Iowa Neuroscience Institute

The U.S. maternal mortality rate continues to climb to unprecedented numbers, highlighting a critical gap in the global understanding of maternal health and the pressing need for new, early interventions. With prevention as a top priority, University of Iowa Health Care researchers have gained momentum on identifying early markers and risk factors that can help identify high-risk pregnancies and guide timely interventions. Donna Santillan, PhD, and Mark Santillan, MD (09F,16PhD), are leading this effort through the UI Women’s Health Tissue Repository.

Beth Newell, assistant professor of pediatrics–critical care in the UI Stead Family Department of Pediatrics, is working to improve outcomes following traumatic brain injury (TBI) in her clinical care practice, which she couples with research on how immune cells in the brain respond to a TBI and impact long-term recovery.

New findings may take scientists a step closer to understanding what causes SUDEP—Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy—a rare but fatal complication of epilepsy. There are about 3,000 deaths from SUDEP each year in the U.S. The biggest risk factor is epilepsy that is not well controlled with medication or surgery, but the exact cause of SUDEP is not known. However, increasing evidence suggests that loss of breathing, or apnea, that persists after a seizure is a major cause of SUDEP. In the new study, University of Iowa neuroscientists found that stimulating a specific area of the amygdala brain region provokes prolonged loss of breathing that continues even after a seizure has ended.

Calvin Carter, PhD, assistant professor of neuroscience and pharmacology in the University of Iowa Roy J and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine and a member of the Iowa Neuroscience Institute, is one of 58 early-career scientists from across the nation to receive a 2023 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award.

Art and science will come together when Swedish neuroscientist and concert pianist Fredrik Ullén visits the University of Iowa Sept 4-6. He will present a seminar on neuropsychological mechanisms of musical expertise and will offer a piano recital during his visit.

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Now in its 15th year, the FUTURE in Biomedicine program fosters research and learning partnerships with professors from Iowa colleges that do not offer doctoral programs. Two of this summer’s researchers—Nandakumar Narayanan, MD, PhD, from the University of Iowa, and Terence Moriarty, PhD, of the University of Northern Iowa—discuss their experience collaborating through the program.

University of Iowa graduate student Brooke Yeager has won the 2023 Kwak-Ferguson Fellowship, a $10,000 award from the Iowa Neuroscience Institute for an upper level graduate student working in the area of neurodegenerative diseases.

A few minutes of data recorded from a single electrode placed on top of the head may be sufficient to predict thinking problems, including dementia, in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). The finding from a new University of Iowa study might help improve diagnosis of cognitive disability in PD and develop new biomarkers and targeted therapies for cognitive symptoms of the disease.