We are currently executing a wide range of different research projects.
Our lab had a grant funded project that examined exercise as an intervention to drive brain plasticity. Students trained exercised or sedentary animals on a cognitive task. We saw improvements in exercised animals (control and VPA). Students are segmenting MRI scans to measure changes in brain volume and also are quantifying protein levels of BDNF, IL-6, IL-15 and irisin in these same animals.
One currently funded project is studying cognitive performance in Fmr1 knock out (model of Fragile X) rats and recording from the medial prefrontal cortex. We will be evaluating how putative excitatory neurons change their response across learning and when animals make errors.
Another currently funded project will examine if the heterozygous female Fmr1 rat has cognitive decline as it ages. Humans that have a premutation (elongated gene sequence, but do not have Fragile X) are at higher risk for changes as they age.
Project 4
Students also have their own lines of research. Our Master’s student is using the maternal immune activation model to test if choline supplementation can rescue deficits observed in offspring and will also quantify inflammation makers associated with ASD symptomology.
