A team of scientists from across the country will use a $15.6 million award from the National Institute of Mental Health to investigate the brain networks central to obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). The work will build on more than 15 years of research by lead investigator Suzanne N. Haber, a School of Medicine and Dentistry researcher, and collaborators to understand the underlying biology of the disease and guide the development of effective treatments.

“Obsessive compulsive disorder is among the most disabling psychiatric disorders,” says Haber, professor of pharmacology and physiology, neuroscience, and psychiatry. “It affects one to three percent of the population worldwide, yet it hasn’t received the same level of attention as other mental health disorders. We’re excited to receive this funding and use translational methods to understand circuit dysfunction in the disease and to develop new treatment approaches that can improve the lives of patients.”

The five-year grant funds a Silvio O. Conte Center for Basic and Translational Mental Health Research at Rochester. Haber has received previous Conte Center grants that have propelled scientists’ understanding of the disease. Major findings include the discovery of a narrower, more defined network of brain regions, dubbed the “OCD network,” that underlie the disorder. The new grant will allow scientists to test the idea that behavioral inflexibility in OCD results from faulty connections between brain circuits in this network. Learn more.

In a new paper published in the journal eLife, University researchers including Greg DeAngelis, the George Eastman Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and his colleagues at Sungkyunkwan University and New York University, describe a novel neural mechanism involved in causal inference that helps the brain detect object motion during self-motion.

The research offers new insights into how the brain interprets sensory information and may have applications in designing artificial intelligence devices and developing treatments and therapies to treat brain disorders.

“While much has been learned previously about how the brain processes visual motion, most laboratory studies of neurons have ignored the complexities introduced by self-motion,” DeAngelis says. “Under natural conditions, identifying how objects move in the world is much more challenging for the brain.”

The researchers discovered a type of neuron in the brain that has a particular combination of response properties, which makes the neuron well-suited to contribute to the task of distinguishing between self-motion and the motion of other objects. Learn more.

Jesús Sánchez Juárez, a PhD student in the lab of Jaime Cardenas, with the automatic scanning device he developed to detect monolayers.  (Photo by J. Adam Fenster/University of Rochester)

Monolayers—two-dimensional materials less than 1/100,000^th the width of a human hair—are highly sought for use in electronics, photonics, and optoelectronic devices because of their unique properties.

Jesús Sánchez Juárez, a PhD student in the lab of Jaime Cardenas, assistant professor of optics, has made it much easier for research labs and companies to detect monolayers. The breakthrough technology Juárez developed—an automated scanning device described in Optical Materials Express—can detect monolayers with 99.9 percent accuracy, at a fraction of the cost, in far less time, and with readily available materials. How? Learn more here.

Aileen Aldalur, Ajay Dhakal, Adam Dziorny, and Frank Garcea.

KL2 Career Development Awards provide two years of mentored research support to help early-career clinical and translational scientists advance their careers and obtain further K- or R-awards. This year’s University of Rochester awardees, announced by the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (UR CTSI), are:

Aileen Aldalur, postdoctoral associate in emergency medicine, who will test an intervention she adapted for deaf individuals with mental health issues, to encourage them to seek treatment. The program uses Zoom or video phones, rather than screening by telephone interviews, and factors in unique linguistic and cultural concerns of the deaf population to help overcome mistrust of the health care system and lack of accessible information.

Ajay Dhakal, assistant professor of medicine (hematology/oncology), who will test whether neratinib and capecitabine—therapies that target human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) protein—can shrink brain metastases in a small set of patients who have HER2-negative breast cancer and hyperactive HER2 signaling. In the process, he will assess the feasibility of a larger clinical trial.

Adam Dziorny, assistant professor of pediatrics, critical care, and biomedical engineering, who will validate and refine an existing algorithm to identify children at high risk of developing acute kidney injury at Golisano Children’s Hospital. Guided by user-centered design principles, an alert will be added to the patients’ electronic health records to help inform physicians and improve proactive care.

Frank E. Garcea, postdoctoral associate in neurosurgery, who will use high definition fiber tracking to identify white matter fiber pathways in the brain that support language production and tool use. This will help neurosurgeons avoid these critical structures when removing a brain tumor. The long term goal is to help preserve patients’ language and motor function after surgery.

Learn more.

Alexander Milliken, physiology, June 16, 2022
Investigating Succinate and pH Dynamics in Cardiac Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury
Advisor:  Paul Brookes

Ethan Walker, biochemistry, noon, June 22, 2022, Upper S-Wing Auditorium (3-7619), Medical Center, Hybrid Zoom Link
Global Analysis of the Interplay Between Protein Folding Stabilities and Methionine Oxidation
Advisor: Sina Ghaemmaghami

Monika Tasak, biochemistry, noon, June 23, 2022, Upper S-Wing Auditorium (3-7619), Medical Center,  Hybrid Zoom Link
The Biology of 1-Methyladenosine and Initiator tRNA in Evolutionarily Distant Yeast Species, and Other Aspects of tRNA Modification Biology
Advisor: Eric Phyzicky

Deaf and deafBlind people have been historically overlooked, excluded, and underserved by healthcare and health research. However, a new survey tool developed in part by members of the University of Rochester Clinical and Translational Science Institute aims to turn that around by making it easier to create surveys that are accessible for these unique populations.

This is especially important in communities like Rochester, which is home to one of the world’s largest per capita deaf population.

Learn more.