Erica Heinrich, an assistant professor of biomedical sciences in the UC Riverside School of Medicine, has received a $3.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to further study dyspnea — the clinical term for shortness of breath. The goals of the five-year project are to better understand the physiological signals associated with dyspnea, develop ways to identify when patients are suffering, and ultimately improve their care.

Study provides new clues to what happens in the brain when thoughts and other everyday mental activity become greatly reduced while awareness remains