- Speaker
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Kara Marshall, Ph.D.Assistant Professor, Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine
The 2026 lecture series in neuroscience and autism science, titled “Brain and Body: Communication and Connection,” will explore how the brain and body influence each other’s functions through continuous information exchange. Talks will emphasize interoceptive and visceral sensory pathways as well as the molecular, cellular and circuit mechanisms that mediate these bidirectional interactions. From gut mucosa and adipose tissue to bone and immune pathways, speakers will provide insights into how the brain-body communication supports adaptive function and contributes to health and disease.
2026 Lecture Series Themes
Biology – Folding the Future: The Structural Biology Revolution
Mathematics and Computer Science – Randomness
Neuroscience and Autism Science – Brain and Body: Communication and Connection
Presidential Lectures are a series of free public colloquia spotlighting groundbreaking research across four themes: neuroscience and autism science, physics, biology, and mathematics and computer science. These curated, high-level scientific talks feature leading scientists and mathematicians and are designed to foster discussion and drive discovery within the New York City research community. We invite those interested in these topics to join us for this weekly lecture series.
Many organs are in continual motion as they stretch and squeeze to perform critical functions such as feeding, digestion, breathing and excretion. These movements are actively detected by the sensory nervous system to control physiological reflexes and integrated by the brain to shape physiology and behavior.
In this Presidential Lecture, Kara Marshall will explore how the nervous system detects and integrates internal mechanosensation. The Marshall lab uses the key mechanosensory PIEZO ion channels as genetic handles to probe how mechanosensation contributes to the physiology of the urinary and gastrointestinal tract. In addition to understanding basic mechanisms of mechanosensation, this work explores how aging and disease alter mechanosensory processes and contribute to dysfunction and discomfort. Ultimately, understanding mechanical interoceptive processes has enabled deeper insight into how the brain integrates sensory information to control fundamental behaviors.
About the Speaker
Marshall earned a Ph.D. in cellular, molecular and biomedical sciences from Columbia University and did postdoctoral work at Scripps Research Institute in the Patapoutian Lab. In 2022, Marshall established her lab to study internal mechanosensation as an assistant professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the Baylor College of Medicine and the Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital with support from the Robert and Janice McNair Foundation as a McNair Scholar. She is a Freeman Hrabowski Scholar with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.