Newsroom Stories

New research may help explain why drug treatments for addiction and depression don’t work for some patients. The conditions are linked to reward and aversion responses in the brain. And the research suggests that some treatments simultaneously stimulate reward and aversion responses, resulting in a net zero effect.

Provost Holden Thorp, PhD, has appointed an eight-member committee to identify candidates for the position of dean of the Brown School. Eddie Lawlor, PhD, the William E. Gordon Distinguished Professor, announced he will step down as dean at the end of the academic year, June 30, 2016.

Ashley Wilson, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, received a U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad award to continue her research on long-term conjugal cohabitation relationships that are a common alternative to formal marriage among poor residents of the Kibera slums in Nairobi, Kenya.

The largest study to date of sustained calorie reduction in adults shows that it does not produce all of the metabolic effects associated with longevity that have been found in animal studies. Severely cutting calorie intake, however, did appear to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease and make people more sensitive to insulin, according to John O. Holloszy, MD, principal investigator at the study’s Washington University clinical site.

Images captured in and around the Washington University campuses. Click on the ‘i’ in the upper-left corner for captions.

​​Here’s a look at the latest news about research funding from Washington University in St. Louis. ​

The gesture is optimistic. The weapon has been removed from the streets, sliced in two and encased in frosted bubbles. In “SMAC” (2014), artist duo CLUB S+S offers an aesthetic antibody to the gun violence epidemic. On Sept. 16, the Sam Fox School will present “SMAC” as part of “Guns in the Hands of Artists,” opening in the Des Lee Gallery in downtown St. Louis.

Following a weeklong orientation that focused on health disparities and public health, first-year students at the School of Medicine got their hands dirty working at urban gardens in St. Louis. The students volunteered with a nonprofit organization that works to establish and sustain green spaces in neighborhoods across the city.

Contract employees and other temporary workers will be able to bargain more effectively with the business entity that controls their working conditions and wages after an Aug. 27 decision by the National Labor Relations Board. The ruling signals a shift toward a more realistic and fact-dependant analysis of the evolving nature of employment in the modern labor market, said noted Washington University in St. Louis labor law expert Marion Crain.

Washington University in St. Louis mathematician Blake Thornton, PhD, came in first in the paddleboard division of the MR340, an endurance race on the Missouri River. Before signing up for next year’s race, you might want to read this article as well as watch the video.