Greetings! I am Kavish Saini, a current rising sophomore pursuing bioengineering at the honors college.

My project aims to map the brain circuitry of curiosity based on nonhuman primates (NHPs), the common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus). Curiosity is a fundamental component of nature and is crucial in helping us make observations and associations. Conversely, a lack of curiosity for novel stimuli or environment affects the capability and capacity for memory and motivation for learning. Thus, curiosity could be a crucial preclinical indicator for neurodegenerative diseases. However, despite its importance, much of the scientific community is still at the preliminary investigation stage, and it needs a basic integrative theory of its neural mechanisms and functional implication. Therefore, after reading my research mentor’s past papers in this field, I wanted to work with him to map the brain circuitry from different scales concerning curiosity.

There are practical advantages for our project based on the NHP marmoset. First, because species are close, marmosets’ cognition and communication are more similar to that of humans. Second, we could combine invasive and non-invasive ways to understand the function of curiosity in different scales.

Since then, with my mentor Dr. Silva, we have used non-invasive functional MRI (fMRI) neuroimaging to determine a functional atlas (cartography) for every marmoset brain. Unlike the common use structural brain atlas, our first work provides a comprehensive reference of the functional organization reflecting the activities of brain neurons at the individual level. Secondly, by leveraging external stimuli fed visually to the marmosets determined to stimulate curiosity-driven behavior, we have combined such an individual’s atlas with our task-based fMRI to identify the curiosity-related regions. Ultimately, we will implement an invasive high-density multi-contact electrode array to target neurons in these identified areas across the structural layers determined by MRI imaging and examine their causal contributions to curiosity-driven behavior.

My proposed study would be the last step of this project and compliments my research mentor’s project. The completion of this proposed study will not only reveal the neuronal circuits of this critical cognitive function, curiosity, and also understand its mechanisms in different scales (System scale: Behavior, Mesoscale: neural circuitry, and Microscale: single neuronal units and types), as well as its possible ways for the neuronal modulations. I also expect these results could apply to practical applications, such as providing a preclinical indicator of Alzheimer’s disease.

I’m looking to hopefully pursue some sort of graduate degree in the future to work with medical devices and neurological signals. Something unique about me is that I’ve been doing archery for the past 2 years now and am getting somewhat good at it.