Neuroscience

Donor support of neuroscience research at Indiana University School of Medicine makes so much possible as we work to expand our knowledge of the brain and the central nervous system as a whole. Generosity helps us to better understand the diseases and injuries that disrupt the work of this system and paves the way to breakthroughs that preserve, protect and restore the brain’s vital functions.

Gifts of all sizes enable IU researchers to pursue bold new ideas that lead to international recognition for innovation in multiple neuroscience research fields, including addiction, neurodegenerative disorders, neurodevelopment, ocular neurobiology, pain, psychiatric disorders and spinal cord and brain injury.

Brenna McDonald, Yu-Chien Wu and Thomas McAllister look at brain scans

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What Giving Makes Possible

A message from Andrew Saykin, PsyD

Gifts of all sizes to education and research in the neurosciences at Indiana University School of Medicine are incredibly impactful. Andy Saykin, PsyD, director of the Center for Neuroimaging and the Indiana Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, shares how the generosity of donors facilitates IU’s ability to recruit top notch talent and enables innovative preliminary research that leads to significant federal grants and major discoveries in the neurosciences.

IU School of Medicine scientists produce world’s ‘most impactful’ Alzheimer’s research

Donor funding supports pilot studies that lead investigators like Cristian Lasagna-Reeves, PhD, to big discoveries. Lasagna-Reeves came to IU School of Medicine in 2017 to work with the Stark Neurosciences Research Institute and delve further into his work on the significance of the protein Bassoon as a contributor to neurotoxicity in Alzheimer’s disease.

The resulting paper, published in Nature Neuroscience in 2022, was named the “most impactful study published in Alzheimer’s research over the preceding two years” at the 2023 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference held in Amsterdam, where Lasagna-Reeves received the Inge Grundke-Iqbal Award for Alzheimer’s Research.

Making progress possible: Neurologists at IU administer first-of-its-kind FDA-approved gene therapy

Neurologists at Indiana University School of Medicine are among the first clinicians in the nation to administer a groundbreaking gene-based therapy for patients living with a rare form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

IU researchers receive grant renewal to study alcohol use, binge drinking

A multi-disciplinary team of Indiana University researchers at the Indiana Alcohol Research Center is focusing their efforts on a growing public health concern: binge and “high-intensity” drinking—extreme drinking behaviors that are increasingly prevalent among college-age adults.

Liana Apostolova, MS, MD, FAAN

Apostolova, a distinguished professor and the Barbara and Peer Baekgaard Professor of Alzheimer’s Disease Research at IU School of Medicine, is an internationally recognized leader in Alzheimer’s research. Her research — supported by the generosity of donors — focuses on early-onset Alzheimer's disease and on the development and validation of sensitive imaging and genetic biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease and other dementing disorders.

Meet Dr. Apostolova

Bruce Lamb, PhD

Lamb is the Roberts Family Professor of Alzheimer's Disease Research and the executive director of the Paul and Carole Stark Neurosciences Research Institute at IU School of Medicine. As a nationally recognized research scientist in Alzheimer’s disease, his lab works on the basic science of Alzheimer’s disease, with a focus on genetic modifiers, animal models, traumatic brain injury as an environmental modifier for the development of Alzheimer’s pathologies and drug discovery.

Meet Dr. Lamb

by the numbers

Paul & Carole Stark Neurosciences Research Institute

100+ investigators working to better understand disease

$75 million in NIH funding, made possible by initial support from pilot funding

9 research interest groups, including addiction, neurodegenerative disease, brain injury and more

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Fighting Back Against Parkinson’s

Ted Kitchel is an Indiana basketball legend. Three-time All American. Key cog in Indiana University’s 1981 national championship basketball team. Ever the competitor, Ted now faces the most challenging opponent of his life: Parkinson’s disease. But he’s fighting back — with boxing and by helping raise money for Parkinson’s research at IU School of Medicine.