Martha Streng
University of Minnesota, MN·Neuroscience·Early-career
Epilepsy, a condition of repeated spontaneous seizures, affects nearly 1 in 27 people in the United States. For up to half of patients, current treatments do not control their seizures.
- Fields
Neuroscience
- Topics
epilepsy
seizures
cerebellum
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2027
What they work on
- Use mesoscale calcium imaging of the cerebellar cortex in mice to determine how chronic, spontaneous seizures from the hippocampus alter cerebellar activity.
- Compare cerebellar activity changes caused by seizures that start in the neocortex with those caused by seizures that start in the hippocampus, revealing how different seizure networks engage the cerebellum.
- Test whether optogenetically targeting cerebellar outputs, switching specific neurons with light, can reduce seizures that originate outside the hippocampus.
More about the research
Long-term epilepsy also brings cognitive problems and changes in brain structure. The cerebellum, a brain region at the back of the head best known for coordinating movement, has not traditionally been linked to epilepsy. Yet it is emerging as an important part of the seizure network. Changes in the cerebellum's structure predict worse outcomes for patients. In a mouse model of temporal lobe epilepsy, targeting the cerebellum strongly reduces seizures that start in the hippocampus, a memory region.
Why it matters
Many people with epilepsy have seizures that drugs cannot control. By showing how the cerebellum responds to seizures arising in different brain regions, and whether stimulating its outputs can suppress them, this work could identify new targets for brain-modulation therapies across several forms of epilepsy.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Barna Dudok
Baylor College of Medicine, TX·Neuroscience·Early-career
Test whether CCK and PV basket cells, two types of inhibitory neurons, are active in different brain states in a kainate mouse model of temporal lobe epilepsy, using two-photon calcium imaging with hippocampal field recordings.
Ivan Soltesz
Stanford University, CA·Neuroscience
Identify non-invasive behavioral biomarkers that predict chronic seizures and death, using MoSeq AI analysis of 3D video in mouse models of temporal lobe epilepsy and Dravet syndrome.
Dominique Durand
Case Western Reserve University, OH·Biomedical Engineering
Test whether an extracellular voltage clamp, which holds the electric field around neurons steady, prevents neurons from firing in sync in overexcitable brain tissue, using electrophysiology, neural imaging and computer models.
The school
University of Minnesota: 88 labs on PI Pages, $1.4B a year on research, 722 research doctorates a year.
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