[1] The institute was founded in 1987, and is a privately endowed organization named after Howard Vollum, a pioneer in the development of oscilloscopes and the co-founder of Tektronix.
The research support for the faculty comes from the National Institutes of Health, federally sponsored programs, and also from the private funds of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the endowment created by Howard Vollum, which is controlled by the Oregon Health and Science University Foundation.
[1] The institute's building was designed by Robert Frasca of Zimmer-Gunsul-Frasca, and the 67,000 square foot structure was completed in 1987.
The scientists of the institute are doing research on chemicals; glutamate, dopamine mediate neuronal communication, studying how brain function is disrupted in diseases like epilepsy, sound is produced in electrical signals in hearing pathways, proteins signal govern cell death development, and the reason why the synaptic connections between neurons grows stronger or weaker.
[1] In 2013, the Vollum Institute research gave a new insight on how anti-depressants work in the brain by publishing two papers on neurotransmission which was one of the issue in Nature, focusing on the structure of the dopamine transportor that helps to regulate the brain's dopamine levels.