Traumatic brain injury and aging: targeting the cholinergic system for deficits in sustained attention and executive function

The NINDS Landis Award for Outstanding Mentorship is an incredible and humbling opportunity to supplement training-related activities ongoing through Dr. Corina Bondi’s R01 parent grant (R01NS110609). The parent grant aims to assess cognitive- and anxiety-like dimensions sensitive to both traumatic brain injury (TBI) and aging, as the elderly represent a high risk population for both

cognitive decline and TBI incidence, and to address mechanistic questions regarding altered cholinergic neurotransmission responsible for such deficits by restoring neurobehavioral performance in young adult and aged rats, males and females, by means of administration of NS-1738, positive allosteric modulator

of α7 nicotinic cholinergic receptors, alone or in combination with a daily environmental enrichment paradigm. The Landis Award supplement will provide funds for a postdoctoral fellow (Dr. Bondi’s current graduate student) for four months to complete data analyses and publications, a one year full-time

postbaccalaureate research technician and a summer student, to complete experiments proposed on the parent grant. It will also provide supplies needed to complete experiments for both a senior diversity undergraduate funded through a URM supplement on the parent R01 and a medical student helping Dr.

Bondi and her advanced resident fellow on a pilot project complementary to the parent award. Moreover, funding will ensure that multiple (eight) trainees will attend national and international conferences to present their work. They range from senior undergraduate and postbaccalaureate fellows, to medical

students and postdoctoral fellow to attend and present at five different conferences, such as the National Neurotrauma Society, the Society for Neuroscience, the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society, the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science, as well as the

International Conference on Cognitive and Behavioral Neurosciences. Additionally, Dr. Bondi will invite her new young faculty URM mentee from the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey, to present at the National Neurotrauma Symposium, where Dr. Bondi was recently elected as Vice President. Finally, additional funds will be ensure publication costs for five manuscripts with trainees/mentees as first and

middle co-authors, as well as purchasing a necessary portable computer in the lab for centralizing and enhancing efficiency of presentation and publication construction by trainees.