Meet Our 2024 Distinguished Investigators
In 2024, the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation awarded Distinguished Investigator Grants valued at $1 million to 10 senior-level scientists who are conducting innovative projects in neurobiological and behavioral research. Recipients of the $100,000, one-year grants are exploring new frontiers in understanding a wide range of neuropsychiatric disorders, including autism, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and the potential connection between mental illness and cannabis use.
Recipients of the Distinguished Investigator Grants are full professors at research institutions in the United States and abroad. They were selected by a committee of the BBRF Scientific Council, which is comprised of 193 experts across disciplines in brain and behavior research who review grant applications and recommend the most promising ideas to fund.
The Recipients of the 2024 Distinguished Investigator Grants are as follows:
Dorit Ben-Shachar, Ph.D., DSc, Professor, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Israel, seeks a mitochondria-related target that therapeutically impacts schizophrenia-related molecular and behavioral pathologies. If successful, the study will provide mechanistic insight into the role of mitochondria in schizophrenia and identify a potential novel therapeutic target.
Laura Lee Colgin, Ph.D., Professor & Director Department of Neuroscience, Center for Learning and Memory, University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School, seeks to enhance our understanding of how neurophysiological disturbances in the hippocampus contribute to abnormal social behaviors in individuals with autism associated with Fragile X Syndrome.
Sanjay J. Mathew, M.D., Professor & Vice Chair for Research, Baylor College of Medicine, will evaluate a novel radioligand for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging in individuals with PTSD. The goal of this work is to understand the role of a key glutamate receptor (AMPA) in the brain and its relationship to post-traumatic psychopathology.
Peter Penzes, Ph.D., Professor, Northwestern University, will continue with research in which his team has detected synaptic ectodomains in cerebrospinal fluid, a discovery with potential breakthrough implications for biomarkers and novel therapeutics in schizophrenia.
Elizabeth A. Phelps, Ph.D., Pershing Square Professor of Human Neuroscience, Harvard University, is exploring novel ways of treating subjective clinical symptoms of anxiety. This project will assess the clinical technique of cognitive restructuring during a period of memory vulnerability. Will it more persistently and effectively diminish the negative and distressing feelings evoked by intrusive, symptom-relevant autobiographical memories in socially anxious adults, compared with current first-line therapies for anxiety disorders?
Noah Stephen Philip, M.D., Professor, Ocean State Research Institute, Inc., Brown University, will study low-intensity focused ultrasound to the amygdala in depressed patients. The goal is to examine whether changes in brain perfusion are associated with clinical improvements, and to use individual-level findings as a ground truth to evaluate the accuracy of the acoustic modeling used to target the ultrasound.
Mary L. Phillips M.D., M.D. (Cantab), Professor, University of Pittsburgh, will examine mitochondrial Complex I (MC-I) in the brain in individuals with bipolar disorder (BD), and determine relationships among MC-I and indices of neural activity and neurotransmission known to be aberrant in BD. The study will guide future, larger-scale studies examining MC-I in BD to aid BD risk detection and the development of new, mitochondrial dysfunction-informed treatments.
Carmen Sandi, Ph.D., Professor, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland, investigates anxiety and its co-morbidity with depression, using rodent models. This project will evaluate a promising nutritional intervention that targets mitochondrial dysfunction called mitophagy. The project aims to elucidate the mechanisms of action of this intervention, assess its feasibility, and investigate its long-term safety. It could lay the groundwork for human nutritional studies aimed at alleviating anxiety symptoms.
Karin Johanna Hendrika Verweij, Ph.D., Professor, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, The Netherlands, seeks to unravel the causal relationship between cannabis use and mental illness. Does cannabis use increase the risk or severity of mental illness, or can a mental illness lead individuals to increase their use of cannabis (for example as self-medication)? The team will use novel, genetically informed methods to investigate this question.
Kate M. Wassum, Ph.D., Professor, University of California, Los Angeles, seeks to reveal how value judgements for food reward options are constructed in the brain and used to guide adaptive decision making. The work has the potential to transform how we view the neuronal computations that support decision making and will enable subsequent investigation of the biological architecture of value construction and decision making, facilitating a deeper understanding of maladaptive cognition and decision making that can characterize psychiatric illnesses.
