Vanderbilt investigators have discovered that functional MRI detects neural activity in both gray and white matter in the brain, suggesting new ways to investigate diseases such as Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has signed a five-year cooperative agreement worth up to $28 million with Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) to develop methods for preventing the global spread of viruses like chikungunya and Zika.

Under the terms of the licensing agreement, Lundbeck has exclusively licensed rights to compounds developed at Vanderbilt that act on a receptor in the brain that has been implicated in schizophrenia.

Microtubules are the “railroad tracks” essential for moving intracellular “freight” around in the cell. They’re also part of the spindle that pulls the two centrosomes apart during cell division.

Impaired swallowing — dysphagia — affects 3 percent of hospital inpatients, who have longer hospital stays and are more likely to require post-acute care services.

James Crowe Jr., MD, director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), has been named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).