Salk Institute, UCSD receive $4M to study brain circuitry

A consortium of researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and UC San Diego received a $4 million grant from a United Kingdom-based charitable foundation to study brain circuitry, it was announced Tuesday.

The five-year grant, from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, will be used to research how brain cells interact in higher brain functions, such as visual perception and attention.

“The human brain with its unrivaled complexity is biology’s last frontier,” said Anirvan Ghosh, a professor at UCSD’s Division of Biological Sciences and one of the four researchers named in the grant.

“Thanks to the support of the Gatsby Foundation, we expect to greatly expand the understanding of brain circuitry,” Ghosh said.

Researchers will focus on developing and using genetic tools that will allow them to manipulate specific cells in the brain to “tease apart their contributions to higher order brain function,” according to a jointly issued Salk Institute/UCSD statement.