Mentor: Daniel Lu, M.D., Ph.D.
My long-term research interests involve understanding behavioral and cognitive deficits in rodent models of Parkinson’s disease. My goal is to unravel the neuronal circuits that correlate these behaviors and use that knowledge to develop treatments for this debilitating disease. The behavioral deficits associated with Parkinson’s disease is widely studied so I would like to shed some light on the lesser known, but still just as harmful, cognitive deficits that seems to be an understudied part of the disease. I hope that my work will be relevant to the growing body of knowledge in cognitive deficits in Parkinson’s disease and will lay novel and impactful groundwork for current and future investigators.
Mentor: William Zeiger, M.D., Ph.D.
Norman Spivak is an MD/PhD student at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), where he is conducting research on low-intensity focused ultrasound neuromodulation for applications in psychiatry and neurosurgery. His work has included the development of clinical trials investigating the technology for treating disorders of consciousness and generalized anxiety.
Mentor: Martin Monti