About Us
The Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute, established in 2015 with a generous donation from Edith and Peter O'Donnell Jr., is housed within UT Southwestern Medical Center, an internationally recognized academic institution renowned for its research, medical education, and patient care.
The O’Donnell Brain Institute is supported by a $1 billion campaign that fuels its commitment to advance brain research and clinical care. Our 2,100-plus faculty and staff tackle the most complex problems in the brain. The Institute supports multidisciplinary approaches through a variety of grant and scholar programs that provide funding, mentoring, education, and tools for researchers at all levels. We are committed to building partnerships among basic and clinical scientists to achieve our mission of providing the best patient care possible today while creating a future of better treatment and prevention through discovery and innovation.
What We Offer
Integrated Environment
Latest Technologies
Mentorship Support
A Mission that Spans Research, Education, & Clinical Care
We work to improve the lives of people with brain disease through:
- Pioneering research in areas from Alzheimer’s disease to depression that leads directly to improved patient care.
- High-quality education for tomorrow’s leaders, in a wide variety of areas. Our programs feature mentoring from our expert faculty and access to the latest technologies in brain research and care.
- Exceptional clinical care that translates research to the bedside quickly. U.S. News and World Report ranks us among the top neurology and neurosurgery hospitals in the country.
To accomplish our mission, we empower exceptional faculty, trainees, and clinicians like Marc Diamond, M.D., Eric Olson, Ph.D., Joseph Takahashi, Ph.D., and Carol Tamminga, M.D. – to pursue their passions.
Molecular Pathways Important for Human Brain Evolution
Genevieve Konopka, Ph.D., investigates the molecular pathways important for human brain evolution that are also at risk in cognitive disorders such as autism and Alzheimer’s disease. Her lab uses a combination of human neurons, animal models, and primate comparative genomics to uncover human-specific, disease-relevant patterns of gene expression.
Electrophysiology of Human Memory
Bradley Lega, M.D., is co-director of UT Southwestern’s comprehensive epilepsy program and a national expert on the use of stereo EEG to locate the origin of epileptic seizures in the brain. His work examines direct recordings from patients to develop strategies that can improve memory function and restore memory for patients with brain injuries or tumors.
Circadian Revelations
Joseph Takahashi, Ph.D., has pioneered the use of forward genetics and positional cloning in the mouse as a tool for discovery of genes underlying neurobiology and behavior. His discovery of the mouse and human clock genes led to a description of a conserved circadian clock mechanism in animals.
The Biology of Psychoses
Carol Tamminga, M.D., leads the Division of Translational Neuroscience in Schizophrenia with the goal of understanding the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and related disorders. The group’s research explores how the brain makes a hallucination or a delusion, and is providing insight at the cellular and synaptic levels.
Taking the Guesswork Out of Depression Treatment
Madhukar Trivedi, M.D., and his team focus on pharmacological, psychosocial, and nonpharmacological treatments for depression. Dr. Trivedi, Director of the Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care leads a national trial that has produced what scientists are calling the project’s flagship finding: a computer that can accurately predict whether an antidepressant will work based on a patient’s brain activity.
