Sarah D. Ackerman, Gabor Egervari, MD, PhD and Tao Xie, all of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, have been named 2023 Young Investigator grantees by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. This year’s funding will support 150 promising early-career scientists across the field of neuropsychiatry with innovative ideas in mental health research. The two-year grant is expected to provide up to $70,000 per recipient.
Ackerman, an assistant professor of pathology and immunology affiliated with the Brain Immunology and Glia Center, uses fruit flies to study the brain’s ability to form new neural connections and rewire itself — a process that is flexible during childhood and fades with age. Because glial cells in the brain, called astrocytes, are critical players in this neuronal plasticity, Ackerman’s work aims to leverage such cells to modify plasticity in the adult brain. Her findings have potentially important implications for neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, epilepsy and schizophrenia that involve altered fading of neuronal plasticity.