Federal Grant Award Summary

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill received a $572,294 Project Grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242), awarded August 1, 2026, with completion targeted for July 31, 2029. This three-year research initiative investigates the neurobiological mechanisms by which adolescent social isolation contributes to psychiatric disorder risk in adulthood, with specific focus on glial cell dysfunction in the nucleus accumbens—a brain region critical for social information processing and reward circuitry refinement during development.

The research will examine whether microglia-mediated pruning of astrocytes (supporting brain cells) following adolescent social stress disrupts astrocyte-synapse coupling in the nucleus accumbens core and drives maladaptive social behavior persisting into adulthood. Aim 1 employs confocal microscopy and three-dimensional cellular imaging to characterize isolation-induced microglial phagocytosis of astrocytes and will test whether pharmacological blockade of phagocytosis rescues behavioral deficits in vivo. Aim 2 (partially described in the source material) assesses additional mechanisms by which isolation stress affects glial function. By elucidating stress-induced glial dysfunction as a mechanistic pathway to later-life psychiatric risk, this project advances basic neurobiological understanding aligned with NIMH's mission to transform understanding and treatment of mental illnesses through research.