Kashmir Neuroscientist Gets Prestigious McKnight Scholars Award 2024

The MEFN is delighted to announce this year’s newly minted scholars, who are tackling leading-edge questions in neuroscience, ranging from the molecular fingerprints that ageing leaves on the brain, to the biological basis of intergenerational memories and the principles that enable brain-wide neuronal networks to enable navigation, survival, hibernation and sociality,” said Richard Mooney, PhD, chair of the awards committee and George Barth Geller Professor of Neurobiology at the Duke University School of Medicine. “The deep commitment of the McKnight Foundation to fundamental neuroscience research has enabled the selection committee to recognise a larger number of stellar early career investigators at a wider range of institutions than ever before.” There were 53 applicants for this year’s McKnight Scholar Awards, representing the best young neuroscience faculty in the country.

The other nine young neuroscientists who are part of the 2024 list are working on impressive themes to under the human brain. They were selected from 53 applicants. Their works offer a clear idea about what is the state of research in understanding the complexities of the human brain.

Gonadal hormones – oestrogen and testosterone are among the best known – are important to mammals in many ways. They modulate internal states, behaviour, and physiology. Humans may adjust their hormonal profile for a variety of reasons, from treating disease to building muscle to gender-affirming care to birth control. But while much has been studied about how these hormones affect the body, less well understood is how they change neural dynamics.

In her research, Dr Annegret Falkner and her lab will investigate how hormones change neural networks and thereby affect behaviour over short and long timeframes. Using a mouse model, Dr Falkner’s lab will explore the effects of hormones on multiple levels. Using new methods for behavioural quantification, she will observe and record behaviours of all kinds in freely behaving animals during a hormone state change. This unbiased screen will reveal generalized principles of how hormones control behaviour. In a second series of experiments, the team will map neural dynamics of hormone-sensitive networks across a hormone state change using brain-wide calcium imaging in a freely socially interacting animal, seeing how changes in the way these networks respond and communicate predict changes in behaviour. Finally, Dr Falkner’s lab will use site-specific optical hormone imaging to observe where and when oestrogen-receptor-mediated transcription occurs within this network – a window into how hormones can update network communication, and one which will help researchers understand the profound ways hormones affect the brain and behaviour.

Andrea Gomez (University of California)

The brain possesses the ability to change itself, a feature described as “plasticity.” Human brains, for example, exhibit plasticity in different ways at different times in their lives; conversely, some neurological disorders are linked to the inability to change, limiting the ability to move, learn, remember, or recover from trauma. Dr Andrea Gomez aims to learn more about brain plasticity by using psychedelics as a tool, reopening plasticity windows in the adult brain using the psychedelic psilocybin in a mouse model. Not only might this help us learn more about how the brain works, but it may also aid in the development of next-generation therapeutics.

Psychedelics have long-lasting structural effects on neurons, such as increased neuronal process outgrowth and synapse formation. A single dose can have months-long effects. In her research, Dr Gomez and her team will use psychedelics to identify classes of RNA that promote neural plasticity in the prefrontal cortex – a brain region involved in perception and social cognition. Gomez’s lab will assess how psychedelics change how RNA is spliced, establish the link between psilocybin-induced RNA changes and plasticity in mice as measured by synaptic activity, and observe the effect of psychedelic-induced plasticity on social interaction. Dr Gomez hopes this research can provide biological insight into the plasticity of perception and open new avenues of investigation into how these powerful compounds can help people.

Sinisa Hrvatin (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Most people understand the concept of hibernation, but relatively few think about how remarkable it is. Mammals that specifically evolved to maintain a constant body temperature abruptly “switch off” that feature, change their metabolism, and change their behaviour for months at a time. While the facts of hibernation are well understood, how animals initiate and maintain that state is not well understood, nor is how this ability arose. Did it simultaneously evolve in multiple distinct animals faced with harsh environments? Or is the circuitry to hibernate conserved widely in mammals, but only activated in some?

Dr Sinisa Hrvatin proposes to delve into the neuronal populations and circuits involved in hibernation. His lab’s previous work was able to identify neurons that regulate torpor (a shallow state that shares commonalities with hibernation) in laboratory mice. Using a less-common model, the Syrian hamster, Dr. Hrvatin will gain new insights into hibernation neural circuits. Syrian hamsters can be induced to hibernate environmentally, making them ideal for a laboratory experiment, but there are no available transgenic lines (like in mice), which led him to apply novel RNA-sensing-based viral tools to target specific cell populations related to hibernation. He will document neurons active during hibernation to identify relevant circuits and examine whether similar circuits are conserved in other hibernating and non-hibernating models.