Two decades ago, the Brown Brain Science Program was born through a pioneering grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, supporting graduate students with expertise in the physical sciences and mathematics to tackle problems in brain science. That program grew into the Brown Institute for Brain Science in 2009, which became in 2018 the Robert J. and Nancy D. Carney Institute for Brain Science.

The researchers developed a computer simulation, in which digital rodents were given a choice of two levers, one of which was associated with the chance of getting a reward. The lever with the reward was the "correct" one, and the lever without was the "wrong" one.

Odors have long been used by animals as cues to navigate their environment, but little is known about the neural mechanisms behind the creation of odor memories. Using genetic tagging, a recent study co-authored by Alexander Fleischmann, a neuroscientist at Brown University, identifies specific populations of neurons in the olfactory cortex that are activated in this process.

Researchers at Brown University’s Carney Institute for Brain Science have identified a defect in the motor circuit that may serve as an early signal of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

E. Javier López Soto, a postdoctoral research associate in Brown University’s Lipscombe Lab, was discussing an experiment with an undergraduate student in March when he received a long-awaited phone call from the Warren Alpert Foundation.

Approximately one in five adults in the United States experience mental illness in a given year. However, a new study in the Journal of Neural Engineering could improve patients' abilities to manage symptoms of mental illness.

Over the past few years the institute has increased funding into its research on how the human brain works, and it has expanded the results of that research by an impressive margin. The center brings together more than 180 world-class faculty members and their research groups across 23 Brown University departments, according to Sara Feijo, communications and outreach manager.

Recent hires, game-changing grants, and collaboration are helping to position Brown’s Carney Institute for Brain Science as a global leader in Alzheimer’s research and treatment.