Thank you Barbara!!

Happy to share that my last paper from my PhD is now out. “Long-term offspring loss in lactating rats: Neurobiological and emotional consequences in a novel animal model”
doi.org/10.1016/j.ps...
Many thanks to @olibosch.bsky.social and @alicesanson.bsky.social 😊

If you’re at #ACNP2026, come say hi! 👋
I’ll be presenting the poster TH288 on the inactive X chromosome as a hormone-responsive driver of female brain plasticity 🧠🧬 @kundakoviclab.bsky.social

#ACNP2026: Don't miss our symposium on Mon 3-5PM in Poseidon III-IV:

"How Brain Estrogen Levels, Receptors & Signaling Govern Behaviors Across Sexes: Genes, Circuits, Synapses"

w/ @polymniag.bsky.social @neurohoke.bsky.social
@neurolg.bsky.social & myself. Looking forward! @acnporg.bsky.social

Extremely excited & proud to share our new preprint - we provide for the first time a single cell map of the mouse brain across sex, the estrous cycle, and peripartum! Data are 🔥 👇

"Single-cell map of the female brain across reproductive transitions"

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Egr1 is a sex-dependent regulator of neuronal chromatin, structural plasticity, and behaviour - Nature Communications Molecular drivers of sex-specific brain plasticity are unknown. Here, authors show estrogen-driven Egr1 controls chromatin accessibility sex-dependently, driving gene expression, structural plasticity...

Ending 2025 w/ our new paper @natcomms.nature.com which shows that the immediate early gene Egr1 induces sex-dependent changes in ventral hippocampal (vHIP) structure and in anxiety- & depression-related behavior, via direct regulation of chromatin structure 🧵👇 1/
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Goodbye San Diego! Thank you @sfn.org for another great meeting & exciting science! In the future, I hope to see more progressive work on sex/gender & critical #WomensHealth - related factors -ovarian cycle, menopause, pregnancy- featured in lectures & symposia! See you next year! #SfN25

Siii

Visit our posters on Sat, Sun & Weds @sfn.org ! @luisadema.bsky.social & @lailaouldibbat.bsky.social will present at #TPDA session too. I'll be around for all posters - let's chat about single-cell studies across the cycle, peripartum, OVX.. & the cool dynamics of the X chrom! See you there! #SfN25

Perimenopause: An understudied transition for the brain We know little about the mechanisms underlying well-known perimenopause symptoms in the brain. More research—in animals and humans—is essential.

Excited to have my piece on perimenopause published @thetransmitter.bsky.social

"Perimenopause: An important—and understudied—transition for the brain"

We need more studies & better education -we need this to be mainstream- knowledge is power! #WomensHealth

www.thetransmitter.org/sex-hormones...

Professor Leads Groundbreaking Study on Menopause-Mental Health Connection A biology professor is examining the links between menopause and depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses, building on a pioneering study she and her team just published.

Check out this nice story from @fordham.edu News on our work on #menopause transition recently published in Molecular Psychiatry & funded by the NIH. Knowledge is power! #WomensHealth 🔥

"Professor Leads Groundbreaking Study on Menopause-Mental Health Connection”

now.fordham.edu/university-n...

Big lab celebration: my 10 year anniversary @fordham.edu ; papers accepted @natcomms.nature.com Mol. Psychiatry @npp-journal.bsky.social ; @luisadema.bsky.social & @lailaouldibbat.bsky.social won #TPDA @sfn.org ; new postdoc @bruzzone-sep.bsky.social ; w/ Devin Rocks 🍾 Killing it - so proud! 🔥

A new 🔥 Hot Topic 🔥 from @kundakoviclab.bsky.social is out now in @npp-journal.bsky.social

a woman is sitting on a couch with her legs crossed ALT: a woman is sitting on a couch with her legs crossed

Amazing day in the lab today... we first got our menopause biomarker paper accepted in Molecular Psychiatry and then... BOTH @lailaouldibbat.bsky.social and @luisadema.bsky.social received the Trainee Professional Development Award #TPDA from @sfn.org . So proud of the lab and my lab members! 🔥

An integrated single-nucleus and spatial transcriptomics atlas reveals the molecular landscape of the human hippocampus - Nature Neuroscience The topographical organization of cells in the hippocampus reflects its ability to regulate mood and cognition. Here the authors generate a spatially resolved gene expression map in the human hippocam...

Excited to share this huge team effort collaboration supervised by Stephanie Page in Translational Neuroscience @lieberinstitute.bsky.social and @stephaniehicks.bsky.social @jhubiostat.bsky.social to generate a spatio-molecular resource of the hippocampus in human 🧠

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Enjoying the gala dinner and the beautiful city of Bordeaux last night, w/ @luisadema.bsky.social @jordanmarrocco.bsky.social @cate-cholamine.bsky.social @bohaceklab.bsky.social @ebbsociety.bsky.social #EBBS2025

Welcome party #EBBS2025 @ebbsociety.bsky.social so happy to catch up with my former PhD student @luisadema.bsky.social along with my current @annika-koeck.bsky.social

The end of the semester lab lunch in Zero Otto Nove... Saying goodbye to our students Anaya, Fletcher, and Liz... with a visit from the lab alumnus Eric.. Always having a great time with these wonderful young people! ❤️ w/ @luisadema.bsky.social @lailaouldibbat.bsky.social

My lab is hiring 2 postdocs on an NIH-funded grant characterizing molecular & cellular changes in the human brain across menopausal transition. Other neuroepigenomics projects are also available. We plan to hire a wet lab scientist and a bioinformatician. Please RT!
kundakoviclab.com
More info 👇

Had a wonderful evening celebrating my promotion to full professor with my lab members & alumni. Thank you all for shining so brightly, for the fantastic work that you do, and for being part of this amazing journey! ❤️ @luisadema.bsky.social @lailaouldibbat.bsky.social

The mothers also showed increased passive stress-coping behavior and elevated corticosterone.
One of the most interesting finding was that blocking CRF receptors helped alleviate this altered stress-coping behavior, pointing to the CRF system’s important role in emotional effects of offspring loss.

In this study we explored the long-term emotional and neurobiological consequences of offspring loss in rats. We found that mothers who lost their pups had increased OXT-R binding in key brain region involved in maternal bond, along with a decrease in dendritic spine density.

Very happy to share that the last data from my PhD is now available as a preprint! Huge thanks to @olibosch.bsky.social @alicesanson.bsky.social and all my former colleagues for their support throughout this journey.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Thank you Ali!! 😍

Thank you, Oliver!!

Congratulations!!

The role of ovarian hormone dynamics in metabolic phenotype and gene expression in female mice Ovarian hormones, particularly estradiol, play an important role in the regulation of metabolic function including in food intake, thermogenesis, acti…

Excited to share Laila’s @lailaouldibbat.bsky.social first first-author paper & the very first “metabolic” paper from the lab just published @ Hormones & Behavior:

"The role of ovarian hormone dynamics in metabolic phenotype and gene expression in female mice"

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Revisiting sex and gender in the brain To conduct scientifically accurate and socially responsible research, think of “sex” as a complex, multifactorial and context-dependent variable.

Thrilled to share my perspective in "The Transmitter" @thetransmitter.bsky.social on how to study the influence of "sex" and "gender" in the brain in a scientifically accurate and socially responsible manner:

"Revisiting sex and gender in the brain"

www.thetransmitter.org/sex-differen...

After 5 years of data collection (179 first-time mothers + controls), the first bemother.eu/en/ paper is out! We uncovered a U-shaped trajectory in maternal GM volume, resolving a long-standing puzzle in the maternal brain field. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Just received a wonderful Christmas gift from the NIH! $2.76M to study molecular & cellular changes in the human brain across the menopausal transition! 🎉 Am icredibly excited! We will be hiring 2 postdocs — come join us in NYC for some cool science, as we transform women’s mental health research!!