Neuroscientist to discuss stress response;
two receive Russel awards

Professor and neuroscientist Huda Akil will discuss her groundbreaking work to explore the biology of emotions, depression and addiction in the annual Henry Russel Lecture at 4 p.m. March 14 in Rackham Auditorium.

The Russel lectureship, established in 1926, is awarded each year to an outstanding professor and is considered one of the University's top faculty tributes.

Akil (Photo courtesy Medical School)

"I'm very honored because the people who have given this lecture have been people I admire a great deal; I'm in great company," says Akil, the Gardner C. Quarton Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the Medical School and co-director of the Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience Institute, formerly the Mental Health Research Institute.

Akil's research focuses on the genes, proteins, neurotransmitters and neural circuits involved in emotional response—and the abnormalities in those systems that are the hallmarks of depression, addiction and anxiety disorders.

"I'm going to focus specifically on how different individuals tend to respond differently to stress, the biology of that, and how that in turn affects the likelihood to become depressed or have a mood disorder," says Akil, who will speak after a ceremony to honor recipients of the Russel Award, which honors junior faculty with less than six years of tenure for achievement in research and teaching.

Akil is an internationally recognized scholar whose career has impacted brain research. She has been a faculty member since 1978, and is considered one of the leaders who has made U-M a foremost center for research and treatment in the fields of mental illness and substance abuse, and their root causes.

Her research in behavioral and molecular neuroscience has been prolific, as she has written more than 400 publications.

Porter (Photo courtesy School Of Music)

As a graduate student, Akil co-discovered the phenomenon of stimulation-produced analgesia, which leads to profound inhibition of pain responsiveness. This finding represented the first physiological evidence for the existence of endorphins in the mammalian brain before their molecular identity was established. She went on to show that these newly identified substances play a key role in the regulation of stress and pain modulation, and to study their basic biology and neural functions.

This early work catalyzed the formation of a new field of investigation focused on the role of neuropeptides in emotional behavior. Akil's laboratory, along with that of her collaborator and husband, Dr. Stanley Watson, are among the leading labs in the world in defining the basic brain biology of the stress response, and its implications for brain function in health and disease.

Sylvester (Photo courtesy College Of Engineering)

Akil has received the most distinguished honors in her fields of research, and has been president of the Society for Neuroscience and of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Faculty members from the School of Music and College of Engineering are recipients of this year's Russel Award.

Amy Porter, associate professor of flute, will receive the award for distinguished scholarship and conspicuous ability as a teacher. A three-time international prize-winning flutist, she formed the non-profit Southeast Michigan Flute Association in 2002 and produces the Anatomy of Sound: A Workshop for Flutists.

Dennis Sylvester, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, has conducted research on low-power integrated circuit design, and created a class on digital integrated circuit design that has been very popular with undergraduate students.