Faculty Hiring Cluster: Brain Health

Brain Health

** For the latest on UTSA Brain Health Consortium, led by Dr. Jenny Hsieh, Semmes Foundation Chair in Cell Biology, please visit their web site**

The 21st century has been called the “The New Century of the Brain” according to Scientific American (March 2014), which stated, “despite a century of sustained research, brain scientists remain ignorant of the workings of the three-pound organ that is the seat of all conscious human activity.”

Recognizing these challenges, the Obama administration announced that it was establishing a large-scale initiative: the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative, or the BRAIN Initiative, in 2013. Called “the most visible big science effort of the president’s second term”, it was subsequently funded for $200 million in 2015. Concurrently, the European Union launched the Human Brain Project and has dedicated $1.6 billion to their efforts over a ten-year period.

UTSA has long pursued excellence in the study of the brain through its existing Neurosciences Institute, which has 25 active primary investigators and their research teams, focused on understanding the basic development and functions of the brain.

Other researchers have been studying the brain from a behavioral perspective. To these existing strengths we now plan to add a complementary strength in our ability to study and understand brain-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. In addition, over 5.2 million Americans are estimated to suffer from PTSD any given year, particularly our returning military members and veterans.

Additionally, UTSA plans to build depth in our ability to use data analytics or “big data” methods to study the epidemiology of these diseases in different minority populations and their link to other diseases, with partner UT Health San Antonio.

A New Approach to Brain Health Research

As we shift into the 21st century, our life expectancy has increased dramatically due to a number of factors including better health habits, improved nutrition, quality improvements in public health, and life saving medical interventions. However, while we are living longer and our bodies may be in better condition, our mental acuity isn’t keeping in tandem.

Despite our many discoveries, many brain functions are still a mystery. While we make progress along many research tracks, we need to shift our approach, “shake the trees”, to spark possible breakthroughs. So we are harnessing the power of collaboration: across our many departments, research centers and institutes, and colleges, while leveraging the resources of the UT System, mirroring the national and international research efforts to crack the mysteries of the brain.

This type of holistic collaboration is happening right now among UTSA researchers in the departments of Biology, Chemistry, Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Kinesiology, Health & Nutrition. It is also influencing the way we approach faculty recruitment.

At UTSA, we hope this new approach to brain health leads to new research inquiries. We want to discover, clarify, mitigate and rectify the circumstances that impede cognitive function so we can all maintain a clear and active mind regardless of age and condition.

~ UTSA Brain Health Consortium

Research Areas

Brain circuits & electrical signaling
Neurodegenerative disease
Traumatic brain injury
Regenerative medicine
Stem cell therapies
Medicinal chemistry
Drug design
Neuroinflamation

UTSA Research Centers

New UTSA Faculty for 2017-2018

Jenny Hsieh, Ph.D.
Professor and Semmes Chair in Neurobiology; Director, Brain Health Consortium

SPECIALTY: Neurogenesis, Adult neurogenesis and epilepsy, Cancer stem cells, Epigenetic regulation, Neurogenic small molecules, Stem cell biology

Hsieh lab / Precision models of epilepsy using human induced pluripotent stem cells

Epilepsy is a debilitating neurological disorder, affecting over 3 million Americans and over 65 million people worldwide. About a third of patients live with uncontrolled seizures and suffer from memory and mood disorders.

Dr. Jenny Hsieh’s research strives to understand the causes and mechanisms of epilepsy at the cellular, molecular, and circuit level. She is recruiting patients with genetic mutations in epilepsy and making individualized pluripotent stem cell lines. By creating three-dimensional brain-like structures (called organoids) from patient-derived stem cells, she is identifying the cause of their epilepsy and screening for drugs to treat their epilepsy.

Lindsey Macpherson, Ph.D.
Chemosensation; Biology

SPECIALTY: Wiring and functional connections of peripheral sensory circuits

The Macpherson lab is interested in investigating the sense of taste and the molecules, cells, and circuits involved in chemosensation from the tongue and gut to the brain. Taste receptor cells on the tongue are specialized to be activated by only one of the five taste qualities, and signal that information to discrete populations of neurons in the gustatory ganglia through “labeled lines.” This hard-wired, labeled line connectivity pattern is essential for our ability to correctly detect and discriminate tastes. The lab is interested in understanding how this gustatory circuit is organized at the cellular and molecular level.
Less well understood are chemosensory cells in the gut – which have many parallels to taste receptor cells – and may signal the presence of nutrients, toxins, and microbial metabolites to peripheral sensory neurons in the vagal ganglia. We aim to identify the cells and signaling mechanisms necessary for this gut-brain communication.

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New UTSA Faculty for 2016-2017

Golob Lab | Cognitive NeuroscienceDr. Edward Golob’s lab studies how auditory processing is affected by attention, memory, and the relations between perception and action. He seeks to understand the cognitive and neurobiological differences that accompany normal aging, age-related neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, and speech fluency disorders. In many studies, they monitor the brain’s electrical activity using event-related potentials and EEG; in others, they use transcranial magnetic and electrical stimulation to transiently influence brain activity. The lab is expanding its work to include traumatic brain injury and risk of future cognitive impairments, as well as patient rehabilitation using advanced computing and brain-computer interface methods.

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Lee Lab | Cell Cycle and Neurodegeneration

Dr. Hyoung-gon Lee’s research hypothesizes that cell cycle re-entry in the CNS is a key pathogenic mechanism in neurodegeneration. He is using transgenic mouse models to dissect and understand what might trigger cell cycle activation and whether this event bears any causal relationship with neurodegeneration like that observed in Alzheimer’s disease.

Neurodegenerative diseases cause neuronal death, but how? Neurons are non-proliferative, meaning their cell-cycle is arrested; perhaps accidental activation of the cell-cycle sets them on a course to die.

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Maroof Lab | Cortical Interneuron Fate and Function in DiseaseDr. Asif Maroof is using cutting-edge transgenic technology and stem cells to study the differentiation of cortical interneurons. He is determining their diversity, how they connect, and serve information flow in the brain. His research is fundamental to building the next generation of cell-based therapies for a whole array of neurological disorders and diseases.

Projection neurons transmit information between brain regions, but it’s the local circuit interneurons that shape the signals being transmitted. The diversity of interneurons confers the powerful computational capacity of the CNS, and their dysfunction results in pathological states.