The Center for Neuroanatomy with Neurotropic Viruses, a national research resource based at the University of Pittsburgh, recently received a five-year, $4.25 million award from the National Institutes of Health to continue its work.
The center provides the neuroscience community at Pitt and throughout the world with access to the highly specialized reagents, training and facilities that are necessary to use neurotropic viruses as transneuronal tracers. This technique is providing fundamental new insights into the functional architecture of sensory, motor, cognitive and affective networks in the central nervous system. For example, Pitt researchers led by center director Peter Strick discovered the mind-body connection between the gut and the brain using this approach.
"We’ve developed a terrific tool for investigating neural networks in the brain and we are sharing it with investigators all over the world,” said Strick, who is also scientific director of Pitt’s Brain Institute and chair of Pitt’s neurobiology department in the School of Medicine.