The SHINE Disruption Opportunity aims to precisely and non-invasively target and enhance the brain’s ability to adapt and rewire itself, allowing for more complete recovery after injury. Though the key to the brain’s remarkable adaptivity is neuroplasticity, we lack the tools to stimulate plasticity in specific functional circuits to avoid global change, and/or unwanted side effects.
Current treatments to boost the brain’s healing process – such as medications, neuromodulation, and behavioral interventions – are often imprecise, activating large areas of the brain instead of just specific circuits in need of repair. This lack of spatial precision limits efficacy, narrows dosing windows, and risks unintended remodeling of healthy circuitry.
The SHINE program will develop new non-invasive technologies to target plasticity-inducing methods to defined neural substrates, focusing therapies on the precise pathways affected by injury or disease. This will improve the therapeutic index of neuroplastic interventions and enable selective remodeling of pathological circuits.
SHINE can enable highly effective, targeted therapies with fewer risks; establish new research methods; and create the potential for selective augmentation, laying the foundation for precision medicine for brain health.
