Dr. Maya Khanna from the Psychology Department is one of five faculty members announced as a 2016 CURAS Summer Faculty Research Fellowship Recipient. Dr. Khanna’s project, “The Impact of Lead Exposure on the Adolescent Brain,” seeks to examine the effects of lead exposure on childhood brain development. She will look at the relationship between lead exposure and cognitive and neurological measures such as brain volume, brain functioning, brain electrical connectivity and cognitive performance.
“We will compare historical and current blood lead levels of adolescent boys and girls who have been exposed to lead to demographic peers who have no history of lead exposure. We will see if these two groups differ on these neurological measures,” Dr. Khanna said.
With the summer faculty research fellowship, Dr. Khanna will be able to work with the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Magnetoencephalography (MEG) Center and the Boys Town National Research Hospital’s Neuroimaging Lab to conduct her research full-time.
