Top Researchers
Top Neuroscience Researchers at The Ohio State University for 2026
At The Ohio State University, neuroscience research over the past year spans attention, decision-making, speech and hearing, social behavior, and disease mechanisms. The work reflected here shows a broad community moving between cognitive questions and more biological approaches, with a shared interest in how brain systems shape perception, behavior, and health.
Below, you’ll find a closer look at researchers whose recent publications help map that activity across the field. Taken together, their work gives a sense of where the institution is contributing most actively and how different subfields connect across labs and methods.
Featured Researchers
Julie D. Golomb
Julie D. Golomb’s recent work at The Ohio State University centers on cognitive neuroscience, with publications on spatial attention, trans-saccadic memory, and postsaccadic feature interference.
Activity over the last year: 10 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Allocation of spatial attention in human visual cortex as a function of endogenous cue validity (Jan 2025)
- Maintaining visual stability in naturalistic scenes: The roles of trans-saccadic memory and default assumptions (May 2025)
- Spatiotemporal predictability of saccades modulates postsaccadic feature interference (Dec 2025)
Andrew B. Leber
Andrew B. Leber at The Ohio State University is focusing on cognitive neuroscience and decision processes, including learned distractor rejection, context-dependent suppression, and visual working memory strategy.
Activity over the last year: 5 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
Brittany N. Hand
Brittany N. Hand’s recent publications at The Ohio State University connect cognitive neuroscience with speech and hearing and clinical psychology, spanning autism-related outcomes, self-harm in youth, and cochlear implant quality of life.
Activity over the last year: 7 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Citation Context Analysis of Autism Mortality and Suicide Findings From Hirvikoski’s Landmark Study (Feb 2025)
- Correlates of Deliberate Self-Harm in Youth With Autism and/or Intellectual Disability (Jan 2025)
- Prospective Evaluation of the Associations Between Pre-Cochlear Implant Abilities and Cochlear Implant Quality of Life-35 Profile Domain Scores (Sep 2025)
Ian Krajbich
Ian Krajbich’s work at The Ohio State University brings together general decision sciences and cognitive neuroscience, with studies of cognitive costs, recency and primacy effects, and visual attention in choice.
Activity over the last year: 4 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
Laurence Coutellier
Laurence Coutellier at The Ohio State University is examining behavioral neuroscience and cellular mechanisms, with recent papers on social reward, social isolation, and stress-related changes in mice.
Activity over the last year: 4 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Evidence for the involvement of a fronto-striatal pathway in the processing of social reward (Oct 2025)
- Regrouping reverses social impairments and prefrontal parvalbumin-perineuronal nets alterations induced by post-weaning social isolation in male mice (Sep 2025)
- The effects of prepubertal ovariectomy and chronic stress on activity of brain limbic regions in adult mice (Jun 2025)
Shuman He
Shuman He’s recent research at The Ohio State University bridges cognitive neuroscience, sensory systems, and speech and hearing through cochlear nerve health, neural synchrony, and audiovisual speech processing.
Activity over the last year: 4 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- The Effects of Stimulation Level and Stimulation Rate on Neural Synchrony of the Cochlear Nerve in Postlingually Deafened Adult Cochlear Implant Recipients (Nov 2025)
- The Relationships Between Cochlear Nerve Health and AzBio Sentence Scores in Quiet and Noise in Postlingually Deafened Adult Cochlear Implant Users (Dec 2025)
- Visual Analog of Temporal Envelope Benefits Speech Processing in Cochlear Implant Users: A Pilot Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study on the Associations Between Audiovisual Benefit, Listening Environment, and Peripheral Neural Health (Aug 2025)
Benedetta Leuner
Benedetta Leuner at The Ohio State University is exploring behavioral neuroscience and social psychology, with studies on gestational stress, hormonal contraceptives, and brain-behavior effects in rat models.
Activity over the last year: 4 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Gestational stress disrupts dopamine and oxytocin signaling in the postpartum reward system of rats: implications for mood, motivation and mothering (Jan 2025)
- Hormonal contraceptives during adolescence impact the female brain and behavior in a rat model (Apr 2025)
- Hormonal contraceptives in adolescence impact the neuroimmune environment of the medial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus in female rats (Feb 2025)
Hongjun Fu
Hongjun Fu’s recent work at The Ohio State University focuses on physiology, neurology, and molecular biology, including tau oligomers, microglial signaling in Alzheimer’s disease, and single-cell and spatial transcriptomics.
Activity over the last year: 5 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Brain-derived tau oligomer polymorphs: distinct aggregations, stability profiles, and biological activities (Jan 2025)
- Systematic analysis of cellular cross-talk reveals a role for SEMA6D-TREM2 regulating microglial function in Alzheimer’s disease (Jul 2025)
- Exploring cellular heterogeneity: single-cell and spatial transcriptomics of Alzheimer's disease brains and iPSC-derived microglia (Dec 2025)
What The Ohio State University's Neuroscience Community Is Working On
The most common subfield across this set is cognitive neuroscience, which appears to anchor much of the recent neuroscience activity at The Ohio State University. Around that core, researchers are also working in computer vision and pattern recognition, general decision sciences, speech and hearing, and behavioral neuroscience. The mix suggests a community that is actively studying how attention, perception, and decision-making interact with sensory processing, social behavior, and neurological disease, while also linking human and animal models across multiple levels of analysis.- Cognitive Neuroscience - seen across 5 of the featured researchers
- Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition - seen across 2 of the featured researchers
- General Decision Sciences - seen across 2 of the featured researchers
- Speech and Hearing - seen across 2 of the featured researchers
- Behavioral Neuroscience - seen across 2 of the featured researchers
These recent publications show a neuroscience community that is both wide-ranging and tightly connected by common questions about brain function, behavior, and clinical outcomes. If you want to keep tracking scholarship like this, explore more of the research coming out of The Ohio State University and consider using Resub to support citation discovery, manuscript preparation, and submission workflows.
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