The brain’s response to low oxygen — growth and remodeling of blood vessels — involves certain cell types and molecular pathways, Vanderbilt researchers have discovered.

Specific regions of the thalamus — a central brain region — are smaller in adults with psychotic disorders and youth at risk for psychotic disorders and are associated with cognitive impairment.

Leaders at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have announced that the Vanderbilt Memory and Alzheimer’s Center (VMAC), currently housed in the Department of Neurology, will become a freestanding institutional center.

Combining studies of genetically diverse mouse populations and human data led to the identification of a gene associated with cognitive decline and brain changes in Alzheimer’s disease.

With the aid of an $18.2 million, five-year grant renewal from the National Institute on Aging, the Vanderbilt Memory and Aging Project (VMAP) will advance interdisciplinary research into abnormal brain aging and cognitive decline in older adults, with continuing emphasis on the role of blood flow changes in the heart and brain.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have shown for the first time that when one optic nerve in the eye is damaged, as in glaucoma, the opposite optic nerve comes to the rescue by sharing its metabolic energy.

A pair of ultra-thin electrodes surgically implanted deep into the brain might slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease, according to five-year outcomes from a 30-patient randomized clinical trial conducted by investigators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.