The brain's fear center apparently has a built-in chemical sensor triggered by a primordial terror -- threat of suffocation.

His graduate students simply call him Dan. Not Dr. Tranel. Not Professor Tranel.This isn’t a lack of respect for their mentor, one of the top neuroscientists in his field. They just see him as a normal guy who happens to have a 100-yard football field, complete with goal posts at each end, on his farm in southern Johnson County.

Two researchers in the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine have been renewed for another five years as investigators of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Both researchers, Kevin Campbell, Ph.D., and Michael Welsh, M.D., have been HHMI investigators since 1989.

Some neuroscientists have pegged an area of the brain known as the insula, which helps us detect what's going on within our bodies. But an unusual case of a man with extensive damage to this region suggests that the insula cannot be the sole source of self-awareness. Tucked deep inside the brain, the insula responds to pain, a full stomach, changes in body temperature, and other internal...

Curt D. Sigmund, Ph.D., University of Iowa professor of internal medicine and molecular physiology and biophysics, received the 2009 Novartis Award for Hypertension Research. The American Heart Association's Council for High Blood Pressure Research sponsors the award. The award is the highest honor in hypertension research given annually by the association and Novartis. It recognizes outstanding...

A story about differences in the male and female brain points to recent research by PEG NOPOULOS, JESSICA WOOD and colleagues at the University of Iowa, which illustrates just how difficult it is to untangle nature and nurture, even at the level of brain structure.

Dr. ROBERT G. ROBINSON, head of the department of psychiatry at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, said one of the most common causes for a drop in libido after a stroke is depression. "It occurs in about 40 percent of stroke patients during the acute period after a stroke and about 20 percent after the acute period."

The University of Iowa Neuroscience Graduate Program was the featured exhibitor at the Iowa State Fair on opening day, Thursday, August 13th at the University of Iowa booth.Attendees to the fair had the opportunity to play "Name That Brain" and "i-robot". Name That Brain shows the visual differences between human brains and those of other animals, focusing on what makes the human brain unique.i...

Amy Belfi (Tranel Lab) presents her poster at the SURC Conference on Thursday, July 30 in the IMU.