Grant Type: Discovery Research

This project explores how disrupted calcium signaling, through changes in potassium and calcium channel interactions, contribute to mood state switches in bipolar disorder.

Previous work in the Dymecki lab discovered a brain circuit that links serotonergic Rorβ-Fev neurons to the brain’s master clock and mood and arousal centers. This project tests whether targeting it can stabilize mood switching in bipolar disorder.

The Duncan lab previously found a rare neuron type in an understudied brain region, the retrosplenial cortex, strongly linked to bipolar disorder. This project explores the role of these “retrosplenial switch cells” in mood state switching.

Determining whether a novel type of brain stimulation and precision mapping can be used to identify the underlying mechanisms of mood switching in bipolar disorder.

Identifying the brain circuitry responsible for mood instability by mapping the brains of individuals with bipolar disorder and manipulating these circuits to establish their causal role in mood regulation.

Mapping psychiatric symptom characteristics of bipolar disorder to brain circuits using brain lesions, brain stimulation, and neuroimaging.

Chronically recording deep brain activity in people with bipolar disorder to detect and characterize changes in network dynamics that coincide with changes in mood state.

Identifying key immune biomarkers and uncovering possibilities for new therapies by using newly developed organ-chip technology and modeling how immune changes affect living human brain cells.