Researchers affiliated with Brown University's Carney Institute for Brain Science have won the 2021 National Institutes of Health “Show Us Your BRAINs!” contest for a video highlighting efforts to help people with the most severe and hard-to-treat form of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

For neuroscientist Ahmed Abdelfattah, brain science is simply exciting. He believes that with the right tools scientists can shine light on previously unknown brain processes, getting one step closer to demystifying brain function at cellular and network levels.

Cancers are complex and hard to predict, but, having developed new models to predict lung cancer survival based on tumor heterogeneity, Ani Eloyan, assistant professor of biostatistics, is now tackling an even more complex and enigmatic organ—the human brain. Eloyan’s goal is to better predict the trajectory of disease for people with early-onset Alzheimer’s.

Lorin Crawford is working hard to expand the scope of the field of biostatistics.

By convening innovative researchers across academia, Brown’s new Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research hopes to accelerate the pace of development for treatments and cures of this devastating disease.

The fear of developing Alzheimer’s disease is so great among seniors that in medical literature it has its own acronym: FDAD. “It’s the disease that most concerns older people, even more so than cancer,” says Stephen Salloway, MD, director of the Memory and Aging Program at Butler Hospital.

The University is establishing a Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research with the support of two gifts totaling $30 million from anonymous donors. The center will combine clinical and laboratory-based research teams from the University and partner teams from Sweden to aid in the detection and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Linda Carpenter was named president-elect of the Society for Biological Psychiatry at the society’s annual meeting this month.

New research out of the Carney Institute for Brain Science identifies how dopamine is transmitted throughout the brain during reward-based learning, providing a new take on traditional understanding of dopamine neurotransmission.

The new Center for Sleep and Circadian Rhythms in Child and Adolescent Mental Health will be led by Mary A. Carskadon, a Brown adjunct professor affiliated with the Carney Institute. 

Alzheimer’s disease is a major public health issue that is compounded with health care disparities. In the United States, underrepresented racial and ethnic groups including Black and Hispanic Americans are disproportionately affected by Alzheimer’s disease.