Top Researchers
Top Neuroscience Researchers at George Mason University for 2026
George Mason University’s recent neuroscience research spans cognition, molecular mechanisms, and clinical questions that connect brain function with human behavior and disease. Looking across the last year, the institution’s output shows both breadth and continuity, with work ranging from time perception and attention to genetics, cellular neuroscience, and neurovascular modeling.
Below, you’ll find a curated view of the researchers driving that activity. Their recent publications reflect a campus community that moves between theory, experiment, and translational inquiry in ways that are especially useful for readers tracking where neuroscience is headed next.
Featured Researchers
Martin Wiener
Martin Wiener’s recent George Mason University work centers on cognitive neuroscience and experimental psychology, with studies on mental time travel, tempo matching, and time perception.
Activity over the last year: 8 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Cortical Gradients Support Mental Time Travel into the Past and Future: Evidence from Activation Likelihood Estimation Meta-analysis (May 2025)
- A coupled oscillator model predicts the effect of neuromodulation and a novel human tempo-matching bias (Apr 2025)
- Time from a Different Angle: How the angularity of shapes affect time perception (Jul 2025)
Ancha Baranova
Ancha Baranova’s recent publications link genetics, epidemiology, and molecular biology to depression, type 2 diabetes, autism spectrum disorder, and bipolar disorder.
Activity over the last year: 11 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
Hongbao Cao
Hongbao Cao’s work at George Mason University connects genetics and biological psychiatry, including studies on depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia biomarkers.
Activity over the last year: 8 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
Nadine Kabbani
Nadine Kabbani’s recent research focuses on molecular and cellular neuroscience, examining microglia, mitochondrial networks, withdrawal biology, and cannabinoid effects.
Activity over the last year: 4 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- HIV-1 gp120 Interactions with Nicotine Modulate Mitochondrial Network Properties and Amyloid Release in Microglia (Feb 2025)
- Proteomic analysis of plasma proteins during fentanyl withdrawal in ovariectomized female rats with and without estradiol (Apr 2025)
- A predictive machine learning model for cannabinoid effect based on image detection of reactive oxygen species in microglia (Mar 2025)
Giorgio A. Ascoli
Giorgio A. Ascoli’s recent George Mason University publications span biophysics and neuroscience, with attention to neuron connectivity, dendritome mapping, and grid cell firing.
Activity over the last year: 6 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
Holger Dannenberg
Holger Dannenberg’s recent work combines cognitive and cellular neuroscience, with studies of grid cells, cholinergic dynamics, and spatial novelty in the septo-hippocampal system.
Activity over the last year: 4 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Automated Measurement of Grid Cell Firing Characteristics (Mar 2025)
- Cholinergic Dynamics in the Septo-hippocampal System Provide Phasic Multiplexed Signals for Spatial Novelty and Correlate with Behavioral States (Sep 2025)
- Spatial periodicity in grid cell firing is explained by a neural sequence code of 2-D trajectories (May 2025)
Juan R. Cebral
Juan R. Cebral’s George Mason University research addresses neurology through computational and hemodynamic studies of intracranial aneurysm growth and brain collateral circulation.
Activity over the last year: 3 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Competing pathways of intracranial aneurysm growth: linking regional growth distribution and hemodynamics (Jan 2025)
- Computational Framework for Modeling Effects of Brain Collateral Circulation (Dec 2025)
- Intracranial Aneurysm Wall Phenotypes: Clinical, Morphological, and Hemodynamic Influences (Sep 2025)
William S. Helton
William S. Helton’s recent publications revisit sustained attention and mind wandering, drawing on cognitive neuroscience and social psychology to rethink task-related thought reports.
Activity over the last year: 3 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- A Way Forward for Sustained Attention Research: Insights from the Deep Past (Aug 2025)
- Mind-Wandering or Task-Unrelated Thought Reports May Be a Response to Performance Not a Cause of Performance: Using Forced Errors to Impact Thought Content Reports (Dec 2025)
- Perceptual decoupling in the sustained attention to response task is indeed unlikely: a reply to Shelat and Geisbrecht (in press) (Mar 2025)
What George Mason University's Neuroscience Community Is Working On
The most common subfields point to a community actively working across cognitive neuroscience, genetics, and cellular and molecular neuroscience. That mix suggests a department where questions about attention, time perception, and spatial coding sit alongside research on psychiatric genetics, biomarkers, microglia, and neural circuitry. The broader pattern is one of integration: researchers are connecting behavioral phenomena to biological mechanisms and, in some cases, to clinical applications such as aneurysm modeling and brain-related disease.- Cognitive Neuroscience - seen across 5 of the featured researchers
- Genetics - seen across 3 of the featured researchers
- Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience - seen across 3 of the featured researchers
- Molecular Biology - seen across 2 of the featured researchers
- Experimental and Cognitive Psychology - seen across 1 of the featured researchers
Taken together, these researchers show how neuroscience at George Mason University is being shaped by multiple methods and levels of analysis, from cognition to molecules to systems-level models. If you’re exploring related work, keep reading through the profiles below and consider using Resub to streamline citation discovery, manuscript formatting, and submission prep for your own projects.
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