BBI FY18 Seed Grant Winners Announced

The University of Maryland’s Brain and Behavior Initiative has announced its FY18 Seed Grant recipients.

Our third annual request for proposals was again successful in attracting diverse projects from highly interdisciplinary teams. We received 14 proposals, from 41 PIs representing 5 colleges (BSOS, ENGR, CMNS, EDUC, and ARHU) and 15 departments. 25 of the PIs submitted seed grant to the BBI for the first time. Funding decisions were made based on rankings from 5 external reviewers, with expertise in brain and behavior.

The following teams were awarded seed funding:

Reza Ghodssi (ECE/ISR), Bill Bentley (BIOE), and Jens Herberholz (PSYC, NACS) A Multimodal Sensor Discovery Platform to Study the Molecular Events Underlying the Gut-Microbiome-Brain Axis

Behtash Babadi (ECE) and Wolfgang Losert (Physics IPST) Precision Optogenetics: msec time resolution optical imaging and control of neuronal circuits

Bill Idsardi (LING), Jonathan Fritz (ISR), and Bob Dooling (PSYC) Central Nervous System Processing of Learned Vocal Communication Signals

Richard Prather (HDQM), DJ Bolger, (HDQM), Marine Carpaut (CS), and Joe Dien (MNC) Cognitive and Neural Precursors to Semantic Word Learning and Math Development

Jack Blanchard (PSYC), Alex Shackman (PSYC), and Eun Kyoung Choe (iSchool) and Understanding the role of negative affect in psychosis using multimodal imaging and wearable sensors

Anna Li (PSYC) and Matt Roesch (PSYC) Role of epigenetic mechanisms in striatum in neuronal encoding of decision-making during incubation of methamphetamine craving

Giuliano Scarcelli (BIOE) and Josh Singer (BIOL) Adapting Brillouin microscopy to the study of synaptic transmission

Published May 4, 2018