BBI Holds 2017 Seed Grant Symposium

The Brain and Behavior Initiative (BBI) held its Seed Grant Symposium on Thursday, September 14, 2017 at the University of Maryland. Over 115 people attended the symposium which featured the work and accomplishments of the BBI Seed Grant Awardees for FY16 and FY17.

BBI’s seed grant program successfully promotes collaborations among faculty from research areas that are traditionally exclusive. A successful seed grant competition fosters new research projects undertaken by faculty who have never worked together before as interdisciplinary teams. These collaborations are truly interdisciplinary.

Representatives from each team gave short 5 minute presentations discussing their current or past awards followed by Q&A with the audience. Provost Mary Ann Rankin, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences Dean, Greg Ball and Computer Math and Natural Sciences Dean, Jerry Wilkinson attended the event.

FY16 Award Presentations

Understanding the effect of age and duration of deafness on speech recognition in Cochlear Implant users. Samira Anderson, Matthew Goupell, and Katrina MacLeod
A novel use of catanioinic vesicles to modulate nervous system function and behavior. Philip R. DeShong, Erica R. Glasper, Jens Herberholz, and Farrah N. Madison
Development of an ultra-fast 2 photon microscope by beam multiplexing: GRID Imaging. Ramani Duraiswami, Nail Gumerov, Patrick Kanold, and Wolfgang Losert
The retina as a novel biomarker for schizophrenia. Bongtae Han, Elizabeth Quinlan, and Joshua Singer
Wireless measurement of neuronal currents using spin-torque nano-oscillators.
Ricardo Araneda, Jens Herberholz, Benjamin Shapiro, and Edo Waks
Investigating the Maryland Way. Leah Bush and Sheri Parks

Student Presentation – Synapto Engineering team: Diagnosing Alzheimer's disease using EEG devices. Dhruv Patel, Christopher Look, Megha Guggari, David Boegner, Anoop Patel, and Megan Forte

FY17 Award Presentations

Dance and EEG: Neural correlates of expressive movement. Pamela Abshire, Karen Bradley, Adriane Fang, Brad Hatfield, and Jonathan Simon
Biobehavioral links among social anxiety, risk-taking, and substance use. Erica Glasper, Sarah Racz, and Andres De Los Reyes
Identifying candidate genes associated with sensorineural hearing loss in a novel vertebrate model. Karen Carleton, Robert Dooling, and Farrah Madison
Characterizing biological changes associated with shifts in reproductive strategy -connecting genes, physiology, behavior and fitness. Heidi Fisher and Erica Glasper
New representations in neuronal ensembles during initial language acquisition neurobiology of phoneme, syllable and word learning in an animal model. Jonathan Fritz and Bill Idsardi
Unraveling the neurogenetic architecture of human preference in mosquitoes. Megan Fritz, Quentin Gaudry, and Carlos Machado
Computing with trajectories: Novel methods for understanding spatiotemporal function MRI data. Joseph Jájá, and Luiz Pessoa
Impact of meditation experience on the brain-body connection: Behavioral, physiological, and neural measures of stress-resilience. Stephanie Kuchinsky and Robin Puett
Control of cross-modal sensory plasticity by intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells. Patrick Kanold, Robert Layne, and Joshua Singer