Eight projects will be supported this year, with four fueling research at the Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research. Each represents bold, promising brain science at Brown.

With the launch, Brown becomes one of a handful of U.S. universities with an undergraduate curriculum that marries neuroscience with computer science and math.

Researchers led by a team from the Carney Institute have discovered a new role for a protein that helps control muscle contractions – a finding that points to a new target for drugs that treat muscle weakening caused by aging or disease.

Bess Frost, the Salame-Feraud Director of the Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research, wins the 2025 Rainwater Prize for Innovative Early-Career Scientist.

The lab of Michael Frank has reconciled theories of how humans store and retrieve information in the short-term, a process called working memory, in a new biologically-inspired computational model. The findings have implications for dopamine-related disorders like Parkinson’s disease, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and schizophrenia.

"Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain," written by three Brown brain scientists and the first college neuroscience textbook, turns 30 this year and heads into its fifth edition. Through its 1,000-plus pages, they have taught a generation, shaped careers and college programs, and traced the arc of progress in the field.

Translational brain scientists share their research vision, and business pitches, at the economic development event.

Karla Kaun argues that addiction researchers should talk about their work in their everyday lives. Those conversations can shape how drug, tobacco and alcohol use is studied in labs, taught in schools, treated in clinics and shaped by policy. Brown addiction researchers have a track record of success in exerting the influence of evidence.

In 2024, the Robert J. and Nancy D. Carney Institute for Brain Science faculty made major strides in research, postdocs continued to build community and new scientific leaders joined the team.

After winning a Nobel Prize, celebrated Brown physicist Leon Cooper made a big pivot from electrons to neurons and, for 40 years, galvanized the campus around brain science.

Working in fruit flies, the lab of Kate O’Connor-Giles studied a culprit causing certain intellectual disabilities - and showed that antioxidants can reverse its effects

Carney Institute affiliate Carina Curto served as a presenter and panelist at the recent BRAIN NeuroAI Workshop, making a case for using the fundamental principles of neuroscience to build better deep neural networks that run artificial intelligence systems.

Visual simulation is a form of imagination, a way to predict and plan by “seeing” future events in your mind’s eye. A team led by David Sheinberg has published new work that shows, with the strongest evidence yet, that monkeys also possess the power of visual simulation, findings that challenge our current understanding of animal cognition.

How neuroscience is forging the future of mental health care

Deep neural networks are computer models that drive today’s artificial intelligence technologies. Unpacking what’s inside these models is the focus of a growing field of research known as explainability or XAI. Explainability demystifies AI by revealing how a deep neural network model has learned to solve a given task.

For 10 years, the Zimmerman Innovation Awards in Brain Science have forged powerful science partnerships, spurred millions in funding, and–above all– supported groundbreaking science.

For nearly a decade, Diane Hoffman-Kim's lab has made cortical spheroids – basically working mini-brains.

On September 23, Edward “Ted” Huey, M.D., joined some of the nation’s leading experts on Alzheimer’s disease at the National Institute on Aging to help set research priorities and to present his work. Huey’s main message: Memory loss is not the only sign of this common and devastating disease.