Achievement

Through the impetus of the IGERT program, we have developed a collaborative research project that includes two IGERT faculty members (Fitch: Psych-neuroscience) and (Eigsti: Psych-clinical), an IGERT Fellow (Castelluccio) and two IGERT Associates (Truong and Rendall [who will be a fellow 2014-2016]). The project is aimed at behavioral characterization of a knock-out mouse line, particularly to characterize language-related phenotypes. The knock-out gene of interest is Cntnap2, a gene that is in turn regulated by Foxp2. While Foxp2 is often considered a "language" gene, a homolog is found in non-human species. Our investigations are ongoing, data is being collected, and will be presented at the LanguageFest April 27, 2103. The project has resulted in the submission of 3 collaborative grant proposals.