Author Archives: Sue Modlin

A new study published in Neuron, led by Juan Song, PhD, sheds light on how Alzheimer’s disease affects the brain. The findings could lead to new forms of therapy. Alzheimer’s disease not only robs people of their memory but also affects mood, often causing anxiety and depression. Until now, scientists...

Chapel Hill, N.C. – Diet impacts the brain a lot more than we think. A new study from UNC School of Medicine researchers, published this week in Neuron, reveals a unique look at how junk food rewires the brain’s memory hub – leading to risk of cognitive dysfunction. This new research...

En Yang, a neuroscientist in the College of Arts and Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill, has won a Pew Biomedical Scholar award for her engineering-informed research on learning and memory. The Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences provides research funding to early-career investigators whose work stands to substantially impact human health. This...

The McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience has selected four projects to receive the 2025 Neurobiology of Brain Disorders Awards. The awards will total $1.2 million for research on the biology of brain diseases, with each project receiving $100,000 per year in each of the next three years for a total...

A discovery by a UNC School of Medicine cell biology lab could reshape how scientists understand and treat Alzheimer’s disease. The research team is led by Sarah Cohen, assistant professor in the medical school’s cell biology and physiology department and member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Cohen’s lab found that Apolipoprotein E4,...

Joseph Piven, MD, the Thomas E. Castelloe Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics and director of the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities was given the award for his fundamental contributions to research on autism spectrum disorders. Original full article can be found here.

The Frohlich Lab, led by Flavio Frohlich, PhD, professor of psychiatry and of the Carolina Center for Neurostimulation, and specializes in groundbreaking research and developing innovative approaches to combating mental health issues. Watch a video about this research here.

In 2025, the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation awarded Distinguished Investigator Grants valued at $1 million to 10 senior-level scientists who are conducting groundbreaking research in neurobiological and behavioral science. Recipients of the $100,000, one-year grants are exploring critical areas of mental health, including opioid use disorder, depression in pregnant women, schizophrenia,...

With a designation from the FDA, a device created and patented by Flavio Frohlich, PhD, professor of psychiatry at the UNC School of Medicine and member of the UNC Neuroscience Center, is one step closer to being available for patients. Original full article can be found here.

A new genetic study, led by Hyejung Won, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Genetics and the UNC Neuroscience Center, and Patrick Sullivan, MD, FRANZCP, the Yeargen Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Genetics, has successfully delineated the functional consequences of genetic variants into two groups. Their findings, which were published in Cell, suggest that pleiotropic variants may...