Tuesday, October 14, 2025 10/14/2025

Early Life Stress Effects on Ventral Hippocampal Microcircuitry during Emotional Behaviors

Award Number: K08MH122893
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: TRAINING/TRAINEESHIP
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 07/01/2020
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 03/31/2026

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Early Life Stress Effects on Ventral Hippocampal Microcircuitry during Emotional Behaviors - I am a physician-scientist in psychiatry studying neural circuits involved in psychiatric illness using animal models that enable us to record and manipulate real-time neuronal activity with single-cell resolution. My career goal is to become an expert on developmental risk factors, microcircuit physiology, and emotional processing. This career development award will support my work to determine the impact of early life stress on ventral hippocampal microcircuitry and how this influences anxiety- and anhedonia-related behaviors in adulthood. Early life stress (ELS) increases the risk of adult psychiatric illnesses, so understanding how ELS affects the neural circuits controlling emotional behaviors would provide a mechanism for this increased vulnerability and point towards therapeutic targets. We can model ELS in rodents by inducing fragmented maternal care in the early postnatal period and then examine neural activity during anxiety-like and reward- seeking behaviors in adulthood. The ventral portion of the hippocampus is directly connected to both fear and reward circuits, and heavily involved in emotional processing. The balance between excitatory pyramidal cells and inhibitory interneurons in the hippocampus is important for controlling the flow of information to and from other regions of these circuits. ELS alters the development of interneurons and decreases excitatory and inhibitory synaptic density in the hippocampus. We do not yet know how ELS affects hippocampal excitatory and inhibitory cell activity in vivo and how these changes relate to observed behavioral differences. This proposal will address these questions through three Specific Aims. In Aim 1, I will test the hypothesis that altered anxiety-like behavior and decreased reward-seeking in adult mice after ELS are correlated with increased pyramidal cell activity in the CA1 output region of the ventral hippocampus (vCA1). In Aim 2, I will determine the effects of ELS on PV neurons in the vCA1 during development and adulthood. First, I will test the hypothesis that ELS decreases vCA1 PV cell activity during anxiety-like and reward behaviors. Then, I will test the hypothesis that precocious expression of PV in the hippocampus after ELS is associated with changes in global hippocampal neural activity in response to positive and negative stimuli. In Aim 3, I will test the hypothesis that inhibition of vCA1 PV cell activity in normally-reared adult mice can alter anxiety- and anhedonia-like behaviors. I will conduct this work within the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University under the mentorship of Drs. René Hen and Kevin Bath. The training objectives of this K08 are to become an expert in in vivo calcium imaging and optogenetic manipulations in freely moving mice, animal models for ELS and neurodevelopment, computational techniques for examining task-related representations in neural firing, and volume microscopy imaging with immunostaining. Upon completing these scientific aims and training objectives, I will be prepared to transition to the next phase of my career as an independent investigator directing a research group at an academic medical center.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2025 ( Subtotal = $75,598 )
2025	2025	RESEARCH FOUNDATION FOR MENTAL HYGIENE, INC.	1051 RIVERSIDE DR	NEW YORK	NY	10032	NEW YORK	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	000	5	9/15/2025	SUPPLEMENT FOR EXPANSION	$75,598
														Subtotal = $75,598

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $195,053 )
2024	2024	RESEARCH FOUNDATION FOR MENTAL HYGIENE, INC.	1051 RIVERSIDE DR	NEW YORK	NY	10032	NEW YORK	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	000	5	7/15/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$195,053
														Subtotal = $195,053

Issue Date FY: 2023 ( Subtotal = $195,053 )
2023	2023	RESEARCH FOUNDATION FOR MENTAL HYGIENE INC	1051 RIVERSIDE DR	NEW YORK	NY	10032	NEW YORK	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	000	4	6/9/2023	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$195,053
														Subtotal = $195,053

Issue Date FY: 2022 ( Subtotal = $195,053 )
2022	2022	RESEARCH FOUNDATION FOR MENTAL HYGIENE INC	1051 RIVERSIDE DR	NEW YORK	NY	10032	NEW YORK	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	000	3	6/8/2022	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$195,053
														Subtotal = $195,053

Issue Date FY: 2021 ( Subtotal = $195,053 )
2021	2021	RESEARCH FOUNDATION FOR MENTAL HYGIENE, INC.	1051 RIVERSIDE DR	NEW YORK	NY	10032	NEW YORK	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	000	2	6/16/2021	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$195,053
														Subtotal = $195,053

Issue Date FY: 2020 ( Subtotal = $195,479 )
2020	2020	RESEARCH FOUNDATION FOR MENTAL HYGIENE, INC.	1051 RIVERSIDE DR	NEW YORK	NY	10032	NEW YORK	USA	Mental Health Research Grants	000	1	4/15/2020	NEW	$195,479
														Subtotal = $195,479

Grand Total All Awards = $1,051,289

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Early Life Stress Effects on Ventral Hippocampal Microcircuitry during Emotional Behaviors

Award Number: K08MH122893

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: TRAINING/TRAINEESHIP

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 07/01/2020

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 03/31/2026

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