Top Researchers
Top Neuroscience Researchers at University of Wisconsin–Madison for 2026
The University of Wisconsin–Madison’s recent neuroscience output spans a wide range of questions, from brain aging and cognition to sleep, pain, and consciousness. Looking across the last year of work, a clear pattern emerges: researchers are pairing physiology with clinical insight and modern analytical methods to better understand how the nervous system changes across health and disease.
Below, you’ll find a snapshot of the scholars shaping that conversation at UW–Madison, along with the subfields that appear most often across their recent work. Together, these themes show an active research community moving between molecular biomarkers, neuroimaging, and cognitive neuroscience.
Featured Researchers
Henrik Zetterberg
Henrik Zetterberg’s recent neuroscience work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison centers on physiology, psychiatry and mental health, and neurology, with publications on plasma phospho-tau standardization, amyloid PET and CSF biomarkers, and tau assemblies in Alzheimer’s disease.
Activity over the last year: 91 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- The Alzheimer's Association Global Biomarker Standardization Consortium (GBSC) plasma phospho‐tau Round Robin study (Feb 2025)
- Considerations in the clinical use of amyloid PET and CSF biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease (Mar 2025)
- Phospho-tau serine-262 and serine-356 as biomarkers of pre-tangle soluble tau assemblies in Alzheimer’s disease (Feb 2025)
Sterling C. Johnson
Sterling C. Johnson’s recent publications connect psychiatry and mental health, physiology, and cognitive neuroscience through studies of plasma p-tau217, tau-PET, white matter abnormalities, and proteinopathy in aging and Alzheimer disease.
Activity over the last year: 36 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Plasma p-tau217 and tau-PET predict future cognitive decline among cognitively unimpaired individuals: implications for clinical trials (Mar 2025)
- White Matter Abnormalities and Cognition in Aging and Alzheimer Disease (Jun 2025)
- Misfolded α‐synuclein co‐occurrence with Alzheimer's disease proteinopathy (May 2025)
David T. Plante
David T. Plante’s work combines experimental and cognitive psychology with cognitive neuroscience and physiology, focusing on hypersomnolence, sleep slow oscillations, and predictors of sleep latency.
Activity over the last year: 23 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- A Patient-centric Clinical Trial Design to Comprehensively Evaluate Low-Sodium Oxybate in People with Idiopathic Hypersomnia or Narcolepsy (Jun 2025)
- The Space–Time Organisation of Sleep Slow Oscillations as Potential Biomarker for Hypersomnolence (Apr 2025)
- Predictors of Sleep Latency From the Multiple Sleep Latency Test: A Random Forest Investigation in a Community Sample (Apr 2025)
Barbara B. Bendlin
Barbara B. Bendlin’s recent neuroscience profile spans psychiatry and mental health, physiology, and radiology, nuclear medicine and imaging, with papers on white matter, misfolded α-synuclein, and the gut microbiome in Alzheimer’s disease pathology.
Activity over the last year: 22 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
Tobey J. Betthauser
Tobey J. Betthauser’s recent output in psychiatry and mental health, physiology, and cognitive neuroscience highlights neuroimaging in Alzheimer’s disease, sex differences in recall decline, and tau PET burden in cognitively unimpaired adults.
Activity over the last year: 21 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
Giulio Tononi
Giulio Tononi’s recent publications in cognitive neuroscience and cellular and molecular neuroscience address consciousness theories, competing paradigms of conscious experience, and sleep spindle abnormalities in schizophrenia spectrum disorders.
Activity over the last year: 15 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- Adversarial testing of global neuronal workspace and integrated information theories of consciousness (Apr 2025)
- Consciousness or pseudo-consciousness? A clash of two paradigms (Mar 2025)
- Sleep Spindle Abnormalities as Neurophysiological Biomarkers of Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: From Cellular Mechanisms and Neural Circuits to Clinical Implications (Jun 2025)
Alaa Abd‐Elsayed
Alaa Abd-Elsayed’s recent work bridges anesthesiology and pain medicine with pharmacology and pathology, covering chronic pain and cognition, TENS and EMS, and artificial intelligence for spinal cord stimulation.
Activity over the last year: 14 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
- The Impact of Chronic Pain on Cognitive Function (May 2025)
- Latest Advancements in Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) and Electronic Muscle Stimulation (EMS): Revisiting an Established Therapy with New Possibilities (Jan 2025)
- The Application of Artificial Intelligence to Enhance Spinal Cord Stimulation Efficacy for Chronic Pain Management: Current Evidence and Future Directions (May 2025)
Ozioma C. Okonkwo
Ozioma C. Okonkwo’s recent neuroscience research links psychiatry and mental health, physiology, and cognitive neuroscience through studies of misfolded α-synuclein, deep learning for brain aging, and machine learning for predicting cognitive decline.
Activity over the last year: 15 indexed journal articles.
Top publications:
What University of Wisconsin–Madison's Neuroscience Community Is Working On
Across the featured researchers, physiology appears most often, closely followed by psychiatry and mental health and cognitive neuroscience. That mix suggests an active research community working at the intersection of brain biology, aging, mental health, and cognition, with many projects focused on biomarkers, neuroimaging, and computational approaches. The presence of neurology, experimental and cognitive psychology, and imaging-oriented work adds breadth, showing that the department’s recent neuroscience activity spans both fundamental mechanisms and clinically oriented questions.- Physiology - seen across 6 of the featured researchers
- Psychiatry and Mental health - seen across 5 of the featured researchers
- Cognitive Neuroscience - seen across 5 of the featured researchers
- Neurology - seen across 1 of the featured researchers
- Experimental and Cognitive Psychology - seen across 1 of the featured researchers
These recent contributions reflect a neuroscience community balancing mechanistic questions with clinically useful applications, especially in aging, neurodegeneration, sleep, and cognition. If you want to explore more of this kind of scholarship, keep browsing the featured researchers below and use Resub to support your own citation discovery, manuscript formatting, and submission prep.
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