Neuroscientists have always been interested in what drives an individual’s resilience to stress. While the detrimental effects of prolonged stress have been well documented, little is understood about what biological mechanisms underlie resilience. To better understand the latter, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have been awarded $1.8 million by the National Science Foundation.

Researchers have estimated that although over half the population in the US has experienced some form of severe trauma, the prevalence of related psychiatric illness hovers near 8%. This observation suggests that most individuals who are exposed to high levels of stress and trauma are able to avoid serious mental illness.

The question of where and how vulnerabilities to stress arise, and how individuals maintain resilient behavior after stress remains an unsolved question in neuroscience. Understanding the factors that confer resiliency will also address a public need since individuals with lower socioeconomic status often face exacerbated effects of physiological and psychological stress.

“This study will explore the networks of resilience before, during, and after stress giving us insight into how resiliency emerges and uncovering when and where intervention could be most effective,” said Howard Gritton (GNDP), an assistant professor of neuroscience and comparative biosciences.

Using a multidisciplinary approach that combines animal behavior, brain imaging, electrophysiology, and gene expression experiments with machine learning and statistical modeling, the team plans to characterize mechanisms in the brain that could underlie the biological basis of resiliency.

“This grant is important because we want to understand the phenomenon of resilience to develop better therapies,” said Sihai Dave Zhao (GNDP), an associate professor of statistics.  “It also shows the importance of integrating different types of information to answer a biological question.”

In addition to Gritton and Zhao, the team includes Paul Bonthuis (GNDP), an assistant professor of neuroscience and comparative biosciences; Yurii Vlasov, a professor of electrical and computer engineering; Sergei Maslov (CAIM), a professor of bioengineering; Brad Sutton, a professor of bioengineering; Jozien Goense, an associate professor of psychology and bioengineering; and Saurabh Sinha, a professor of biomedical engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology.

This is the first grant that has been awarded to the Kellner Center for Neurogenomics, Behavior, and Society, which is housed in the GNDP research theme at the Carl R Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. The Center is dedicated to studying the connection between our genes, brains, and behavior—and how that impacts our communities.