Probe the complexities of the nervous system from the standpoint of molecular research to clinical practice
The Neuroscience graduate program provides students with interdisciplinary training in the growing field of neuroscience. Students conduct research alongside faculty members who are leaders in their fields. Research areas may include:
Experiencing a traumatic event sometimes produces long-lasting biological changes that can lead to an exaggerated fear response to future stressful events, such as what occurs in individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder. To better understand the regulatory mechanisms in the brain that produce this biological memory and exaggerated fear response, a team of researchers from Penn State and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has been awarded a grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health.
Penn State’s Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences has named Dipanjan Pan, Dorothy Foehr Huck & J. Lloyd Huck Chair Professor in Nanomedicine and professor of materials science and engineering and of nuclear engineering, to serve as the Huck’s first director for innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems.
Individuals that share the same deletion of a portion of chromosome 16 are at risk of developing neurodevelopmental disorders, but some experience severe intellectual disability or developmental delay, while others may only exhibit milder psychiatric features like depression or anxiety. How can this be? To answer this, a team led by Penn State scientists has developed methods to evaluate how genetic variants elsewhere in an individual’s genome work with the deletion to help determine the features that the individual will manifest.
Experiencing a traumatic event sometimes produces long-lasting biological changes that can lead to an exaggerated fear response to future stressful events, such as what occurs in individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder. To better understand the regulatory mechanisms in the brain that produce this biological memory and exaggerated fear response, a team of researchers from Penn State and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has been awarded a grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Mental Health.
Penn State’s Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences has named Dipanjan Pan, Dorothy Foehr Huck & J. Lloyd Huck Chair Professor in Nanomedicine and professor of materials science and engineering and of nuclear engineering, to serve as the Huck’s first director for innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems.
Individuals that share the same deletion of a portion of chromosome 16 are at risk of developing neurodevelopmental disorders, but some experience severe intellectual disability or developmental delay, while others may only exhibit milder psychiatric features like depression or anxiety. How can this be? To answer this, a team led by Penn State scientists has developed methods to evaluate how genetic variants elsewhere in an individual’s genome work with the deletion to help determine the features that the individual will manifest.
The brain is more mechanically connected to the body than previously appreciated, scientists reported in Nature Neuroscience. Through a study using mice and simulations, the team found a potential biological mechanism underlying why exercise is thought to benefit brain health: abdominal contractions compress blood vessels connected to the spinal cord and the brain, enabling the organ to gently move within the skull. This swaying facilitates the surrounding cerebrospinal fluid to flow over the brain, potentially washing away neural waste that could cause problems for brain function.
