Brain institute makes the crucial connections

Updated on Nov. 11 at 10:33 a.m.

LAB WORK: Marc Powell, center, a doctoral student in biomedical engineering, uses magnifying equipment at Brown University’s Carney Institute of Brain Science to get a close-up look at his work. Behind him are David Borton, left, assistant professor of engineering and Dr. Sohail Syed, a neurosurgical resident./ PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
LAB WORK: Marc Powell, center, a doctoral student in biomedical engineering, uses magnifying equipment at Brown University’s Carney Institute of Brain Science to get a close-up look at his work. Behind him are David Borton, left, assistant professor of engineering and Dr. Sohail Syed, a neurosurgical resident. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

2019 PBN Business Excellence Awards
EXCELLENCE AT A LARGE COMPANY: Brown University’s Robert J. and Nancy D. Carney Institute for Brain Science


IT DOESN’T TAKE a brain surgeon to figure out the reason behind the award-winning success of Brown University’s Robert J. and Nancy D. Carney Institute for Brain Science.

But it has taken more than one brain scientist to earn the accolades.

Over the past few years the institute has increased funding into its research on how the human brain works, and it has expanded the results of that research by an impressive margin. The center brings together more than 180 world-class faculty members and their research groups across 23 Brown University departments, according to Sara Feijo, communications and outreach manager.

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Since becoming center director three years ago, Diane Lipscombe has increased the center philanthropic base, Feijo said, as well as improved “diversity and inclusion” in research activities to foster “innovative and game-changing research.”

The institute, for example, received a $100 million gift from alumnus Robert J. Carney and his wife, Nancy D. Carney, for its research efforts in 2018, and its researchers have attracted a total of $174 million in external funding over the past five years. That funding allowed it to move into a new state-of-the-art facility at the center of Brown’s College Hill campus in Providence in January.

“We are a powerhouse research institute with world-class brain scientists of different academic disciplines who collaborate to a degree that is unique and strongly influenced by Brown University’s open curriculum – integrative research and scholarship,” Lipscombe said. “Our new space on the fourth floor of 164 Angell St. has further catalyzed discussions and collaborations across disciplines, with engineering, cognition, and neuroscience faculty and students researching in a highly integrated environment.”

‘We are a powerhouse research institute with world-class brain scientists.’
DIANE LIPSCOMBE, Carney Institute for Brain Science director

She noted that the institute also values and supports community and academic discourse by offering workshops and data-science challenges for faculty and students from many departments to enrich the intellectual environment at Brown and to promote new ideas.

She said that through its innovation awards, which encourage brain scientists to launch new, innovative projects, the institute has enabled cross-disciplinary teams of faculty to pursue ground-breaking research that they would not be able to do otherwise. “On average, we invest $700,000 annually in innovation awards and we’ve seen a six-fold return on investment, as many of these ideas lead to exciting new discoveries and subsequent support from federal funds,” she said.

For example, she said, award recipient Karla Kaun is studying what happens to the brain during an addiction to alcohol. “We know that after alcohol addiction, people will harm themselves [and sometimes others] in seeking more alcohol,” she said. “The normal decision-making centers of the brain are altered, and Dr. Kaun is trying to understand how this change comes about – through changes in the expression of certain genes and altered connections between neurons.”

Researcher Michael Frank studies the neural mechanisms underlying learning, decision-making and cognitive control. His lab develops neural circuit and computer models of interactions between the different areas of the brain.

The BrainGate research program, which started at Brown and is led by Carney institute researchers, develops brain-computer interface technologies to restore the communication, mobility and independence of people with neurological disease or injury, or limb loss. The technology is used to record signals from the brain that contain information, for example, instructing muscles to contract when walking or reaching out to pick up a cup. These signals can be recorded from the brains of individuals who are thinking about moving their limb, even if they are paralyzed. The signals can be used to control the movement of artificial limbs. Most recently, the brain-computer interface technology enabled people with paralysis to directly operate an off-the-shelf tablet device just by thinking about making cursor movements and clicks.

Another project by a team of researchers affiliated with the institute develops and tests technology that works at the level of the spinal cord to help to restore limb movement and bladder control for people who have suffered spinal cord injuries.

(Updates throughout to correct middle initial in institute name; title for Sara Feijo, who is communications and outreach manager; and the cutline identification of professor David Borton and Dr. Sohail Syed.)

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