The European Research Council (ERC) awarded neuroscientist Natalia Goriounova a Consolidator Grant for the HumanCircuits project. Goriounova will study neurons in living tissue from the human brain.
The human brain has unique cognitive abilities compared to animals. However, it is also vulnerable to diseases that bring cognitive decline and neurodegeneration, such as Alzheimer's. What makes the human brain so different? Neuroscientist Goriounova's team thinks the answer lies in the function of neurons in our brains. Over the course of evolution, our neurons could have developed properties to process information faster and more efficiently in a larger brain, but which also made the neurons more vulnerable.
Neurons
Previously, Goriounova showed that the human brain holds specialized neuron types with distinct properties associated with IQ scores. These neurons could be crucial to human cognition because they are selectively lost in cognitive impairment. How these neurons function and form connections in the human brain is still unknown.
In her ERC proposal, Goriounova will test her prediction that cortical computation in the human brain depends on a highly interconnected network of these special types of neurons, which form fast and strong connections and can be fine-tuned by specific receptors to increase computational power.
Live brain tissue studies
These questions can only be investigated in adult living human neurons in their intact networks. This is extremely challenging because of the difficult access to human brain cells. Goriounova therefore collaborates with several hospitals in the Netherlands treating people with tumors or epilepsy. During surgical treatment, the neurosurgeon also removes a small piece of healthy cortical tissue to access the focus of the disease. This human brain tissue can be kept alive and used to study how neuronal cells function in their intact connections.
By collecting preoperative data from the same patients, the team can now link neuronal function to live brain network activity and cognitive scores of these patients. These methods make it possible to answer the question of the specialized function of human neurons relevant to cognition.
Consolidator Grant
The ERC uses the Consolidator Grant to support outstanding principal investigators for a period of five years at the career stage when they may still be setting up their own independent research team or program. Goriounova will receive €2 million for her project.