Knight Initiative News

In this research roundup, we look back on some of the ways Knight Initiative scientists have been pursuing ways to keep our minds sharp well into old age

We talk with psychiatrist Neir Eshel about why rewards are sweeter when we've had to work for them and what this teaches us about our brains' reward systems

Pregnancy complications such as miscarriage spike after age 35. Wu Tsai Neuro postdoc Blake Laham suspects neural signaling in the uterus is partly to blame

Studying brain scan data from individuals—not group averages—reveals key brain-function differences in children who struggle with goal-oriented tasks, Wu Tsai Neuro affiliate Vinod Menon and colleagues

Three PhD candidates took top honors at this year’s event, translating years of research into presentations everyone in the room could understand.

We talk with neurologist Kathleen Poston about early signs of Parkinson's outside the brain and how they might influence treatment and detection

Faculty Scholar Paul Nuyujukian spoke to NPR's Short Wave podcast about his work on brain-machine interfaces and neurological disease

An eye prosthesis 20 years in the making and supported by a Big Ideas in Neuroscience award restores sight in patients with a common age-related eye disease

Faculty Scholar Guosong Hong and colleagues developed a way to activate light-emitting nanoparticles with ultrasound, which could be used to manipulate cell signals or facilitate light-based medical treatments in the future

Faculty Scholar Guosong Hong says that light plays a key role in neuroscience and—and that’s why he’s working with a Big Ideas in Neuroscience team to make transparent brains

We talk with Wu Tsai Neuro Faculty Scholar Guosong Hong about how insights from glass frogs and our own eyes could help engineer transparent brains

The research showed that chronic pain is controlled by an entirely separate system than acute pain

The Rosenkranz Aging and Rejuvenation Seed Grant Program announced eight innovative new research projects with additional support from the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience

Aging causes changes in gut bacteria in mice, hampering communication between the intestines and the brain—but restoring this connection helped old mice form memories as well as young animals

The Maximizing Innovation in Neuroscience Discovery Prizes will give Faculty Scholar Guosong Hong and Knight Initiative-supported researcher Pascal Geldsetzer $750,000 each over three years to develop research on neurodegenerative diseases.

Brain Resilience Postdoctoral Scholar Annie Goettemoeller is studying how epilepsy-like activity might drive the spread of Alzheimer’s pathology in the brain

Wu Tsai Neuro Institute Scholars Todd Coleman and Julia Kaltschmidt are creating detailed maps of the enteric nervous system to understand the influence synchronization between the gut and the brain has on disease

We speak with neuroscientist Nirao Shah and endocrinologist Katrin Svensson about the Stanford Neuro-Pregnancy Initiative, part of Wu Tsai Neuro's Big Ideas in Neuroscience program

In stroke patients with aphasia, the brain spends too little time processing ambiguous sounds, researchers find, suggesting new targets for precision therapies

Faculty Scholar Guosong Hong and institute affiliates Christoph Thaiss and Steven Banik were among eight Stanford researchers to receive the honor