The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) Class of 1972 is sponsoring the creation of ‘Parkinson’s Therapeutics Lab’ in the Institute to boost efforts towards treating Parkinson’s Disease. The batch has also donated Rs 50 lakh towards the scholarship fund of IIT Madras. 

This lab will be a major boost to researchers at the Laboratory for Computational Neuroscience (CNS Lab) to develop a computational model of a brain region called ‘Basal Ganglia’ (BG) where the loss of cells leads to Parkinson’s Disease.

The BG system plays vital and diverse roles in all major domains of brain function such as sensory-motor, cognitive, affective and autonomous.

The CNS Lab is involved in developing systems-level models of various crucial brain systems. The ultimate goal of the CNS Lab is to create a whole brain model and use it to develop model-based therapeutics for Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and other brain disorders. 

The project will be managed by Prof. V. Srinivasa Chakravarthy, Faculty, Department of Biotechnology, IIT Madras, who heads the CNS Lab at Bhupat and Jyoti Mehta School of Biosciences, Department of Biotechnology, IIT Madras.