Headshot of Nancy Padilla-Coreano.

Nancy Padilla-Coreano

Assistant professor of neuroscience
University of Florida in Gainesville

Nancy Padilla-Coreano is assistant professor of neuroscience at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Her research explores how the brain enables humans and animals to navigate complex social dynamics and how this ability is disrupted in disease states. Padilla-Coreano uses behavioral assays, multisite electrophysiology and artificial intelligence to identify the neural dynamics behind social competency in mouse models.

Her lab has received funding from the National Institutes of Health’s BRAIN Initiative, the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation Young Investigator Award and the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative. Most recently, she was selected as a McKnight neuroscience fellow and a Klingenstein-Simons fellow. Padilla-Coreano started her laboratory at the University of Florida in January 2022. For information more about her, please visit https://www.padillacoreanolab.com/.

Explore more from The Transmitter

Nerve fibers from the human graft in mouse brain.

Human brain organoids flourish in emptied mouse cortex

The chimeric mice could help untangle the biology of human brain development or conditions such as autism.

By Brianna Abbott
16 September 2026 | 6 min read

What if Hegel were a neuroscientist?

Andrea Gambarotto shares what Hegel and enactivism have in common: an agency-first approach to understanding minds and brains.

By Paul Middlebrooks
16 September 2026 | 1 min read
Illustration of genetic associations.

This paper changed my life: Transformative work in addiction neuroscience

A 2011 Nature study found that loss of a nicotinic receptor subunit leads to increased nicotine intake in mice. The work set the standard for how to functionally validate genetic association study findings in neuroscience.

By Jibran Khokhar
16 September 2026 | 6 min read