Research award to map the brain’s electrical circuits

A bioengineer at the University of Nottingham has secured a Wellcome Accelerator Award to develop a new way of visualising how electrical signals travel through the brain - a longstanding challenge in neuroscience.

Dr Sidahmed Abayzeed, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Engineering, has been awarded £200,000 to advance NeurOhmics, a platform that combines ultra-high-resolution optical microscopy with electrical impedance measurements and artificial intelligence. The approach aims to generate detailed electrical ‘maps’ of individual neurons, revealing how their properties change over time and during disease progression.

Neurons communicate using electrical signals, yet key characteristics such as resistance and capacitance - which determine how efficiently those signals propagate - remain largely invisible along the length of a single cell. This knowledge gap has limited understanding of brain function and neurological disorders, which collectively affect around three billion people worldwide.

NeurOhmics seeks to overcome this barrier by enabling, for the first time, spatially resolved electrical imaging of neurons. The project will lay the groundwork for larger research programmes and international collaborations focused on brain health and disease.

The work is being developed in the Optocoulombics Lab at the University of Nottingham, where Dr Abayzeed’s team creates tools to study charge interactions at micro- and nanoscale dimensions. Charge dynamics underpin many biological processes, from neural signalling and muscle contraction to hormonal regulation, and deeper insight could inspire advances well beyond neuroscience.

The Wellcome Accelerator Award supports UK researchers of Black, Bangladeshi and Pakistani heritage to strengthen their progression to the next stage of an academic career. In addition to advancing the science, the award will also support a mentoring initiative aimed at fostering a more inclusive research community.

Commenting on the award, Dr Abayzeed said it marked a major milestone for a concept he has been developing for nearly a decade, enabling his team to tackle fundamental questions about how electrical signals propagate in the brain and opening new possibilities for understanding neurological disease.

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