Knight Initiative News

New findings about the sugary armor on the brain’s frontline cells could shed light on cognitive decline and diseases like Alzheimer’s—and open new avenues for treatment.

 

Alice Ting and colleagues have built a new synthetic receptor with  broad potential to program cell activity, including immune response and neurological signaling.

Fat-filled microglia may play a role in the damage caused by Alzheimer’s, especially for those who carry two copies a particular gene.

With Knight Initiative support, Stanford researchers uncover a biochemical “off-ramp” in ketosis, rewriting our understanding of how ketosis influences metabolism.

Today, we are going back into the archives for a conversation with neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and best-selling author David Eagleman about the science of synesthesia. If you don't know what that is, you're about to find out.

This week, we talk with our founding director, Bill Newsome, about the 10-year legacy of the NIH BRAIN Initiative and the uncertainty for the future brought on by this year's dramatic funding cuts.

Supported by the Big Ideas in Neuroscience program, research from the Brunet lab suggests the possibility of designing pharmaceutical or genetic therapies to turn on new neuron production in old or injured brains.

Stanford undergraduates and local community college students showcased their summer research projects at the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, highlighting efforts to introduce students to neuroscience research for the first time.

This week on From Our Neurons to Yours, we talk with Stanford neurologist Mike Greicius about his critique of new amyloid-clearing Alzheimer's drugs, and his optimism for the next wave of therapies currently in development.

Research by Kati Andreasson and colleagues suggests that a type of drug developed for treating cancer may hold promise as a new treatment for neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s.

A drug that restores brain metabolism in mouse models of Alzheimer's also improved cognitive function, according to research from the Andreasson lab.

A team of neuroscientists at the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience have zeroed in on a critical regulator of brain metabolism that may be over-activated in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

Institute affiliates Brad Zuchero, Justin Du Bois and colleagues discovered that neurons require signaling from glia to become fully excitable, rather than by becoming excitable by default.

Time marches on predictably, but biological aging is anything but constant, according to new research by Michael Snyder and colleagues.

This week on From Our Neurons to Yours, we talk with Michelle Monje about her discovery that many cancers depend on nervous system innervation; she also discusses opportunities for novel therapies.

This week on From Our Neurons to Yours, we talk with Sergiu Pasca about using new techniques for growing human brain tissue in the lab to solve a rare neurological disorder.

This week, we talk with Zhenan Bao about reverse engineering the remarkable properties of human skin to design new wearable devices for neuroscience.

At the 2024 Neuro-omics Symposium, early-stage research funded by Wu Tsai Neuro's Big Ideas in Neuroscience program revealed exciting progress at the intersection of genomics and AI.

New software developed by the NeuroPlant Big Ideas in Neuroscience initiative turns an ordinary flatbed scanner and collection of nematode worms into a DIY platform to sniff out both beneficial and harmful plant-based molecules.

Ten early career neuroscientists received the prestigious award from The McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience.