Please join UCLA’s Friends of the Semel Institute and the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital Board of Advisors for an Open Mind with Nicole Rust, PhD., neuroscientist and author of the groundbreaking book, Elusive Cures: Why Neuroscience Hasn’t Solved Brain Disorders and How We Can Change That. In Elusive Cures, Dr. Rust lays out a bold proposal for tackling one of the greatest challenges of our time—the brain and mental illnesses. 

 

Brain research has been accelerating rapidly in recent decades, but the translation of our many discoveries into treatments and cures for brain disorders has not happened as many expected. We do not have cures for the vast majority of brain illnesses, from Alzheimer’s to depression, and many medications we do have to treat the brain are derived from drugs produced in the 1950s—before we knew much about the brain at all.

 

Tackling brain disorders is clearly one of the biggest challenges facing humanity today. What will it take to overcome it? Nicole Rust takes readers along on her personal journey to answer this question. Drawing on her decades of experience on the front lines of neuroscience research, Rust reflects on how far we have come in our quest to unlock the secrets of the brain and what remains to be discovered. She shows us that treating a brain disorder is more like redirecting a hurricane than fixing a domino chain of cause and effect, arguing that only once we embrace the idea of the brain as a complex system do we have any hope of finding cures. Rust profiles the pioneering ideas about the brain that are driving research at the cutting edge to illuminate exactly how much we know about disorders such as Parkinson’s, epilepsy, addiction, schizophrenia, and anxiety—and what it will take to eradicate these scourges. Elusive Cures sheds light on one of the most daunting challenges ever confronted by science while offering hope for revolutionary new treatments and cures for the brain.

 

Lucina Uddin, PhD, the director of the Brain Connectivity and Cognition Laboratory and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Analysis Core at UCLA’s Semel Institute

 will join Dr. Rust in discussion.

 

Bios: 

Nicole C. Rust, PhD is a mood and memory researcher and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research has been recognized by numerous awards, including the Troland Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences. She is also a contributing editor at The Transmitter, a leading brain research news magazine, and an editor at BrainFacts.org, a source designed to share stories of scientific discovery from neuroscientists around the world.

 

Lucina Uddin, PhD received her PhD in Psychology at UCLA and then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Child Study Center at New York University. For several years she worked as a faculty member in Psychiatry & Behavioral Science at Stanford University. She currently directs the Brain Connectivity and Cognition Laboratory and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Analysis Core at the Semel Institute. Within a cognitive neuroscience framework, Dr. Uddin’s research combines functional and structural neuroimaging to examine the organization of large-scale brain networks supporting the development of executive function. Her current projects focus on understanding dynamic brain network interactions underlying cognitive inflexibility in neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism spectrum disorder.

 

For a 30% discount off Elusive Cures (9780691243054), visit the Princeton University Press website and use this code NREC30. Offer expires on 6/30/2026