Baker, Laura A.
Gene-environment interplay in human behavior, including personality, cognitive and social development. Rich datasets from longitudinal twin study of risk factors for externalizing behavior problems available for analysis.
Benayoun, Berenice
Associate Professor of Gerontology, Biological Sciences and Cancer Biology
My lab has been excited to explore understudied influences (specifically biological sex and reproductive status) on gene regulation across key biological systems including the aging brain, with a special interest for innate immunity (e.g. neutrophils, macrophages, microglia), and how these inputs lastingly influence vertebrate health. Sex-dimorphic processes can have a major and lasting influence on somatic health, yet, this exciting question is still dramatically understudied, with few studies looking at the influence of biological sex as a focal point of interest, thus ignoring a major contributor to health disparities in human populations.
Braskie, Meredith
Assistant Professor of Neurology
We use neuroimaging, fluid biomarkers, environmental and genetic risk factors, and comorbidities to better understand Alzheimer’s disease (AD) risk - particularly the mechanisms underlying earliest brain characteristics that may signal or contribute to future cognitive decline. I am especially interested in the contributions of vascular, metabolic, and inflammatory risk to AD-relevant brain measures in older adults. I am also interested in disease heterogeneity and how it relates to health disparities and sex differences.
Ching, Christopher
Assistant Professor Of Research Neurology
Dr. Ching’s research focuses on neuroimaging and genomic markers of psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. As a core organizing member of the Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) Consortium, he designs and implements standardized processing and analysis techniques for large-scale neuroimaging studies. He leads the ENIGMA Bipolar Disorder Working Group, an effort pooling data and resources from around the world to improve our understanding of the biological processes driving bipolar disorder, and studies rare copy number variants like 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome to understand how genetic mutations can lead to increased risk for developing psychiatric illness. He leads several large-scale transdiagnostic neuroimaging and genomic initiatives using machine learning to map common and distinct brain and clinical factors across mental illnesses.
Cortes, Constanza
Assistant Professor of Gerontology
We investigate the mechanisms of exercise-associated neuroprotection in the context of aging and Alzheimer's disease. We utilize transgenic exercice-mimetic transgenic mice in combination with running interventions to isolate and prioritize novel 'exerkines' to move into pre-clinical trials. We are also building an 'exercise atlas' of the brain across the lifespan, with the ultimate goal of developing exercise in a pill as a novel intervention for Alzheimer's disease
Dias, Brian George
Associate Professor of Developmental Neuroscience & Neurogenetics
Our research seeks to understand not only how mammalian neurobiology, physiology and reproductive biology is impacted by psychosocial and nutritional stress but also how parental legacies of such stressors influence offspring. To achieve this understanding, we employ a lifespan approach to study how stressors affect: sperm/egg/embryo (pre-conceptional stress), the gestating fetus (in utero stress), and the developing infant (post-natal stress). Our experimental approaches include assaying learning-memory-motivation, virus-mediated manipulation of neuronal activity and gene expression, (epi)genetic profiling of cells, in vivo fiber photometry and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs).
