Project Grant R01MH143222
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded the University of Pittsburgh $437,250 on June 5, 2026, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to characterize striatal dopamine dynamics in SHANK3-deficient mice during postnatal development. The project combines fiber photometry imaging, whole-cell electrophysiology, and genetic tools to investigate how loss of SHANK3 protein—a genetic risk factor for autism spectrum disorder—affects the maturation of dopaminergic circuits...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded the University of Pittsburgh $158,960 on January 21, 2027, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to investigate inhibitory control of dendritic spikes in hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons. The project will use optogenetics, two-photon calcium imaging, and voltage imaging to explore how dendrite-targeting somatostatin interneurons regulate dendritic spike dynamics, specifically examining how synaptic inhibition modifies...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded the University of Pittsburgh $437,250 on April 1, 2026, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to investigate parvalbumin interneuron diversity and plasticity in primary visual and prefrontal cortical areas. The award funds a two-year exploratory research project running through March 31, 2028, conducted in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The research uses patch-seq methodology to integrate single-cell RNA sequencing,...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory $528,000 on June 19, 2026, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to support developmental characterization of synapses between neurons and oligodendrocyte precursor cells. The funded research investigates structural, functional, and molecular properties of neuron-OPC synapses, a class of synaptic connections that remain poorly understood despite evidence that oligodendrocyte precursor cells...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded The Leland Stanford Junior University $734,707 on August 13, 2026, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to investigate the coordinated maturation of neurons and synapses in the adolescent human neocortex. The research develops a pipeline to retrieve and analyze tissue specimens resected during pediatric neurosurgical procedures for epilepsy, vascular malformations, or brain tumors. The study examines whether postnatal...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded the University of Pittsburgh $739,727 on August 1, 2026, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to develop federated statistical harmonization and multivariate modeling frameworks for investigating altered brain aging patterns in individuals with severe mental illness and the modifying effects of metabolic syndrome. The project addresses methodological challenges in large-scale neuroimaging research by leveraging the ENIGMA...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai $763,265 on August 18, 2026, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to characterize splicing and isoform dysregulation in autism spectrum disorder at cellular resolution. The recipient will profile postmortem prefrontal cortex brain tissue from 74 individuals with ASD and 74 neurotypical controls across the lifespan, from childhood to adulthood, using long-read multiplexed arrays...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded The Trustees of The University of Pennsylvania $200,538 on December 14, 2025, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to investigate functional cortical development and its relationship to transdiagnostic psychopathology risk. The recipient will map the functional organization of the cortex across development using a normative modeling framework applied to four large-scale developmental datasets: the Philadelphia...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded the University of Pittsburgh $128,236 on September 1, 2026, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242, K99MH146391) to investigate how environmental enrichment during mid-adolescence fosters cortical plasticity and psychiatric resilience. The project tests the hypothesis that a critical period of heightened association cortex plasticity exists during mid-adolescence when environmental enrichment—encompassing physical,...
- The National Institute of Mental Health awarded the University of Maryland, Baltimore $762,566 under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) on April 1, 2026 to conduct comprehensive multi-omic and synaptic imaging studies of the cerebellum in autism spectrum disorders. The project will generate single-nuclei multi-omic profiles of gene expression and chromatin accessibility in approximately 1.5 million cells from 100 autism spectrum disorder cases and 100 controls, utilizing...
The National Institute of Mental Health awarded the University of Pittsburgh $751,430 on August 4, 2026, under the Mental Health Research Grants program (CFDA 93.242) to conduct a multi-omic atlas of dendritic spine morphometry across postnatal development in neurotypical and autism spectrum disorder subjects. The research interrogates trajectories of synaptic protein network features—protein expression, synaptosome levels, and phosphorylation—in the prefrontal cortex and primary visual cortex, addressing gaps in how dendritic spine maturation and its molecular mediators develop across typical and ASD postnatal development. The work builds on preliminary findings of robust alterations in the trajectory of visual cortex synaptosome protein levels across postnatal development in ASD and prior small-cohort studies reporting increased density of immature spines in cortical tissue from ASD subjects. Performance occurs at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The project period runs through May 31, 2031.
Mod # | Description | ReasonForModification | Federal Obligation | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not listed | $751.4k | 8/6/26 |