University News

Picture this scenario: You and a friend are walking around your neighborhood when you stop at a crosswalk. As you wait, the noises of the world and your internal thoughts all vie for your attention. Pedestrians chatter as cars rumble by when suddenly, you see a motorist nearly hit a bicyclist.   

“Whoa, did you see that?” you say to your friend.  

“I sure did; that was a fully restored 1967 Ford Mustang,” your friend replies, referring to a car separate from the near-traffic collision you almost witnessed. 

(SACRAMENTO) UC Davis Health Professor and neurosurgeon Kia Shahlaie is the new chair of the Department of Neurological Surgery. He will also continue serving as co-director of the Center for Skull Base Surgery.

(DAVIS) Life sciences industry expert Deborah Neff ’76 is giving $8 million to the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences for two endowments, one for the deanship and the other for the Center for Neuroscience for research into Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. The gift is the largest by an individual in the college’s history.

Evidence from human and animal testing suggests the brain-altering effects of psychedelics could be repurposed for treating addiction. 

Now, researchers at the University of California, Davis, and the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus plan to screen hundreds of compounds to discover new, nonhallucinogenic treatments for substance use disorders. The research is funded by a $2.7 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health.

(SACRAMENTO) Developmental psychologist Sally J. Rogers, who co-developed a leading form of behavioral therapy for autism, has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR). She accepted the award this week at the annual meeting in Austin, Texas.

The two grants will support innovative projects that have the potential to make major breakthroughs in their respective fields. One will study where chemical reactions occur in deep regions of the brain to improve the treatments for brain disorders.

September 29, 2021

(DAVIS) Today the University of California, Davis, officially launched a consortium called the UC Davis Neuroscience Consortium (UCDNC) to leverage the strength, breadth, and depth of one of the largest neuroscience communities in the world. The consortium brings together nearly 300 researchers from 12 centers and 41 departments — integrating biologists, chemists, social scientists, engineers, computer scientists, and clinicians.