The MSU Museum and the Games for Entertainment and Learning (GEL) Lab have been awarded the prestigious 2025 Humanities and Arts Research Program Large-Scale Development Grant to support the creation of Game Changers, an immersive exhibition exploring the societal, cultural and technological impact of video games.

New research out of Michigan State University expands on current understanding of the brain chemical dopamine, finding that it plays a role in reducing the value of memories associated with rewards. The study — published in the open access journal Communications Biology — opens new avenues for understanding dopamine’s role in the brain.

According to 2017-2018 data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, obesity affects 42.4% of U.S. adults and 19.3% of U.S. children and teens. Comstock said she hopes the information gathered from this project will be used to identify mechanisms by which obesity develops and to find solutions that would prevent its occurrence early in life.

A recent study led by researchers from the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine and DePaul University finds in-person mental health treatment to be more successful for young patients, despite a growing number of apps and online support.

As major changes continue for our planet’s climate, scientists are concerned about how plants will grow and adapt. Researchers in the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory, or PRL, Sharkey lab are studying changes in plant metabolism that occur when plants are grown in high light, high CO2 conditions.

Yihua Zhang, a Ph.D. student at Michigan State University will pursue research in preventing unintended consequences of artificial intelligence, thanks to an IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Award. Yihua Zhang is one of 24 scholars around the world to receive the 2024 Fellowship prize. Zhang is a Ph.D. candidate in the Optimization and Trustworthy Machine Learning Group in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Zhang’s Ph.D. advisor is CSE Assistant Professor Sijia Liu.

Each summer, more and more lake beaches are forced to close due to toxic algae blooms. While climate change is often blamed, new research suggests a more complex story. The study sheds light on why some lakes are more vulnerable than others and how climate and human impacts interact — offering clues to why the problem is getting worse.

Safoi Babana-Hampton, Professor of French and Francophone Studies in the Department of Romance and Classical Studies at Michigan State University, has produced and directed a documentary that features artists, historians, and policymakers who challenge Eurocentric narratives to reclaim, reshape, and preserve the memory of the Black Atlantic experience.

Butterflies are disappearing in the United States. All kinds of them. With a speed scientists call alarming. Elise Zipkin, director of MSU’s Ecology, Evolution and Behavior Program, and her MSU colleague and co-author Nick Haddad, professor of integrative biology in EEB, have been major figures in assessing the state of U.S. butterflies.

MSU is one of the most internationally engaged universities in the U.S. With more than 350 partnerships in 60 countries and more than 1,600 faculty and academic staff involved in international research, teaching and outreach, MSU continues to share knowledge and improve lives around the globe and right here in Michigan.