Viji Santhakumar, an associate professor of molecular, cell and systems biology at the University of California, Riverside, has received funding from the National Institute of Neurological Disaster and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health to further pursue research on moderate concussive brain injury, which results from car accidents or sports-related concussions.

The more than $2.3 million five-year renewal grant will allow Santhakumar’s lab to study how inflammatory responses after brain injury contribute to the creation of abnormally connected neurons, and whether this compromises critical memory processing functions.