Professor Tim Vogels of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) will receive $3 million from the New York-based Simons Foundation as part of the Simons Collaboration on Brain Energetics, an $80 million, ten-year initiative led by Thomas Clandinin of Stanford University that brings together 26 investigators from the United States, Austria, Great Britain and Norway.
Vogels’ group will build computer models linking mitochondrial energy metabolism to neuronal activity, serving as test beds for the other researchers, and will model larger neural networks and how neurons and glial cells respond to short-term changes in energy supply.
The aim is to understand how energy demands shape learning and memory, how the brain copes with energy shortages or excess, for example in diabetes, low oxygen or pregnancy, and what happens when these protective mechanisms fail, which could help explain developmental brain disorders and ageing.
