Curci Foundation Provides Funding for Research in Neuroscience
The Shurl & Kay Curci Foundation has given $200,000 to an interdisciplinary research team at Carnegie Mellon University to support fundamental research in neuroscience. The grant will allow biological sciences and engineering professors to teach mice to use brain-computer interfaces (BCI). The project could provide new information about the neural basis of learning, behavior and motor control, and could lead to the creation of a mouse model for BCI research. Learning is the result of changes in the connections between individual neurons. To best study learning, researchers must study complex behaviors and the neuronal changes caused by those behaviors. Many tools exist to study neural activity in mice, but most tools for studying complex behavior are tailored for use in humans and other primates. The researchers are part of the university's BrainHubSM initiative that focuses on how the structure and activity of the brain give rise to complex behaviors.
