News

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.

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.

From helping catalyze interstellar reactions and fueling the birth of stars to its presence in neighborhood gas giants like Saturn and Jupiter, trihydrogen, or H3+, is best known as the “the molecule that made the universe.”