Rutgers Brain Health Institute

10/26/2026

🗓️ Join the Rutgers Brain Health Institute Plenary Seminar on November 19, featuring distinguished speaker Dr. Alain Dagher, MD, Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery at the Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University Health Centre!

Big data in has allowed us to uncover novel associations between brain measures and disease or behavioural phenotypes. However, causal mechanisms are not always evident. Confounds, reverse causation, and selection bias all limit causal interpretations. Inspired by the new science of causal inference, Dr. Dagher combines (1) very large MRI and postmortem datasets, (2) genomics, and (3) pathophysiology-informed computational models. He will discuss methods for determining causality from observational data and apply these principles to .

McGill University Rutgers University

10/23/2026

Don't miss out! Joseph LeDoux, PhD, of New York University will deliver the keynote at the 2026 Twelfth Annual Rutgers Brain Health Institute Symposium on Wednesday, December 2, in New Brunswick.

A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. LeDoux has spent fifty years studying how the brain produces emotion. His talk, "The Troubled History of the Emotional Brain," is a personal look at that work and at why defining emotion matters for treating emotional disorders.

The day also features Rutgers BHI faculty research talks, a Rutgers Women's Brain Health Initiative panel, trainee flash talks and posters, and the Brain Art Exhibition.

Early registration pricing ends November 6.

Dr. Joseph LeDoux keynotes the 12th Annual Rutgers Brain Health Institute Symposium on December 2 in New Brunswick. Early registration closes November 6.

10/22/2026

Why are we often so bad at predicting what will actually make us happy?

In this TEDxNashville talk, Dr. David Zald, Director of the Center for Advanced Human Brain Imaging Research (CAHBIR) at Rutgers Brain Health Institute, unpacks the behind how we anticipate happiness.

“The brain is a prediction machine,” but our pleasure forecasts are often wrong. Brain hedonic hotspots are acutely sensitive to repetition. This means that pleasure fades. We often chase the thrill of that first taste, that first experience, without considering what we will feel once something is familiar.

For , Dr. Zald explains: “Most people who have depression, if something positive happens, they actually experience pleasure. The problem is not with the ability to experience that emotion. The problem was with the forecast of the emotion. When deciding whether to pursue a potential reward, the work to get the reward seems like it will be too much relative to the chance of reward, and the forecast of the work may also be wrong. The hardest part is often simply getting started.

He introduces how these ideas relate to flow states: when we become deeply absorbed. Flow represents sustained engagement, a more enduring form of happiness separate from the more fleeting joy of sensory pleasure.

10/22/2026

Proud to share that Rutgers University has been selected to lead the New Jersey Social Media Research Center. 🎉

This week, New Jersey announced $500,000 in state funding to launch the New Jersey Social Media Research Center at Rutgers. Led by faculty including Dr. Jessica Hamilton (director), Jeff Lane, and Vivien Wen Li Anthony, the center will study how social media affects children and teens, examine addictive platform features, and develop evidence-based strategies for families, schools, and policymakers.

This statewide effort—supported by Gov. Mikie Sherrill, Higher Education Secretary Margo Chaly, and leaders across Rutgers Health—aligns with resources we’ve shared on healthy screen use and youth mental health.

10/22/2026

One week left to support the Rutgers Brain Health Institute in the Anthem Community Voice Awards.

Brain Health Insights for You (BHI for You) has already earned finalist recognition in the 6th Annual Anthem Awards. Your vote can help this work earn the Anthem Community Voice Award, which is chosen by the public.

BHI for You makes Rutgers research and expert insight accessible through free, scientifically reviewed resources that help people understand brain health and support those they love.

Please lend your support by October 29.

How to vote:
1. Open the voting page linked below.
2. Search “BHI” or “Rutgers” and find “Brain Health Insights for You (BHI for You).”
3. Select “Celebrate,” then sign up or log in with your Google account.
4. Once logged in, cast your vote. Complete email verification if prompted.

Thank you for taking the time to support BHI. If you’ve already voted, please share this post to help others lend their support.

10/21/2026

The Nobel Prize 2026 in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and .

Optogenetics is a method that allows scientists to switch specific groups of brain cells on or off with light. At the Rutgers Brain Health Institute, our researchers use it to study mechanisms underlying many physiological and pathophysiological conditions, including attention, pain, appetite, and addiction.

Discover how Rutgers University labs are using optogenetics in their work:
▪ Gary Aston-Jones: Brain region controlling arousal and attention
▪ David Barker: Tracing how pain changes motivation
▪ Chris Pierce: Explaining how deep brain stimulation can reduce drug relapse
▪ Mark Rossi: Matching appetite to energy needs
▪ Zhiping Pang: Decoding the brain’s own GLP-1

10/19/2026

HINJ : What Women (And Men!) Need to Know | Panel: More Than : Confronting the Biggest Threats to Women’s Health

Dr. Michal Schnaider Beeri, Director of the Rutgers Krieger Klein Alzheimer's Research Center within the Rutgers Brain Health Institute, shared that changes associated with can begin years before noticeable memory problems emerge.

An estimated 4.5 million American women age 65 and older are living with Alzheimer’s dementia in 2026, compared with 2.9 million men, according to the Alzheimer's Association.

Researchers are examining how hormonal changes, metabolic health and physical activity, including exercise during midlife, may influence women’s risk. “I think the whole story is midlife,” she said.

HealthCare Institute of New Jersey
Rutgers University Rutgers Health

10/19/2026

🎉 Congratulations to the Fall 2026 Rutgers Brain Health Institute Trainee Travel Award Winners!
We are proud to support these outstanding Rutgers University PhD students, MD/PhD students, and postdoctoral fellows in and research with $500 awards to attend national or international conferences 🧠. These awards help trainees connect with peers, advance professional development, and raise the visibility of Rutgers neuroscience on a global stage.
Over the past five years, BHI has awarded $40,000 to 80 trainees working with 56 different principal investigators from 18 departments across 9 schools at Rutgers. Congratulations to all recipients! 👏

10/16/2026

isn’t always gradual.

A new Nature Medicine study analyzed more than 300 million laboratory tests from over 1 million women in the U.S. and Israel. Using a computational method that “deblurs” cross‑sectional data, researchers reconstructed physiological changes timed to the final menstrual period.

They found a clear “physiological cliff”: abrupt, step‑like shifts across multiple systems — hormones, bone, liver, kidney, lipids, and more — exactly at menopause. These jumps were largely absent in men studied the same way.

Sex‑hormone changes also began accelerating more than a decade before the final menstrual period. Current menopausal hormone therapy was associated with attenuation of many of these shifts (observational findings).

This kind of large‑scale work helps refine how we understand the timing and systemic nature of the menopausal transition.

Weizmann Institute of Science

10/16/2026

New BHI toolkit! Check out practical, research‑vetted advice and tools for planning family screen time that protects sleep, movement, connection, and free play — everyday experiences that help build healthy brains. 🧠

This toolkit follows our prior article exploring what the latest research tells us about screens and young developing minds.

Rutgers Brain Health Institute