[HIGHLIGHTS] Cao Secures Funding for Brain Biosensors and for Zebrafish Research A team led by Hung Cao received $1 million from the National Science Foundation to design integrative approaches for measuring brain activity during social interactions in sleep-disrupted animal models. Early-life sleep disruption has been shown to affect the development of complex social behaviors in prairie voles, the studied model, impairing social bonding in a manner similar to autism in humans. Cao, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science, will create neural biosensor microprobes that can simultaneously – and in real time – detect two key neurotransmitters governing excitation and inhibition. The ratio of these neurochemicals, L-glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid, holds important information about brain control of social interactions in healthy and autistic individuals. The wireless system will be combined with EEG to track electrical activity in the brain. “We know that sleep disruption in early life affects the ability to form bonds with partners in voles, but we don’t know why or what’s going on in the brain’s chemistry,” said Cao. “We need dedicated devices to measure the excitatory/ inhibitory balance in vivo during social interactions, with optimal temporal and spatial resolution. Such tools do not currently exist.”
16 UCI Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Cao’s co-principal investigator on the grant is Dr. Miranda Lim, a neurologist at Oregon Health and Science University who examines sleep disruption in the developing brain. “We hope to solve a longstanding mystery in neurobiology about the critical contribution of sleep to brain development,” said Cao. “The outcomes could help reveal how neural processes may go awry in neurodevelopmental disorders, and enable the next generation of neural prostheses, therapeutics and brain-machine interfaces.” Cao also won a National Institutes of Health grant to further his research on electrophysiology assessment in zebrafish. The Small Business Innovation Research Phase II award from the NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs advances Cao’s work with startup Sensoriis, Inc., which develops sensing solutions to address health care problems. The two-year $1.5 million grant includes a $477,394 sub-award that will directly fund Cao’s research. Zebrafish, which have physiological similarities to humans, have long been used for understanding human cardiac and neurological systems and for drug screening. Their small size, low maintenance costs, quick regeneration, conserved genome and optical transparency make these vertebrates ideal for experimental models. Cao’s project focuses on creating novel devices and systems that can provide reliable electrocardiogram and electroencephalogram data from both adult fish and larvae; building cloud-based systems that can process, interpret and study large-scale data; and designing cardiac and neurological studies and drug screening methods that use zebrafish models and the study’s novel tools.
