The Knierim Lab of MBI was part of 2 successful applications in the 2018 competition for the Johns Hopkins Discovery Awards (https://research.jhu.edu/major-initiatives/discovery-awards/).  The first award, titled “Life Without a Dentate Gyrus: A New Mouse Model to Dissect Hippocampal Structure and Function,”  is a collaboration with the labs of Jeremy Nathans and Mikhail Pletnikov of the School of Medicine.  This project will investigate the role of the dentate gyrus region of the hippocampus in learning and memory, using a novel genetic mouse developed  in the Nathans lab.  The second award, titled “A Dynamical Systems Approach to Understanding the Neural Computations Underlying our Sense of Direction,” is a collaboration with the labs of Kathleen Cullen and Kechen Zhang, both of the SOM and the Whiting School of Engineering.   This project investigates a new hypothesis about how primates and rodents may use gaze direction, rather than head direction, to orient themselves in their environments.