A Three-Pronged Approach to Explain the Brain

Duke researcher Debra Silver uses an unusual approach to brain research, and it’s working

Duke researcher Debra Silver
Duke researcher Debra Silver.

This is a summary of a story published by the Duke School of Medicine.

Duke researcher Debra Silver is convinced that to get meaningful answers about the brain, she needs to come at it in three directions.

The approaches seem disparate, which is why most brain scientists choose individual strategies. But Silver believes the answers to her three basic-but-complex quandaries – how the brain develops, why it sometimes misfires, and how it evolved beyond our closest relatives – are related.

“Sometimes people will say, ‘You’re studying very different questions,’” said Silver, who is a professor in the departments of cell biology and molecular genetics and microbiology and a Duke Science and Technology Scholar.  “I don’t think of it that way at all.”  

Essentially, Silver wants to know how a brain became what it is. So she maps how a healthy brain forms long before birth, studies brain disorders such as autism spectrum disorder, and examines how human brains evolved.  

This strategy has paid off. Silver’s lab’s discoveries have been published in top academic journals, featured in National Geographic and on NPR, and in 2024 she received the Javits Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, an honor reserved for scientists with “superior competence and outstanding productivity.”  

Silver focuses on the influential neural progenitor cells, which help form the brain’s basic structure. Her work has demonstrated the power of these cells, which appear to play a proactive role in determining how new neurons behave and where they go.

“Our lab is investigating fundamental questions about how our brain develops,” Silver said. “We’re trying to understand how billions of diverse and complex cells in our brains are made at the right time and right place.”  

Read more about this research on School of Medicine Magnify.