Department News

New paper from Harrison Gabel’s Lab in collaboration with Tristan Li’s lab (Genetics) which could have broad implications for studies on brain development, aging and neurodegeneration.

Amy Bauernfeind, PhD, was honored with the Academy of Educators’ Exemplary Educator Award, and Krikor Dikranian, MD, PhD, received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the academy.

Kia Barclay of the Li Lab has been selected as a recipient of the Provost’s Graduate Student Research Excellence Award.

Joonas Autio, PhD, an assistant professor of neuroscience and radiology, has over 15 years of experience in comparative magnetic resonance imaging.

A group of researchers from the McKelvey School of Engineering and the Kepecs Lab has created a new kind of fiber-optic device to manipulate neural activity deep in the brain.

Researchers from the McKelvey School of Engineering and the Kepecs Lab have a new paper in Nature Neuroscience describing their development of a panoramically reconfigurable illuminative (PRIME) that offers a powerful platform for optical control of neural circuits across the brain.

Watch the 2025 Department of Neuroscience Distinguished Lecture presented by Michael Rosbash, PhD, a 2017 Nobel Prize laureate in Physiology or Medicine.

A new paper in eLife from the Cavalli Lab reveals that inhibiting ETBR function enhances axon regeneration and rescues the age-dependent decrease in axonal regenerative capacity, providing a potential avenue for future therapies.

An early interest in epilepsy research led Joanna Jankowsky, PhD, to her focus on understanding the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s.

Read more about the David Van Essen Symposium and see photos from the two-day event.

Jennifer Phillips-Cremins will join the Department of Neuroscience in November with a dual appointment in the Department of Genetics as the James McDonnell Professor.

Anthony Pappas, PhD, has joined WashU Medicine as an assistant professor of anatomy in neuroscience.

Lawrence Snyder, MD, PhD, is part of a new study in Nature Communications that demonstrates that artificial neurons can function as trans-functional devices (transneurons) that reconfigure their behavior to attain instantaneous computational needs, each capable of emulating several biological neurons.

Harrison Gabel, PhD, collaborative partnership awarded grant through 2025 Natural History Study Small Grant Program.

Wendy Bridges is the new business director for the WashU Medicine Department of Neuroscience.

Gaia Tavoni, PhD, and Kaining Zhang, PhD, have published a new paper that offers insights into the memory capacity of brain-inspired networks.

Harrison Gabel, PhD, and Hysell Oviedo, PhD, are part of a team of WashU Medicine researchers who have received an $11.85 million NIH grant.

In a study published June 12 in The Journal of Neuroscience, WashU researchers show how they used optogenetics in the larval zebrafish to map the connectivity and activity of V2b neurons, a major inhibitory spinal population, to receive the results.