Anna has accepted at job at SURA in DC as a senior policy advisor. I feel honored to have worked with her.
sura.org
I don’t think I can overstate her potential.
For those of you who don't know Dr. Rader Groves, I don't really know where to begin... but imagine if Leslie Knope was a scientist.
This year, she wrapped up her two studies (one linking genes to dendrite loss and mismatch responses; one focused on the development of mismatch responses in adolescence) which are preprints and currently under review. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... and … . www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Anna joined my lab at the peak of covid, but quickly gathered data, coauthored key publications, and wrote a book chapter. On her first F31 submission, she scored a 2nd percentile (which was subsequently awarded).
Huge congrats to my grad student, Dr. Anna Rader Groves, who successfully defended her disseratation last week! I consider myself lucky to have mentored Anna over the past 5 years.
Both dendrite loss and reduced mismatch negativity are pronounced in numerous neuropsychiatric disorders. Correlating these observations in patient samples only gets us so far. Animal models provide a controlled system to understand how distinct features causally connect.
Although this particular variant may only explain a fraction of human pathologogy, its downstream impacts on neuronal structure via RhoA-GEF make it a useful system for connecting convergent molecular, structural, and functional phenotypes.
A little background: KalrnPT is a rare variant affiecting the kal-9 isoform of kalirin — a key regulator of dendrite and spine morphology via the Rac and RhoA.
This occurred against a backdrop of normal feature selectivity and firing rates in V1, as well as unaffected dendritic structure in other layers of V1.
We report co-occurring dendrite loss and sensory integration (visual mismatch responses) specific to supragranular (layer 2/3) neurons in visual cortex due to a missense mutation affecting Kalirin (KalPT) -- and specifically, the kal9 isoform.
Excited to share our preprint! Impressive effort from grad student Anna Rader Groves and co-author @cgalli-io.bsky.social, in collaboration with Melanie Grubisha and Robert Sweet (PITT). @grubisha
However, when the predictable "B" was replaced with a locally redundant "A" (AAAA-A), mouse V1 responses were attenuated. This suggests that V1 is modulated by higher-order context, but when certain features are highly adapted, this stimulus-specific adaptation masks global deviance detection.
We trained mice on simple sequences of AAAA-B. After just 10 repeats, mice modulated their V1 response gain to the predictable "B" stimulus. When we replaced the B with a C, mouse V1 responded strongly (i.e. global "deviance detection"). 2/3
Excited to share our preprint! We show that primary visual cortex is modulated by global predictability. This effect depended on higher level brain region (area ACa), and better explained classic oddball paradigms better than “local” context effects (i.e., recent stimulus history). 1/3
Our new preprint is out!
We show that deviance detection in auditory cortex conveys the theorised comparison of internal prediction to sensory input. Our data confirm this key assumtion that links theoretical models of sensory processing to experimental data.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
FYI…New York announced $10M in state funds for brain research. #neuroskyence #PsychSciSky
www.governor.ny.gov/news/governo...
Visuomotor mismatch EEG responses in occipital cortex of freely moving human subjects www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08....
Just learned that my @acnporg.bsky.social panel was accepted!
With my colleagues Zoë Hughes, @jordanhamm.bsky.social, Bryan Baxter & Patricio O'Donnell, our #ACNP2026 panel will highlight cross-species approaches using functional brain-based biomarkers to address translational gaps in psychiatry
First lab outing since the move to NYC.... feeling so lucky to have such a talented and fun group! with Lital Rachmany, @adhockley.bsky.social, me, Molly Hornick, Fumiyasu Imai, and @cgalli-io.bsky.social
Paper forthcoming. Thankfully, I’ve managed to keep him in my lab as a Research Scientist at the Nathan Kline Institute and NYU.
and designed beautiful intuitive figures. For his final project, Connor wasn't afraid to dig into a well-worn topic in neuropsychiatry — how and why NMDA-receptor antagonists exert such powerful yet nuanced effects on brain dynamics, perception, and cognition— and he was able to glean new insights!
In his time as a graduate student, Connor excelled at every aspect of research. He set up complex equipment, conducted extremely high quality recordings, analysed data in thoughtful and creative ways, applied rigorous statistics, wrote engaging introductions and balanced discussions, ...
I’m delighted to congratulate Dr. Connor Gallimore for successfully defending his dissertation, “Patterns of laminar engagement during visual mismatch processing”. I consider myself lucky that Connor joined my lab in 2019. His CV, though impressive on its own, doesn’t even scratch the surface.
Beautiful views and stimulating science discussion this week at University of Zurich/ETH Zurich with Wolfger von der Berhens, Fatih Yanık and many others. Honored to share my work with such a world class group!
There are many studies on cell types and then there is the gold standard.
Beautiful work on the diversity of VIP interneurons by the Rudy lab!
#neuroskyence
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
I'm hiring a full-time research technician to work in my lab at Nathan Kline. Benefits included! Some lab experience preferred... experience with mouse surgeries a huge plus. If you live in NYC, there are two daily shuttles that take ≈20 min from upper manhattan. nki.applicantpro.com/jobs/3663631
... especially if a sensory cortical region is better understood and more analogous across species. And visual cortex is having a moment lately! pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38548877/
Combined with that recent paper on cell-wise expression of SZ GWAS hits ( doi.org/10.1038/s415... ), this is telling me that translational studies of basic disease mechanisms in schizophrenia need not be limited to -- or even focused on -- prefrontal cortex....
New results from study of cortical thickness in 1211 psychosis cases and 734 controls demonstrates that "visual cortex is among the most profoundly affected brain regions", with effect sizes larger than prefrontal regions.
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
