Profs. Rubin and Dioron receive new grant

Friday, March 25, 2011

Profs. Rubin and Dioron receive new grant 

The project is on "Basal ganglia-thalamic signaling in parkinsonism and deep brain stimulation".  The funding is being provided by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke within the National Institutes of Health to support a collaboration between Brent Doiron and Jonathan Rubin in Math and Robert Turner in Neurobiology, including the hiring of a postdoctoral fellow in Mathematics.  Our research will include the collection and analysis of new data relating to changes in activity in particular brain areas known to be affected by Parkinson's disease.  We will also develop mathematical models of this activity, which will be used to explore mechanisms that could be responsible for the changes and possible interventions that  could reverse their pathological effects.  Deep brain stimulation surgery is a poorly understood yet effective current therapy for Parkinson's disease, and the project will include efforts to try to understand how it works and can be optimized.