Delighted to share our discoveries about one of the brain's neurotransmitter systems:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Together with colleagues at the @alleninstitute.org, we have learned a lot about a tiny cluster of neurons in the brainstem locus coeruleus (LC) that releases norepinephrine (NE). 1

GIP receptor agonism suppresses inflammation-induced aversion and food intake via distinct circuits Province et al. show that parabrachial CGRP neurons mediate aversion due to interleukin-1β (IL-1β) administration. Glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide receptor (GIPR) agonism blocks aversion and CGRP activation caused by IL-1β while potentiating its anorectic effect. Dorsal vagal complex GIPR mediates anorexia due to GIPR agonism but may be dispensable for anti-aversion.

GIP receptor agonism suppresses inflammation-induced aversion and food intake via distinct circuits

Form follows function, or function dictates form?

📢Preprint: we build Perturb-CLEAR, in vivo screen of neuroanatomy! Disease perturbations produce selective morphology-RNA changes that RNA impact alone cannot predict. Was led by the invincible grad student Boli Wu!

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

Excited to share our latest work with @antihebbiann.bsky.social, revealing a top-down mechanism regulating the fragmentation of feeding, led by Tianbo Qi.

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

Deconstruction of a spino-brain–spinal cord circuit that drives chronic pain - Nature In mice, a circuit between the spinal cord and various regions of the brain, centring on spinal-cord-projecting neurons in the rostral ventromedial medulla, has a key role in driving chronic pain.

Special to see this paper out from my former lab: >10 years in the making. Lots of striking results!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congratulations Alex!!

Excited to share our latest work in @nature.com showing shared neural substrates for parenting and prosocial helping behavior. Full text available here: rdcu.be/e6PnY

Warm congratulations to The Brain Prize winners 2026, Professor David Ginty and Professor Patrik Ernfors, for their pioneering work on how the nervous system detects and processes touch and pain.

Karolinska Institutet
HHMI

#Neuroscience #BrainPrize2026

The molecular basis of force selectivity by PIEZO2 Nature - PIEZO2 is intrinsically more rigid than PIEZO1, and disparate mechanical stimuli paradoxically evoke opposite conformational and gating responses in each channel.

New paper from the lab led by @ericmulhall.bsky.social addresses how PIEZO1 and PIEZO2 are tuned to different types mechanical forces. From nanometer-scale super-resolution microscopy to in vivo experiments, links single-molecule observations to physiological function.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A new clue to how the body detects physical force

PIEZO2—unlike PIEZO1—is tethered to the actin cytoskeleton, enabling sensory neurons to detect localized mechanical forces such as light touch.

Findings reported in @nature.com by @ericmulhall.bsky.social from @ardemp.bskyverified.social's lab link nanometer-scale imaging to sensory function.

New work from the lab on how sickness reduces appetite. Turns out, it’s complicated :)

We focused on a single inflammatory cytokine, IL-1b, and even that reduces appetite via multiple mechanism.

Thanks to Nik Hayes for leading and sticking with this project and to everyone else who contributed!

Single-cell and isoform-specific translational profiling of the mouse brain - Nature Post-transcriptional regulation of mRNA translation was explored using Ribo-STAMP and single-cell RNA sequencing to reveal cell-type-specific and isoform-specific translation patterns across hipp...

Chuffed to see our paper with @geneyeo.bsky.social finally published in @nature.com.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Very grateful to Fede, Susie, and Dave from my lab, and Sammi, Eric, and Pratibha from Gene's lab. What did we find? ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️

New lab preprint! Can we study conscious perception of gut sensations in mice to reveal its neuronal basis? Can we train mice to report their gut sensations? Omer Rafael and Stav Shtiglitz in the lab teamed up to discover that…YES! Thread…1/6 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

What if we could see 3D #biodistribution of cancer drugs at the cellular level... throughout an entire model animal? 🧐 A new paper from Li Ye's lab @scripps.edu, Zhengyuan Pang & Verina Leung et al. introduce a technique for doing just that. (1/3) 🧵

Excited to co-host this conference with @marissascavuzzo.bsky.social and Steve Liberles focused on the peripheral nervous system -- No Brainer! Check out the amazing list of speakers and apply for one of the spots for this small, interactive meeting on the beautiful Janelia Campus at HHMI.

Vagal blood volume receptors compensate for haemorrhage and posture change - Nature A vagal reflex to blood volume changes in the heart involves PIEZO2 and helps to stabilize blood pressure in an upright posture and after blood loss.

www.nature.com/articles/s41... beautiful work from Stephen Liberles’ lab on neural mechanisms of sensing blood volume.

A very nice spinal spatial transcriptomics paper here! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Patagonia was not bad at all!

🧠⚡️💊New @nature.com publication !

Mimicking opioid analgesia in cortical pain circuits

We built a brain-behavior framework to decode spontaneous chronic pain in mice—and to biologically mimic morphine with a synthetic opioid gene therapy

nature.com/articles/s41...

@pennmedicine.bsky.social

Beautiful paper! Somebody should do it in then viscerosensory brainstem.

quote from Chen Ran: “I feel very lucky to have the support of the Simons Foundation and to have access to this outstanding community.”

Fellows-to-Faculty awardee Chen Ran maps the senses of internal organs. Receiving this award — which is currently open for apps — has been crucial in enabling his work: www.simonsfoundation.org/autism-and-neuroscience-... #science

Some news. Exciting new challenges and opportunities ahead.

Locus coeruleus norepinephrine neurons facilitate orbitofrontal cortex remapping and behavioral flexibility Ogg et al. use in vivo imaging techniques to record activity in the locus coeruleus (LC) and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) during a reversal learning task in freely moving rodents. They show that man...

Thrilled this is out, led by former PD Cameron Ogg (now with her own lab at @rhodescollege.bsky.social!). It was a driven by a desire to see, in real-time, how LC activity/NE release influences downstream targets in behaving animals. SO hard to do, but Cameron did it! www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Trump says he wants to 'permanently pause' migration to the US from poorer countries President Donald Trump says he wants to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations and is promising to seek to expel millions of immigrants from the United States by revoking their legal status...

I was one of those immigrants, and we commit fewer crimes than people born here.

“Trump says he wants to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations and is promising to seek to expel millions of immigrants from the US by revoking their legal status.”

apnews.com/article/trum...

What does it take in mechanosensory biology to earn one? Characterizing brainstem responses to stomach stretch?

Ive seen this work from Prof Liqun Luo’s presented a few times now and its stunning and heroic.

A beautiful paper on the role of Piezos in uterine biology. I have known first author Yunxiao Zhang since 2012. Yunxiao is rare talent (and a wonderfully kind human being) now on the job market!

Deeply honored to receive this year's Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Young Investigator Award from @sfn.org Grateful to all lab members and my mentors.

Actively hiring! Video made by Sora-2 but the job post is 100% real.

Apply here: hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern...

1.5 years in the making, only two weeks to go! Can’t wait to see everyone here at Scripps!