National Institutes of Health Javits Award to bolster building the brain’s blueprint

The goal of Giorgio Ascoli's three decades of research is to gain a more complete understanding of one of science's most complex systems: the human brain. And this year the George Mason University professor of bioengineering and neuroscience received one of the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) most prestigious recognitions for established investigators.

Ascoli's long-running program was selected for an NIH Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award, providing seven years of support and additional funding to advance his research into the structure and function of the brain.

The award is especially significant for George Mason, as Ascoli's is the first Javits Award recipient at the university. The award is reserved for a small number of exceptionally highly rated research proposals; the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the institute that supports Ascoli's research, only gives this distinction to a handful of grants each year.

Ascoli's proposal received a priority score in the top 3 percent of all applications reviewed. The Javits recognition converts Ascoli's funding from what is categorized at NIH as an R01 grant-and which he has successfully renewed since 1999-into an R37, giving a longer timeline and more security. "Because there is a more extended time frame, it really gives the lab a chance to think longer term. I can now take research risks that I could not normally take."

His work focuses on the intricate structures that allow nerve cells to communicate with one another. Unlike most cells in the body, neurons possess elaborate branching structures that extend from the cell body. These structures receive and transmit signals, creating vast networks through which the brain processes information.

Ascoli compares the structures to a blueprint. "If you're an engineer and you're given a machine and you want to understand how this machine works, the best thing that you can get is a blueprint," he said.

For decades, Ascoli's lab has charted the diversity and organization of these neuronal structures, creating quantitative models of the brain's cellular architecture. A central outcome of that work is NeuroMorpho.Org, a publicly accessible database that collects and standardizes data on the structure of neurons from research groups around the world.

"The impact of our research goes beyond the typical impact of a single lab, which is publications, discoveries, etc. This reaches out more broadly and with longer-term consequences for scientific research," he said. Researchers worldwide contribute data, which are standardized, annotated, and made freely available for anyone to download, analyze, and use in computational models.

The Javits-supported research will build on that foundation by combining neuroinformatics, computational neuroscience, and the study of learning and memory. Ascoli and his team will use data-driven computational models to simulate brain networks and investigate how their structure supports the brain's ability to learn and retain information.

A particular focus is the hippocampus, a region of the brain closely associated with learning and memory. The work aims to better understand how the architecture of neural circuits contributes to different forms of memory, including conscious memories of events and experiences.

The research could help scientists make predictions about how the brain functions and then test those predictions experimentally. The approach also reflects the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of modern neuroscience, bringing together biology, computer science, engineering, and data science.

"Never before has the neuroscience community had access to so much data and such mighty computational resources for analysis and modeling," he said. "We are tantalizingly close to making exciting breakthroughs in the century-old quest to link neural architecture to cognitive function."

The Javits Award will give Ascoli and his team additional time and resources to continue building his brain blueprint, one neuron and one connection at a time.