Center For Neurotechnology In Mental Health Research News | Center for Neurotechnology in Mental Health Research

Thomas Gould and Carlos Novoa in Gould's laboratory at Penn State University Park. Credit: Dennis Maney / Penn State. Creative Commons

Feb 20, 2025

Young adults may be more vulnerable to nicotine addiction than the middle aged

People in their late teens and early 20s may be more sensitive to nicotine and more susceptible to nicotine addiction than middle aged adults, according to a new study in mice from researchers in the Penn State Department of Biobehavioral Health.

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Yongsoo Kim, associate professor of neural and behavioral sciences at the Penn State College of Medicine, is leading a new five-year, $17.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Mental Health. Credit: Jason Plotkin / Penn State. Creative Commons

Jan 23, 2025

$17.9M NIH grant to research neurodevelopment disorders

Illuminating key biological pathways that underlie neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, is the goal of a new five-year, $17.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health to a national team of researchers.

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The Penn State Neuroscience community kicked off their 2024-25 seminar series with presentations by the second-year doctoral students in the Huck Neuroscience Program. The 2024 Big 10 Neuroscience Annual Meeting will provide similar events for student presentations and networking and will feature presentations from all career stages. Credit: Dan Levy and Keith Hickey/Huck Institutes. All Rights Reserved.

Jan 06, 2025

Fourth annual Big Ten Neuroscience Symposium to convene at Penn State

The Penn State Neuroscience Institute, through the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences and the Penn State College of Medicine, will host the Big Ten Neuroscience Annual Meeting on July 21 and 22 at the Nittany Lion Inn in State College.

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New research finds sex-specific regions of the brain can relieve the detrimental effects of chronic stress in male and female mice. Left: Schematic showing a cortical microcircuit with three types of interneurons expressing somatostatin (SST), parvalbumin (PV) or vasointestinal peptide (VIP) and their distinct patterns of innervation of glutamatergic output neurons (PNs), with thin lines representing axons that send chemical signals and the thicker lines of PNs representing dendrites that receive information. There is selective innervation of the distal ends of PN dendrites by axons of SST neurons. Right: Increased activity of SST neurons by genetically induced disinhibition, on top right, or by chemogenetic activation of SST neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex, on bottom right, leads to stress resilience and facilitates the reversal of the detrimental behavioral effects of stress exposure in male but not female mice. Credit: Bernhard Lüscher / Penn State. Creative Commons

Dec 17, 2024

Brain regions that relieve effects of chronic stress in mice differ based on sex

In two new studies, researchers made mice resilient to stress by activating neurons in different brain regions and found that the changes involved are highly sex-specific

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Through studies on rats, a team of researchers at Penn State has pinpointed the exact moment of loss of consciousness due to anesthesia, mapping what happens in different brain regions during that moment. Credit: Provided by Nanyin Zhang . All Rights Reserved.

Dec 11, 2024

Brain mechanisms underpinning loss of consciousness identified

Rapid activity in three brain regions appears to trigger loss of consciousness, researchers at Penn State find.

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Nov 14, 2024

Three Penn State researchers awarded scientific grants from Kaufman Foundation

The Charles E. Kaufman Foundation — a supporting organization of The Pittsburgh Foundation, which works to improve the quality of life in the Pittsburgh region — has selected three Penn State researchers to receive scientific research grants. The foundation awards grants to scientists at institutes of higher learning in Pennsylvania who are conducting innovative, fundamental scientific research in the fields of biology, chemistry and physics.

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Nov 12, 2024

Uncharted territory: A Q&A with Nanyin Zhang on mapping brain activity

To understand how different regions of the brain work together, researchers use a method called resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI). The method measures brain activity by observing changes in blood flow to different parts of the brain; however, rsfMRI does not explain how these blood flow changes to different brain regions relate to what is happening with the brain’s neurons — cells that send and receive messages in the form of electronic signals.

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Jul 31, 2024

New high-resolution 3D maps show how the brain’s blood vessels changes with age

Healthy blood vessels matter for more than just heart health. Vascular well-being is critical for brain health and potentially in addressing age-related cognitive decline and neurodegenerative disorders, like Alzheimer’s disease, according to new study led by Penn State researchers.

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May 14, 2024

Nikki Crowley named director of Neuroscience Institute at University Park

Nikki Crowley, assistant professor of biology and of biomedical engineering and Huck Early Career Chair in Neurobiology and Neural Engineering, has been named director of the Penn State Neuroscience Institute at University Park.

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Apr 25, 2024

Engineering professor named AIMBE fellow

Patrick Drew was inducted into the 2024 class of fellows for the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). Drew also has affiliations with the departments of biomedical engineering, neurosurgery, and biology.

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