View Photos from the 2026 UVA Brain Symposium

The 2026 UVA Brain Symposium was held on Tuesday, May 19 – Thursday, May 21, 2026, at the UVA Contemplative Commons. Twenty-three speakers presented to over 300 attendees from across the University and community, and more than 80 neuroscience researchers from across Grounds shared their posters.

All photos are credited to Tom Daly Photography.

Event Overview: 

Contemplative Sciences & Psychedelics

• Psychedelic Treatment for Mental Health Conditions: What we know and what the future holds
  Stephanie Knatz Peck, PhD – University of California San Diego
• Unwinding the Anxious Mind: Lessons from Studying the Brain
  Judson A. Brewer, MD, PhD – Brown University
• Convergent States: Mindfulness, Imagination, and Psychedelic-Induced Change
  Cassandra Vieten, PhD – University of California San Diego
• Psilocybin and Prolonged Grief Disorder: Role of Subjective Experiences
  Kim Penberthy, PhD – University of Virginia

Special Topic: Alzheimer’s Disease

• Amyloid-β and Tau: Functionally Coupled Co-Conspirators in Seminal Steps of Alzheimer’s Disease Pathogenesis
  George Bloom, PhD – University of Virginia

Systems Neuroscience 

• Studying vision in action in the mouse
  Cristopher Niell, PhD – University of Oregon
• The neural mechanisms of social support
  Dayu Lin, PhD – New York University
• Molecular and structural rewiring of reward brain cell types by stress and addictive substances
  Mary Kay Lobo, PhD – University of Maryland
• Internal models of vocal dynamics in the zebra finch
  C. Daniel Meliza, PhD – University of Virginia

Maternal Mental Health & Brain Development

• Neurosteroids in Maternal Mental Health: From Bench to Bedside to Precision Medicine
  Jamie Maguire, PhD – Tufts University
• Extracellular vesicles and immune function in perinatal mental health
  Lauren Osborne, MD – Weill Cornell Medicine
• How Early Experience Shapes the Infant Brain: Maternal Mental Health and Caregiving Signals in Neurobiological Plasticity
  Meghan Puglia, PhD – University of Virginia
• Sex-Differentiated Epigenetic Regulation of Neurosteroid Synthesis and GABA-A Receptor Genes in Adolescence
  Roxann Roberson-Nay, PhD – University of Virginia

Special Topic Presentation: Pain

• Pain is Cognition
  David Seminowicz, PhD – Western University

UVA’s Brain Challengers: Big Ideas for Big Problems – Neuroscience TED-Style Talks

• Early Events in Neurodegeneration: Toward a curative treatment of Alzheimer's disease
  Nikolay Dokholyan, PhD
• What if Alzheimer's disease was preventable?
  Sarah Flowers, PhD
• Decoding Molecular Drivers of Sex-Dependent Vulnerability in the Brain
  Xin Ma, PhD
• Yesterday's neurotoxicants: what poisonings of the past mean for diseases of the future
  Aaron Reuben, PhD

Poster Session

• Featuring 80+ posters from neuroscience researchers across Grounds

Neurodegeneration

• Mechanisms of Synaptic Damage by Neurodegenerative Protein Aggregates
  Stephen Strittmatter, MD, PhD – Yale University
• The price of control: seizure burden, mortality and neuropathology in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias
  Ifrah Zawar, MD – University of Virginia
• RNA-Targeted Therapies for Neurodegenerative Disease
  Timothy Miller, MD, PhD – Washington University in St. Louis
• Type I Interferon Signaling: A Rheostat of Brain Aging and Degeneration
  Wei Cao, PhD – University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
• New insights into Huntington’s disease pathogenesis: implications for therapeutic development
  Scott Zeitlin, PhD – University of Virginia

With Introductory Remarks from:

• Mitchell H. Rosner, MD, MACP, FRCP – Chief Executive Officer, UVA Health & Executive Vice President for Health Affairs
• Colin P. Derdeyn, MD – Interim Dean, UVA School of Medicine
• Stephanie J. Rowley, PhD – William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Education and Dean of the UVA School of Education and Human Development
• Gwendolyn Slade Bouchie, MS – UVA Executive Director of Research Strategy and Communications

Many thanks to the 2026 Planning Committee and Contemplative Sciences Center:

• Stefen Beeler-Duden, PhD
• JC Cang, PhD
• Austin Cooper, PhD
• Kelly Crace, PhD
• Xuemei Huang, MD, PhD
• John Lukens, PhD
• Annie Marchildon
• Julie Mollica
• Edward Nieh, PhD
• Jennifer Payne, MD
• Kevin Pelphrey, PhD
• J. Kim Penberthy, PhD
• Michael Sheehy, PhD
• Tara Srivastava
• Helen Wang, PhD
• Emily Warren, PhD
• Elizabeth Wenzel, PhD
• Yajun Zhang, PhD
• Tom Ellis
• Cecelia Magargee
• Bizzy Hyatt
• Kayce Tyler