Excited to share our latest in @currentbiology.bsky.social (they who publish the coolest papers!)

Memories are encoded by sparse neuronal ensembles (engrams). But most evidence comes from "simple" associative learning tasks. What about more integrative memories like spatial navigation?

Basolateral amygdala astrocytes encode anxiety states Ghenissa et al. provide evidence that basolateral amygdala astrocytes reliably encode anxiety states. Using simultaneous in vivo calcium recordings across an array of behavioral tasks, combined with g...

Incredibly proud of this paper led by @ossamaghenissa.bsky.social and @mathiasgua.bsky.social titled Basolateral 'Amygdala Astrocytes Encode Anxiety States'.
www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
🧵 below

Xin Lab Welcome! We study the cellular interactions between neurons and oligodendrocytes, which produce myelin in the central nervous system. Myelination - the process by which oligodendrocytes ensheath neuro...

Super stoked to share that I’m starting my lab at UHN @dkjei-uhn.bsky.social / @kbi-uhn.bsky.social and the University of Toronto!

If you’re interested in neuron-myelin interactions in circuit maturation and cognition, please reach out - we are hiring!

www.oligodendrocyte.org

1/

Really cool and technically very impressive!

Deconstruction of a memory engram reveals distinct ensembles recruited at learning - Nature Neuroscience Pouget et al. identified distinct CA1 neuron ensembles active during specific moments of fear learning and uncovered the core engram essential for memory formation.

How does the brain build a memory?
A common assumption is that the neurons activated during an experience collectively form the memory engram.
In our new Nature Neuroscience paper (finally out!), we show that this is not the case.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A neuromodulatory circuit-to-molecular pathway for reformatting aversive memories during recall Tan et al. identify a neuromodulatory circuit-to-molecular pathway in rats that updates aversive memories when they are recalled. Noradrenaline from the locus coeruleus triggers synapse-to-nuclear tra...

Excited to share our new paper:
We uncover a locus coeruleus→amygdala circuit linking β-adrenergic signaling to transcription regulation in defined amygdala cells during memory reconsolidation—+ stress or elevated noradrenergic signaling at recall can strengthen memory.
www.cell.com/neuron/abstr...

Astrocytic Encoding of Threat in the Basolateral Amygdala The basolateral amygdala (BLA) has long been implicated in threat detection and the generation of anxiety states. While previous experiments have demonstrated the important role of BLA principal neuro...

Delighted to share our first preprint of the year!

A project that we're all really proud of in the lab led by @ossamaghenissa.bsky.social with @mathiasgua.bsky.social in which we set out to test the role of basolateral amygdala astrocytes in anxiety behaviour.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Wow!

Metabolic, epigenetic and transcriptomic alterations in postnatal 16p11.2 deficient murine astrocytes Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are associated with metabolic dysregulation. While astrocytes are integral to cerebral metabolism, their molecular and functional changes in ASD are poorly known. Using...

New preprint from the lab! For those who love astrocytes 🤩. We welcome feedback! #preprint #openaccess #astrocytes #autism

Lesion-remote astrocytes govern microglia-mediated white matter repair - Nature After spinal cord injury, lesion-remote astrocytes acquire heterogeneous, spatially restricted reactivity states that shape neuroinflammation, neural repair and neurological recovery.

Repair after CNS injury is not strictly local!

We find that lesion-remote #astrocytes (LRAs) exhibit striking spatiotemporal heterogeneity across spared regions of the injured spinal cord and shape neural repair far from the injury epicenter!

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

Astrocytic Sox9 overexpression in Alzheimer’s disease mouse models promotes Aβ plaque phagocytosis and preserves cognitive function
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Finally it’s here! 🌟⬇️

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

I’m sooo excited to share our latest article led by Steve Hill and Isabel Bravo-Ferrer
1- How does the vasculature communicate with astrocytes?
2- Is this communication dependent to what happens in the body.
3- Is it relevant to human diseases?

Molecular mechanisms mediating engram ensemble retrievability state in mice Engrams, ensembles of neurons that store memories, exist along a continuum of retrievability. Normally, sensory cues can reactivate a latent engram to…

Excited to share the latest from the lab on the molecular mechanisms of silencing and un-silencing a hippocampal engram ensemble. Was fun using a variant of the EPSILON technique developed by Adam Cohen's lab.
(1/2)

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

New paper from the lab 🚨
Led by Ali Golbabaei, this study explores the how the composition of prefrontal cortical engrams changes with memory age:
authors.elsevier.com/a/1lzT-3BtfH...

Congrats Amy! Really nice work - happy to see it in its final form!

Regionally mapped astrocytic responses to cortical and white matter stroke show differential roles in astrocyte-induced vascular remodeling Stroke is a major cause of disability. Astrocytes respond to stroke in a gradated manner, but details of that response and its consequences for tissue…

Thrilled to share this work from my postdoc with Tom Carmichael, available online @ Neuron! Long story short: we find even more evidence that all reactive astrocytes are not equal, and we can take advantage of those differences to improve repair after stroke.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New paper from the lab led by Ali Golbabaei. If you’re interested in systems consolidation, generalization and hippocampal neurogenesis a short 🧵 follows:

authors.elsevier.com/a/1lsO73QW8S...

A functional perspective on astrocyte heterogeneity Astrocytes are glial cells of the central nervous system (CNS) that perform an array of diverse functions that are essential for brain activity. Studies on the functional diversity of astrocytes sugge...

We have a new review out in TINS!

A functional perspective on astrocyte heterogeneity

www.cell.com/trends/neuro...

Development and diversity of astrocytes Summary: This Development at a Glance article provides an overview of astrocyte ontogeny and morphogenesis, highlighting mechanisms that regulate the development of astrocytes, the most abundant glial...

Super interesting review on astrocyte development by @m-r-williamson.bsky.social and colleagues ! #astrocytes #glia #review

A divergent astrocytic response to stress alters activity patterns via distinct mechanisms in male and female mice - Nature Communications Early-life stress has lifelong impacts on neuronal function and behavior. Here, the authors show that astrocytic glucocorticoid receptor signaling drives stress-induced neuronal and behavioral change ...

Absolutely thrilled to share the first half of my PhD work! Super proud to see it finally out!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thread below for a quick (10 point) recap of what we found!
🧵🧪🧠

Development and diversity of astrocytes Summary: This Development at a Glance article provides an overview of astrocyte ontogeny and morphogenesis, highlighting mechanisms that regulate the development of astrocytes, the most abundant glial...

Sharing our new short review on development and diversity of astrocytes!

journals.biologists.com/dev/article-...

Retrograde and anterograde trans-synaptic viral tracing of neuronal connections reveals local and distant effects of ischemic stroke on dendritic spines - Myrthe Van Sprengel, Jenna Butterworth, Patri... Focal stroke leads to complex neurological disturbances with variable recovery. One explanation for this variability is that stroke disrupts local and remote ne...

Happy to share new paper from MSc grads Myrthe and Jenna. We asked the question, when part of the brain dies during stroke, what happens to local and distant cortical neurons that innervate the stroke site (in S1 cortex) or those that receive outputs? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Norepinephrine signals through astrocytes to modulate synapses Locus ceruleus (LC)–derived norepinephrine (NE) drives network and behavioral adaptations to environmental saliencies by reconfiguring circuit functional connectivity, but the underlying synapse-level...

Thought this would be a nice way to enter the bsky community👇Delighted for Katie (now in Chris Dulla's lab at Tufts). Thank you to our collaborators, to the reviewers and to Cagla Eroglu for the highlight!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Systems consolidation reorganizes hippocampal engram circuitry Nature - A study shows that loss of memory precision associated with systems consolidation can be explained by neurogenesis-dependent reorganization of engram circuitry within the hippocampus over...

Sharing a new paper from the lab. This paper, led by Sangyoon Ko, represents a merging of two longstanding research themes in the lab-- adult neurogenesis and systems consolidation.

rdcu.be/el18q

A short thread follows for those interested.

1/n

Thrilled to announce that my lab is now open at Ohio State! We study astrocytes as gene therapy targets for brain repair after ischemic stroke and in vascular dementia, developing new viral tools along the way. If you're interesting in joining or collaborating, please reach out!
gleichmanlab.com

Congrats Amy!!

Check out our latest paper today in Nature: “Goal specific hippocampal inhibition gates learning” www.nature.com/articles/s41...
By Nuri Jeong, Xiao Zheng, Abby Paulson, Steph Prince and colleagues.

I can also vouch for this one. Works great.

I get a lot of questions on the #NIH #K99 #postdoc to faculty transition award. Decided to pen my thoughts and experiences towards receiving the K99/R00 - hoping it would be helpful for the community.

Please find article link at -
debosardarlab.org/blog

Thanks so much for this nice preview 😊