After meeting the University of Iowa’s supportive community of prestigious epilepsy researchers, doctoral candidate Alex Petrucci has made great research advances in her exploration of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy.

Darcy Diesburg, who earned her PhD in Psychology from the University of Iowa in spring 2022, has been fascinated by human inhibitory control since her days as an undergraduate student at the University of Tulsa. As a graduate student working with Jan Wessel, she sought to elucidate what mechanisms underlie human inhibitory control, and why some individuals are so bad at it.

In a new study, University of Iowa researchers, led by Jason Radley, PhD, confirmed a neural circuit linking two separate regions in the brain governs how animals, including humans, react to a stressful situation. Through experiments, the researchers showed how rats responded to a threat either passively or actively—and linked each reaction to a specific pathway in the brain.

Iowa researchers take a multidisciplinary approach to understanding bipolar disorder—and shine light on a complex mental health condition that’s still not widely understood.

Q&A with Ted Abel and Lane Strathearn, leaders for one of only 15 federally funded intellectual and developmental disabilities research centers in the country.

Inspired by her work in the lab, neuroscientist Kathleen Sluka creates artwork that graces the cover of scientific journals.

Few projects exemplify the University of Iowa’s emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration better than Receptive Field, a new interactive sculpture by School of Art and Art History Associate Professor Daniel Miller. The project was commissioned by the Iowa Neuroscience Institute. Miller’s work integrates robotics, media, and electronics, often exploring systems and ecologies of the natural world. These attributes led INI Associate Director for Education and Outreach and CLAS Associate Dean for Research Joshua Weiner to reach out to Miller for a new artwork.

A new study that used genetic data from nearly 43,000 autistic individuals and their families has identified 60 autism spectrum-associated genes with exome-wide significance, including five new genes not previously implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders. University of Iowa scientists led by Jake Michaelson, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry in the UI Carver College of Medicine, contributed to the new study, which was published recently in Nature Genetics.

Aaron Boes, MD, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics and director of the division of pediatric neurology, has been awarded the Roy J. Carver Professorship in Neuroscience in the Iowa Neuroscience Institute. The recognition honors his outstanding academic achievements and contributions to the Carver College of Medicine and Iowa Neuroscience Institute.

Two students in the University of Iowa Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Neuroscience have been awarded Kwak-Ferguson Fellowships from the Iowa Neuroscience Institute. Samantha Pierson and Marco Pipoly, fourth- and fifth-year students, respectively, were awarded $5,000 each for their work in the area of neurodegenerative diseases.