Two predoctoral students in the Neuroscience Graduate Program at OHSU were recently awarded the 2026 Lacroute Fellowship. This fellowship is made possible through the philanthropic support of Ronni Lacroute.

The Lacroute Fellows Program supports exceptional graduate students conducting innovative research in the Vollum Institute/OHSU Neuroscience Graduate Program. The one-year fellowships cover $24,000 of the students’ stipend and provide a $1,000 allowance for related academic expenses, such as attending scientific conferences or courses.   

Congratulations to the 2026 fellows:  

• Raja Estes, Mishra Lab and Monk Lab 
• Gisselle Jimenez, Gray Lab 

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Arpy Saunders, Ph.D. and Austin Schubert, a graduate student and Ph.D. candidate in the NGP, were awarded a 2 year grant from the CURE SYNGAP1 foundation to support Austin’s research project. The grant title, “Brain-wide Discovery of When, Where, and How:  SYNGAP1 Haploinsufficiency Alters Neurodevelopment through Single Cell RNA Profiling,” is based on Austin's recent poster of the same name.
Austin will lead a project to create a comprehensive map of how SYNGAP1 haploinsufficiency alters cortical cell type development in a mouse model, using transcriptional "fingerprinting" to help pinpoint the cellular consequences of SYNGAP1 haploinsufficiency. These insights will guide the design and evaluation of emerging therapies to treat SYNGAP1 Related Intellectual Disability and provide a valuable resource for researchers, clinicians, and families.

Saunders Lab

Scientists have for the first time mapped in exquisite, three-dimensional detail six major conformations of a membrane in the brain related to learning, memory and fear-related behavior.

The study, led by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University, published today in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.

Researchers used state-of-the-art cryo-electron microscopy housed in OHSU’s South Waterfront Campus to capture the most detailed view yet of a specific type of membrane protein: an acid-sensing ion channel known as ASIC1a.

The findings could form the blueprint for drug development useful in treating stroke, said senior author Isabelle Baconguis, Ph.D., assistant professor in the OHSU Vollum Institute.

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Baconguis Lab

The annual Precision Medicine Innovation Co-Laboratory Innovation Grant supports collaborative pilot projects annually between OHSU and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researchers as part of the formal partnership called PMedIC.

For fiscal year 2027, two grants were awarded to OHSU and PNNL research teams:

James Frank, Ph.D., associate professor of chemical physiology and biochemistry in the OHSU School of Medicine with a joint appointment at the OHSU Vollum Institute, and Vivian Lin, Ph.D., chemist with PNNL: “Development of Bifunctional Phytocannabinoid Probes for Proteome-Wide Target Identification.”

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Frank Lab

Cody Call, Ph.D., researcher at OHSU’s Vollum Institute, is first author of a study recently published in the journal Nature.

Call performed zebrafish experiments and electron microscopy analysis while in the lab of Kelly Monk, Ph.D., who is second to last author of the study, “Flexible ensheathment of axons enables myelination of complex CNS networks.”

Many nerve fibers in the brain are wrapped in a fatty insulation called myelin, which allows electrical signals to travel quickly and is essential for healthy brain circuit function. The cells that produce myelin, called oligodendrocytes, each grow multiple arm-like processes. Scientists long believed that each arm wrapped exactly one segment of a nerve fiber in a uniform, synchronized way: like tape around a single stretch of wire. But this model did not explain how the brain insulates complex, highly branched networks, where physical obstacles often get in the way. This paper challenges that idea.

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Monk Lab

Marc Freeman, Ph.D., director and senior scientist of the OHSU Vollum Institute, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Academy, whose members include Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Maria Mitchell, is both an honorary society that recognizes and celebrates the excellence of its members and an independent research center convening leaders from across disciplines, professions and perspectives to address significant challenges. Freeman is one of more than 250 members who will be inducted in a ceremony in October 2026.

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Freeman Lab

Researchers with Oregon Health & Science University and Anhui University in China found in a mouse model that elevated levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain also resulted in elevated behavioral symptoms of tinnitus.

The findings should be especially meaningful for millions of people around the world who suffer from tinnitus, said co-senior author Laurence Trussell, Ph.D., professor of otolaryngology in the OHSU School of Medicine and a scientist in the OHSU Vollum Institute and Oregon Hearing Research Center.

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Trussell Lab

The human brain is a vast network of billions of neurons. By exchanging signals to depress or excite each other, they generate patterns that ripple across the brain up to 1,000 times per second. For more than a century, that dizzyingly complex neuronal code was thought to be the sole arbiter of perception, thought, emotion, and behavior, as well as related health conditions. If you wanted to understand the brain, you turned to the study of neurons: neuroscience.

But a recent body of work from several labs, published as a trio of papers in Science in 2025, provides the strongest evidence yet that a narrow focus on neurons is woefully insufficient for understanding how the brain works. The experiments, in mice, zebra fish, and fruit flies, reveal that the large brain cells called astrocytes serve as supervisors. Once viewed as mere support cells for neurons, astrocytes are now thought to help tune brain circuits and thereby control overall brain state or mood — say, our level of alertness, anxiousness, or apathy.

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Freeman Lab