Non-invasive neurostimulation is a potential therapeutic approach to Alzheimer’s disease, with the potential to rescue memory impairment in humans. In June 2023, I became a research scientist at the Atlanta VA Medical Center, where I was awarded a Career Development Award (CDA2) for 5 years of protected research. As a research scientist, I investigate how non-invasive audio-visual neurostimulation at specific frequencies (aka flicker) alters neuropathology, such as microglia's engulfment of amyloid plaques and microglia morphology, in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease. Because half a million United States Veterans have Alzheimer's disease, and that number is expected to grow, this research has the potential to identify a noninvasive treatment for Alzheimer's disease neuropathology.
In 2019 I joined Dr. Annabelle Singer's lab as a postdoctoral fellow in the department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Singer has established and continues to develop a new therapeutic approach to Alzheimer’s disease, novel forms of non-invasive neurostimulation, and new ways to manipulate the brain’s immune system. This research was recently published in Science Advances in 2023.
As a graduate research fellow in the lab of Dr. Gregory Berns at Emory University, I examined the neural mechanisms underlying perception in pet dogs through noninvasive, unrestrained, unsedated functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI).
As a graduate research fellow in the lab of Dr. Mark Galizio and Dr. Kate Bruce at University of North Carolina Wilmington, I examined behavioral models of concept formation in rodents using odor stimuli as well as behavioral and memory deficits following administration of drugs of abuse.