Discovering the Effectors of LIfestyle-driven Memory enhancement via InflammaTion (DELIMIT) 

The Italian Ministry of University and Research awarded a PRIN grant for a 2-year project to a team formed by Marco Mainardi from CNR and the University of Padova (project coordinator), our PI Mathew Diamond, and Serena Bovetti from the University of Turin.

"We believe that our studies will elucidate precise cellular, molecular and functional mechanisms through which environmental enrichment results in better cognitive performance via modulation of inflammation, paving the way to the design of “enviromimetic” drugs. "

Memory: from Material to Mind (M2M)

The 3-year project “Memory – from material to mind” (M2M) worth over 1 million USD has been awarded by the Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) to a team composed of our PI Mathew Diamond (project coordinator) along with physicist Nathan Keim of Pennsylvania State University and neural networks theorist Omri Barak of Technion - Israeli Institute of Technology. 

“We will begin by examining the operations underneath memory formation in the living, behaving brain. Our novel approach, however, is to extend from the brain to physical materials. More specifically, through the soft matter physics expertise in our team, we will chart out a general framework for memory storage and retrieval aimed at replicating key biological findings, such as the interaction between short-term and longer-term memories. Materials that extract and store information, such as driven suspensions, can be arranged in a flexibly interacting network to serve as a physical model of brain networks.” 

More information at Understanding memory through materials: a new HFSP project at SISSA.