Federal Project Grant Award Summary

New York University School of Medicine received a $135,972 Project Grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) under the Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders program (CFDA 93.173), effective July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2028. This award funds research investigating the neural computations underlying intensity perception across sensory systems, with emphasis on olfactory and auditory stimuli in both unimodal and multimodal conditions. The project addresses a significant gap in understanding how the brain encodes stimulus intensity—a fundamental sensory feature critical to attention allocation and behavioral responses—and seeks to elucidate mechanisms that, when disrupted, contribute to sensory symptoms associated with autism spectrum disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, tinnitus, and related communication and sensory disorders.

The research deliverables include behavioral studies employing intensity-matching tasks to establish iso-intense odorant concentrations and develop predictive models for intensity perception from molecular physicochemical features, as well as electrophysiological neural recordings to characterize intensity encoding mechanisms. These products advance the foundational understanding of sensory intensity perception mechanisms and support the NIDCD mission to investigate solutions to problems affecting individuals with deafness and communication disorders by clarifying the neurobiological basis of intensity perception disruptions that contribute to sensory processing symptoms in various neurological and developmental conditions.