Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute

In 1999, United States Senator John Davison "Jay" Rockefeller IV and members of the Rockefeller family funded the formation of the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute on the campus of West Virginia University. The institute was named in honor of Blanchette Ferry Rockefeller, his late mother, who died in 1992 following a ten-year battle with Alzheimer's disease.[9] By 2001, the Rockefeller family had committed $15 million to the institute, which inspired many additional donors to support the facility and its efforts to accelerate discovery of treatments and cures for neurological and psychiatric diseases.[10] The $15 million gift was the founding endowment for the institute to establish the world's first major research institute focused on the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and cure of neurological, psychiatric, and other cognitive disorders affecting the human brain, with an emphasis on Alzheimer's disease.[11]

Blanchette Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute

In 2016, the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute was acquired by and consolidated under West Virginia University and renamed Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute.[12][13]

In 2018, the institute opened four state-of-the-art SMART neurosurgery operating rooms at its main campus to expand its capabilities in epilepsy surgery and deep brain stimulation.[14]

In 2017, West Virginia University President E. Gordon Gee announced the appointment of board-certified neurosurgeon Ali Rezai to lead the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute and oversee its efforts to develop solutions for neurological and psychiatric conditions.[15][16] As executive chair of the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute and the John D. Rockefeller IV Chair in neuroscience, Rezai is recognized as a pioneer[17][18][19] in neuromodulation technologies to treat Parkinson's disease, obsessive–compulsive disorder, Alzheimer's disease and traumatic brain injury.[15][20][21]

Rezai formerly served as director of Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center's Neurological Institute, where he pioneered the use of neuromodulation technologies to treat Parkinson's disease, depression, obsessive–compulsive disorder and traumatic brain injury.[22]

In April 2019, the West Virginia University Board of Governors created a new Department of Neuroscience in its School of Medicine to consolidate neuroscience education in neurology, neurosurgery, behavioral medicine and psychiatry and advance research in brain health and brain disorders.[38]

The Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute is located on West Virginia University's Medicine Health Sciences Campus, in Morgantown, West Virginia. Construction of the institute began on May 1, 2006, at an initial cost of $30 million to build a state-of-the-art, four-story multidisciplinary laboratory space and administrative offices for 40 research scientists and 200 total employees.[39] The institute's 87,000 square foot building was designed by Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott of Boston, Massachusetts.[40] In 2019, a $25 million renovation was begun to expand the institute's research infrastructure.[14]

On April 23, 2019, the West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute announced the opening of its new Innovation Center that is a dedicated building focused on the use of advanced technology for rapid applied human research in neuromodulation, virtual reality and neuroscience predictive data analytics.