understand the role of the stress response (i.e. hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activation) in the pathophysiology of these disorders. Using a variety of approaches from electrophysiology to behavior paradigms, Jamie plans to investigate the regulation of the HPA axis under normal and pathological conditions. Jamie’s previous research studying steroid hormones, ion channel function, and synaptic plasticity make her uniquely qualified to investigate the interplay between the neuroendocrine system and neuronal excitability in neuro-psychiatric illnesses, such as depression and epilepsy, as well as the comorbidity of the two disorders.

For more information about Dr. Maguire’s research please click here.

Quidong Deng Name NARSAD Young Investigator Award Recipient

Qiudong Deng, a postdoctoral associate in Philip Haydon’s lab, was recently named a NARSAD 2009 Young Investigator Award Recipient. Dr. Deng’s project will focus on understanding astrocytes and how to regulate the density and function of NMDA receptors; given that abnormal NMDA receptor signaling is involved in schizophrenia, astrocytes may offer an alternative non-neuronal therapeutic target for this disorder.

More information about the NARSAD Young Investigator Awards can be found here.

Michelle Tangredi Named 2009 DeLill Nasser Award Recipient

Michelle Tangredi, a student in Rob Jackson's laboratory was recently named one of six recipients of the 2009 DeLill Nasser Award for Professional Development in Genetics. This award helped Michelle defray the costs of travel to the 50th Annual Drosophila Research Conference in Chicago. For more information about the DeLill Nasser Awards please click here.

Importance of nAChR in Preventing Hearing Damage

Douglas Vetter, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, is part of a global team of collaborators that recently published a paper in PLoS Biology demonstrating the importance of a protein comprising a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) of the inner ear in preventing hearing damage associated with exposure to loud noise.  The researchers created mutant mice by genetically altering the nAChR gene in the sensory cells of the inner ear, and found the resultant mice to be less susceptible to permanent hearing loss than normal mice after exposure to moderately high intensity sound.  Since the same protein is found in human inner ears, this research opens new avenues for the development of pharmaceutical products designed to help fight hearing loss occurring as a result of repeated exposure to loud noises, and suggests that variations of this gene may underlie already recognized differences in susceptibility to noise-induced hearing loss in humans.

The full PLoS Biology article can be found here and a synopsis of the article can be found here.

Epigenetics Study Led by Larry Feig Generates Interational Press

A recent study funded by the NIH and led by Larry Feig, PhD, Professor of Biochemistry and a member of the Graduate Program in Neuroscience has shown that female mice that were genetically-altered to have an inherent memory-deficiency caused by depressed LTP overcame these deficiencies if they were exposed to a stimulating environment when they were young. What’s more remarkable is that these mice passed these effects of environmental exposure on to their mutant offspring who retained it up until adolescence, even if the offspring were not exposed to a stimulating environment.

If a similar phenomenon occurs in humans, the effectiveness of one’s memory during adolescence, particularly in those with defective cell signaling mechanisms that control memory, can be influenced by environmental stimulation experienced by one’s mother during her youth.

Click here for a PDF version of the article. A link to the Nature News article is here and the piece from the Tufts Journal is here.

Astrocytes and Sleep Disorders

Brain cells called astrocytes help to cause the urge to sleep that comes with prolonged wakefulness, according to a study in mice, funded by the National Institutes of Health. These findings are the result of a collaboration among Michael Halassa, M.D., and Philip Haydon, Ph.D., at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston and Marcos Frank, Ph.D., and Ted Abel, Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia. Taken together, the results hint at the possibility of new drugs that could increase or decrease sleep pressure as necessary. The best available sleep aids tend to be effective at inducing sleep, but not effective at keeping it steady throughout the night. Meanwhile, the most commonly used stimulant, caffeine, acts on multiple types of adenosine receptors, and can affect sleep patterns even when it is consumed in the morning. Drugs that target astrocytes or the A1 receptors on neurons might be more effective at fine-tuning the urge to sleep, the study authors say.

News Item take from the NINDS Press Release Support Cells, Not Neurons, Lull the Brain to Sleep (click for the full Press Release). For more information visit the following links:

• Halassa et al. Astrocytic Modulation of Sleep Homeostasis and Cognitive Consequences of Sleep Loss Neuron, January 29, 2009.
• Jones BE. Preview: Glia, Adenosine, and Sleep Neuron, January 29, 2009.
• Crane A.Cell study boosts sleep loss data Financial Times, January 30 2009
• Study: Why We Get Sleepy LiveScience.com

Elizabeth Storer awarded NRSA Pre-doctoral Fellowship

Neuroscience Student Liz Storer in Michele Jacob's lab was recently awarded an NRSA pre-doctoral fellowship for her project, "Regulation of alpha9/10-nAChR and SK2 function and localization at auditory synapses". Alpha9/10-nAChRs and SK2 channels function in the inner ear to modulate hearing sensitivity. The goal of this project is to identify proteins that interact with alpha9/10-nAChRs and SK2 to regulate their functional properties and synaptic localization.

Other Neuroscience Department News

Newly Renovated Shared Research Facilities in the Department of Neuroscience

The Tufts/NEMC Imaging Facility (TNIF) and the Tufts Expression Array Core (TEAC) have moved into newly renovated spaces on the second floor of the Stearns Building on the Health Sciences Campus. Both shared research facilities are components of the Center for Neuroscience Research (see http://www.tufts.edu/sackler/neuroscience/CNR).

A New CNR Funding Mechanism: the CNR Core Award

The new CNR Core Award is designed to encourage neuroscience investigators to utilize core services of the center. The program offers small awards to individual neuroscientists or groups of neuroscientists wishing to collect preliminary data for a new grant application. Applications use a format similar to the one employed for the annual CNR Pilot Awards; however, awards for the core program are limited to $3000 and the funds must be spent within CNR core facilities or in the Tufts Molecular Facility within a six-month period of time. Applications must indicate how the award will facilitate the collection of preliminary data for a new grant application. Interested neuroscientists may submit an application at any time, which will be reviewed by the CNR operations committee in an expedited manner. To submit a core award application, please follow the instructions at: http://www.tufts.edu/sackler/neuroscience/CNR/center.html.