Jon Hamilton
Jon Hamilton is a correspondent for NPR's Science Desk. Currently he focuses on neuroscience and health risks.
In 2014, Hamilton went to Liberia as part of the NPR team that covered Ebola. The team received a Peabody Award for its coverage.
Following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Hamilton was part of NPR's team of science reporters and editors who went to Japan to cover the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
Hamilton contributed several pieces to the Science Desk series "The Human Edge," which looked at what makes people the most versatile and powerful species on Earth. His reporting explained how humans use stories, how the highly evolved human brain is made from primitive parts, and what autism reveals about humans' social brains.
In 2009, Hamilton received the Michael E. DeBakey Journalism Award for his piece on the neuroscience behind treating autism.
Before joining NPR in 1998, Hamilton was a media fellow with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation studying health policy issues. He reported on states that have improved their Medicaid programs for the poor by enrolling beneficiaries in private HMOs.
From 1995-1997, Hamilton wrote on health and medical topics as a freelance writer, after having been a medical reporter for both The Commercial Appeal and Physician's Weekly.
Hamilton graduated with honors from Oberlin College in Ohio with a Bachelor of Arts in English. As a student, he was the editor of the Oberlin Review student newspaper. He earned his master's degree in journalism from Columbia University, where he graduated with honors. During his time at Columbia, Hamilton was awarded the Baker Prize for magazine writing and earned a Sherwood traveling fellowship.
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A study of 48 post-mortem brains found a protein that appears to protect brain cells from Alzheimer's — even in people who had significant amounts of amyloid plaques in their brains.
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Scientists have long studied the relationship between sleep and the brain, and why poor sleep is linked to neurological diseases like Alzheimer's. NPR science correspondent Jon Hamilton talks to host Regina G. Barber about the brain's washing system and the particular sound researchers have found that seems to turn it on in mice. Read Jon's full piece here. Interested in more science about the brain? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.
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Scientists scanned the brains of people who took psilocybin, including a member of the research team. The scans showed how the drug disrupts key networks, potentially enhancing brain plasticity.
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A prominent brain scientist took psilocybin as part of his own study on how it affects the brain. The results of his findings could help researchers to further unlock its "therapeutic potential."
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Black Americans have been underrepresented in most genomic studies of neurological disorders. As a result, scientists don't know much about whether African ancestry affects a person's risk for these disorders or their response to a particular treatment. To help close this gap, the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, African American community leaders in Baltimore, and researchers from Duke University and Morgan State University created the African Ancestry Neuroscience Research Initiative in 2019. The team found that genes associated with African ancestry appear to affect certain brain cells in ways that could increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease and stroke. Read science correspondent Jon Hamilton's full story here. Curious about brain science? Email us at shortwave@npr.org.
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The brain appears to rely on synchronized waves to wash out waste products, including toxins associated with Alzheimer's disease.
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A flexible film bristling with tiny sensors could make surgery safer for patients with a brain tumor or severe epilepsy.
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A new genomic analysis hints at why African Americans face a higher risk of Alzheimer’s and stroke, but a lower risk of Parkinson’s.
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Advisors to the Food and Drug Administration have recommended unanimously that the agency approve the Alzheimer’s drug donanemab.
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A new genetic analysis could help explain why people in the U.S. with African ancestry face a greater risk for stroke and Alzheimer's disease, but less risk of another brain disease, Parkinson's.