Grant to boost BGSU neuroscience center’s research and outreach

BOWLING GREEN, O.—A Bowling Green State University center dedicated to learning about the most basic mechanisms of the brain has received a grant from the Ohio Board of Regents to both enhance its research and translate its findings to the public.

The Center for Neuroscience, Mind and Behavior, which combines faculty members from the departments of biology, philosophy, communication disorders and psychology, was awarded $175,000 through OBOR’s Incentive Fund.

The Incentive Fund was designed to encourage state-assisted universities to address critical needs of the state in improving its economic development, strengthening elementary and secondary education and improving public health and safety.

Bowling Green’s proposal was one of 12 selected for funding out of a field of 60. The Incentive Fund Review Committee used a competitive peer-review process and made its choices on the basis of academic quality and ability to meet the targeted state needs.

Dr. Paul Moore, an associate professor of biology, is principal investigator for the BGSU grant.

“The University has invested in the center, and this grant is a nice sign from the state that we’re on the right track,” Moore said. “Not only will the money allow us to gear up our research, but it will also increase our outreach efforts to the public.”

It is the area of public health that the BGSU center addresses. Fourteen faculty members are studying the centers of the brain and how specific diseases may affect those centers.

Their work is wide ranging. They are studying the basic mechanisms of learning and remembering, and asking such questions as how does the brain look at time and space. Other areas of study are the development of human emotions and the role of circadian rhythms in our lives.

Moore’s research centers on the chemistry of aggression, using crayfish and lobsters to study the biological basis of the emotion. He said he hopes that eventually his findings will help identify possible drug therapies for those in whom aggression is a problem or who have sustained head injuries resulting in loss of aggression control.

Two of the center’s faculty members are studying navigational ability—which areas of the brain are involved, how it develops and how it relates to other aspects of higher thought. A practical application of this research may come in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, whose sufferers often lose their ability to find their way in familiar surroundings.

Moore said that by boosting the infrastructure of the center, the additional funding will help advance the work of everyone involved.

“The center can do things that individuals working alone cannot. We can share equipment, studies and our time,” he said. (Posted June 28, 2002)