Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute

Aggregates of the protein alpha-synuclein spread in the brains of people with Parkinson’s disease through a cellular waste-ejection process, suggests a new study led by Weill Cornell Medicine researchers.

The discovery of how to shift damaged brain cells from a diseased state into a healthy one poses a new potential path to treating Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.

The psychedelic drugs LSD and psilocybin activate serotonin receptors on brain cells in a way that reduces the energy needed for the brain to switch between different activity states, according to a study led by Weill Cornell Medicine researchers.

New study by The Rockefeller University and Weill Cornell Medicine investigators illuminates the distributed nature of memory processing in the brain, and provides new insights into the process of memory recall, which is less understood than memory storage.

Abnormalities in a type of brain cell called astrocytes may play a pivotal role in causing some behavioral symptoms of autism spectrum disorders, according to a preclinical study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.  

Inhibiting an important signaling pathway in brain-resident immune cells may calm brain inflammation and thereby slow the disease process in Alzheimer’s and some other neurodegenerative diseases, suggests a study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.

Most patients with severe COVID who are put on ventilators regain consciousness after removal of respiratory support, but recovery may take weeks after the period of mechanical ventilation has ended, according to a new study by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Harvard Medical School, .NewYork-Presbyterian and Massachusetts General Hospital.

A three-year contract from Wellcome Leap will allow a team of investigators from Weill Cornell Medicine, Stanford Medicine and UC San Diego School of Medicine to study new ways to combat depression and create models that can predict which treatment is likely to work for individual patients.

By mapping all the protein interactions of a dementia-linked protein in the brain called Tau, a team of Weill Cornell Medicine investigators has created a road map for identifying potential new treatment targets for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia.

Multiple changes in brain cells during the first month of embryonic development may contribute to schizophrenia later in life.

Weill Cornell Medicine researchers are using machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence, to shed light on genetic mutations associated with spina bifida.

A gene mutation linked to Alzheimer’s disease alters a signaling pathway in certain immune cells of individuals with the disease, according to a new study by scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine.

A group of immune cells that normally protect against inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract may have the opposite effect in multiple sclerosis (MS) and other brain inflammation-related conditions, according to a new study by Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian researchers.

Weill Cornell Medicine has received a $1.27 million grant from the United States Department of Defense (DoD) to develop treatment for a rare but devastating eye condition largely affecting military personnel who suffer traumatic eye injuries in combat.

Some of the latest research discoveries in neurodegenerative disease and their potential therapeutic applications were featured at the ninth annual Appel Alzheimer's Disease Research Institute Symposium, held remotely on Nov. 9. 

Dr. Costantino Iadecola, director and chair of the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute and the Anne Parrish Titzell Professor of Neurology at Weill Cornell Medicine, has been awarded the 2021 Basic Research Prize from the American Heart Association (AHA).

Dr. Michael Kaplitt, a professor of neurological surgery at Weill Cornell Medicine and a longtime leader in developing cutting-edge surgical therapies for movement disorders, leads a team that has been awarded a three-year, $8.9 million grant from the Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) initiative. 

The degree to which the brain’s wiring aligns with its patterns of activity can vary with sex and age, and may be genetic, suggests a study published by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. 

Women become more susceptible to hypertension as they approach menopause, and now a preclinical study led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine’s Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute suggests that this “perimenopausal” hypertension may be driven by declines in estrogen signaling in a brain region called the hypothalamus—and may be preventable with estrogen-like treatments.

Dr. Giovanni Manfredi, the Finbar and Marianne Kenny Professor in Clinical and Research Neurology at Weill Cornell Medicine’s Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute, has received an Outstanding Investigator Award (R35) from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) to study the role of mitochondrial dysfunction in brain disease.