Abstract

This mentored career development award will advance the career of Dr. Nandakumar Narayanan towards becoming an independent physician-scientist focused on the mechanism of cognitive dysfunction in Parkinson's disease. Currently, there are no treatments for cognitive dysfunction in Parkinson's disease and the mechanism is unclear. Dr. Narayanan proposes experiments that leverage state-of-the art techniques for selectively recording, disrupting, and stimulating neurons in freely-moving, behaving animals. The proposed research will interrogate the mechanism of cognitive dysfunction in Parkinson's disease. This proposal could inspire new therapeutic strategies for cognitive symptoms of PD based on existing gene therapy, functional neurosurgery and brain stimulation approaches. Dr. Narayanan has a strong neuroscience background with a PhD in neuroscience, and has identified an outstanding mentorship team. His primary mentor will be Dr. Ralph DiLeone, an innovative molecular biologist who will teach him novel tools to unravel neural circuits. In parallel, he will extend his neurological training to master all aspects of carng for patients with Parkinson's disease and with deep-brain stimulation. His training will occur in a vibrant neuroscience community with robust departmental support. From these efforts, he will learn a unique skill set to explore the mechanism of cognitive dysfunction in Parkinson's disease. This mentored career development award will position Dr. Narayanan to translate insights from his basic research to the clinical arena to help patients with Parkinson's disease.

Public Health Relevance

Cognitive symptoms in Parkinson's disease cause morbidity and mortality, and have no effective treatments. This proposal explores the mechanism of cognitive dysfunction in animal model with the hope of generating new treatments for cognitive dysfunction in Parkinson's disease.

  Funding Agency

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Type
Clinical Investigator Award (CIA) (K08)
Project #
5K08NS078100-04
Application #
8656162
Study Section
Neurological Sciences Training Initial Review Group (NST)
Program Officer
Sieber, Beth-Anne
Project Start
2012-02-15
Project End
2017-01-31
Budget Start
2014-02-01
Budget End
2015-01-31
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2014
Total Cost
Indirect Cost

  Institution

Name
University of Iowa
Department
Neurology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
City
Iowa City
State
IA
Country
United States
Zip Code
52242

  Publications

Kim, Young-Cho; Han, Sang-Woo; Alberico, Stephanie L et al. (2017) Optogenetic Stimulation of Frontal D1 Neurons Compensates for Impaired Temporal Control of Action in Dopamine-Depleted Mice. Curr Biol 27:39-47
Messingham, Kelly A N; Aust, Samantha; Helfenberger, Joseph et al. (2016) Autoantibodies to Collagen XVII Are Present in Parkinson's Disease and Localize to Tyrosine-Hydroxylase Positive Neurons. J Invest Dermatol 136:721-723
Narayanan, Nandakumar S (2016) Ramping activity is a cortical mechanism of temporal control of action. Curr Opin Behav Sci 8:226-230
Kingyon, J; Behroozmand, R; Kelley, R et al. (2015) High-gamma band fronto-temporal coherence as a measure of functional connectivity in speech motor control. Neuroscience 305:15-25
Laubach, Mark; Caetano, Marcelo S; Narayanan, Nandakumar S (2015) Mistakes were made: neural mechanisms for the adaptive control of action initiation by the medial prefrontal cortex. J Physiol Paris 109:104-17
Alberico, Stephanie L; Cassell, Martin D; Narayanan, Nandakumar S (2015) The Vulnerable Ventral Tegmental Area in Parkinson's Disease. Basal Ganglia 5:51-55
Parker, Krystal L; Chen, Kuan-Hua; Kingyon, Johnathan R et al. (2015) Medial frontal ?4-Hz activity in humans and rodents is attenuated in PD patients and in rodents with cortical dopamine depletion. J Neurophysiol 114:1310-20
van den Heuvel, José K; Furman, Kara; Gumbs, Myrtille C R et al. (2015) Neuropeptide Y activity in the nucleus accumbens modulates feeding behavior and neuronal activity. Biol Psychiatry 77:633-41
Parker, Krystal L; Narayanan, Nandakumar S; Andreasen, Nancy C (2014) The therapeutic potential of the cerebellum in schizophrenia. Front Syst Neurosci 8:163
Rodnitzky, Robert L; Narayanan, Nandakumar S (2014) Amantadine's role in the treatment of levodopa-induced dyskinesia. Neurology 82:288-9

Showing the most recent 10 out of 19 publications