News
SfN 2022
Phillip takes a victory lap after his fascinating paper on consciousness is published in PNAS. Kudos, Phillip!
SfN 2022
Wen pulled in quite the crowd on her exciting work on working memory. Bravo, Wen!
The lab kayaks the Charles!
The lab masters C-to-C rolls and hip snaps in the Charles and celebrates over dinner.
Weijia Zhang becomes a PhD student at Columbia University
Weijia will be attending the Biomedical Engineering PhD Program at Columbia University. Congrats, Weijia!
Sanjeev Rampam becomes a MD student at Boston University
Sanjeev will be starting the MD program at Boston University School of Medicine. Congrats, Sanjeev!
Serife Leman Runyun becomes a PhD student at Northeastern University
Leman will be joining Dr. Karen Quigley’s Lab in the Psychology PhD program at Northeastern University. Congrats, Leman!
Olivia Tween becomes a MA student at Columbia University
Olivia will be attending the Psychology of Education MA Program at Columbia University. Congrats, Olivia!
Chenlingxi (Lyncie) Xu becomes a PhD student at University of Notre Dame
Lyncie will be attending the Psychology PhD Program and working in Dr. Nathan Rose’s Lab at University Notre Dame. Congrats, Lyncie!
Charlotte (Xiyou) Wang becomes a MS student at Boston University and Technical Associate at MIT
Charlotte will be attending the Computer Science MS Program at Boston University while also hold the post of Technical Associate in Dr. Fan Wang’s Lab at MIT. Congrats, Charlotte!
Luke Pool becomes a PhD student at Rutgers University
Luke will be attending the Kinesiology and Applied Physiology PhD Program and working in Dr. Brandon L. Alderman’s Lab at Rutgers University. Congrats, Luke!
Our laboratory’s research now appears on Neurodiem
Our laboratory’s research now appears on Neurodiem, a digital platform for presenting scientific developments in neurology provided by Biogen in collaboration with Springer Healthcare.
Congratulations Shrey Grover
Congratulations Shrey Grover on an eloquent interview with Dr. Jonathan O’Keeffe from Machine Medicine Technologies.
Congratulations Sanjeev Rampam
Congratulations Sanjeev Rampam on being awarded Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) funding for the fall and spring!
High-frequency neuromodulation improves obsessive-compulsive behavior
Nature Medicine
Grover S, Nguyen JA, Viswanathan V, Reinhart RMG
Nearly one billion people worldwide suffer from obsessive-compulsive behaviors, yet our mechanistic understanding of these behaviors is incomplete, and effective therapeutics are unavailable. An emerging perspective characterizes obsessive-compulsive behaviors as maladaptive habit learning, which may be associated with abnormal beta-gamma neurophysiology of the orbitofrontal-striatal circuitry during reward processing. We target the orbitofrontal cortex with alternating current, personalized to the intrinsic beta-gamma frequency of the reward network, and show rapid, reversible, frequency-specific modulation of reward- but not punishment-guided choice behavior and learning, driven by increased exploration in the setting of an actor-critic architecture. Next, we demonstrate that chronic application of the procedure over 5 days robustly attenuates obsessive-compulsive behavior in a nonclinical population for 3 months, with the largest benefits for individuals with more severe symptoms. Finally, we show that convergent mechanisms underlie modulation of reward learning and reduction of obsessive-compulsive symptoms. The results contribute to neurophysiological theories of reward, learning, and obsessive-compulsive behavior, suggest a unifying functional role of rhythms in the beta-gamma range, and set the groundwork for the development of personalized circuit-based therapeutics for related disorders.
Our laboratory is sincerely grateful for the extremely generous gift from Ms. Karen Bedrosian-Richardson
Our laboratory is sincerely grateful for the extremely generous gift from Ms. Karen Bedrosian-Richardson who is supporting our mission to gain deeper understanding of the brain mechanisms of human cognition and develop novel treatments for people with cognitive brain disorders. Thank you, Ms. Bedrosian-Richardson!
