Lab Members Recognized at the 2026 Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinlogy Annual Meeting

  • Erin O'Leary, a Neuroscience Graduate Student, received the Best Graduate Abstract and Poster Award for her poster, "Biased Allelic Expression of Monoamine Synthesis Genes Influences Maternal Care in a Parent-of-Origin-Dependent Manner." 2026
  • Rachel Bender poster at Society for Behavior Neuroendocrinology Annual Meeting

Lab Members Recognized at the 2026 Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology Annual Meeting

Congratulations to our lab members for their outstanding contributions at the 30th Annual Meeting of the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology (SBN), held in Niagara Falls, New York, July 8–11, 2026. The annual meeting brings together researchers from around the world to share advances in behavioral neuroendocrinology.

Erin O’Leary, a Neuroscience Graduate Student, received the Best Graduate Abstract and Poster Award for her poster, “Biased Allelic Expression of Monoamine Synthesis Genes Influences Maternal Care in a Parent-of-Origin-Dependent Manner.” This award recognizes the outstanding quality of Erin’s research.

Rachel Bender also presented her research at the meeting with a poster titled “Uncovering the Cellular Composition of Tyrosine Hydroxylase’s Hypothalamic Maternal Allele Bias.” Her work highlights ongoing efforts

We congratulate Erin on this well-deserved recognition and Rachel on a successful inaugural showing at the meeting.  We are proud to see the Bonthuis Lab research selected at this international science meeting validating the exceptional quality and impact of our research.

Lab Members Recognized at the 2026 Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinlogy Annual Meeting2026-07-31T10:01:19-05:00

Researchers Receive $2.7M NIH Grant to Investigate Effects of Phthalate Exposure on Neurodevelopment and Autism

Howard Gritton and Paul Bonthuis, Jozien Goense not pictured.
Howard Gritton and Paul Bonthuis, Jozien Goense not pictured.

 January 8,2026

NIH has awarded $2.7 million to University of Illinois researchers Howard Gritton, Paul Bonthuis, and Jozien Goense to study how environmental exposures influence brain development and autism-related behaviors. Building on preliminary findings from a Beckman Institute seed grant, the project combines neuroimaging and animal models to uncover mechanisms linking phthalate exposure to autism risk.  Read more from the published article on College of Veterinary Sciences Comparative Biosciences News 

Researchers Receive $2.7M NIH Grant to Investigate Effects of Phthalate Exposure on Neurodevelopment and Autism2026-07-31T09:15:32-05:00

August 2024- NSF Grant Seeks to Understand Resilience to Stress

The Bonthuis lab is honored to collaborate and work with UIUC Professors David Zhao (Statistics), Howard Gritton (Comparative Biosciences), Yuri Vlasov (Electrical and Computing Engineering), Sergei Maslow (Center for AI Modeling), Brad Sutton (Bioengineering), Jozien Goenseand (psychology and bioengineering) Georgia Tech Professor Saurabh Sin (biomedical engineering) on investigating what biological mechanisms underlie resilience to severe trauma compared to the prevalence of mental illness.  Observations suggests that most individuals who are exposed to high levels of stress and trauma are able to avoid serious mental illness.

We will be working on the first grant that has been awarded to the Kellner Center for Neurogenomics, Behavior, and Society, which is housed in the GNDP research theme at the Carl R Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. The Center is dedicated to studying the connection between our genes, brains, and behavior—and how that impacts our communities.

Using a multidisciplinary approach that combines animal behavior, brain imaging, electrophysiology, and gene expression experiments with machine learning and statistical modeling, our team plans to characterize mechanisms in the brain that could underlie the biological basis of resiliency.

The Bonthuis lab was awarded the NSF Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience (CRCNS): Multimodal network interactions for internal state dynamics of resiliency for Innovative Approaches to Science and Engineering Research on Brain Function ($1,210,000).

AWARD NUMBER: 1R01AT013189-01

August 2024- NSF Grant Seeks to Understand Resilience to Stress2025-06-30T11:36:57-05:00
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