Officially out today! Long-running project, many thanks to give - in particular to my mentors & collaborators, the postbacs who worked so hard on each experiment, and the reviewers. If you love the amygdala, give it a read.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Join me online today at 1pm ET to hear how the @zuckermanbrain.bsky.social Public Programs team built our Teacher Institute for Neuroscience and Society program for NYC middle school teachers: cnlm.uci.edu/connect
Thank you to @danafoundation.bsky.social for making this program possible!
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It’s brutal in academia right now. A lot is out of our control, but it doesn’t cost anything to remember that there are humans behind papers and grants…reviewers, program officials and funders can be more empathetic in the face of unprecedented chaos in the US scientific enterprise.
Happy to report mine and Kent’s paper exploring cortical hedonic hotspots is officially out! 🐀🐀🐀
Notification of the end of continuous submission and updating the late submission policy.
grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
Some totally awesome updates from grant-witness.us
All of my funding curves and more in an easily useful form!
grant-witness.us/funding_curv...
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1/7
Mechanistic insights into the therapeutic properties of delta opioid receptor | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Yes! We literally cannot shut up about our work.
Interested in addiction and cormorbid disorders?
Join us for our ICAN symposium on Mar. 18 in @ucirvine.bsky.social, featuring Josh Gordon, @neurovoice.bsky.social, Tony George, @nanopharmnc.bsky.social, Khaled Moussawi, Meg Fox, Firoza Mamdani, & more! All welcome!
www.bio.uci.edu/event/ican-s...
Very excited to share a Special Collection at the Journal of Neuroscience (@sfnjournals.bsky.social) - Central Questions for Social Neuroscience Research. This issue includes some of the latest perspectives on social neuroscience research. Please check it out!👇
www.jneurosci.org/content/46/8
🚨📃New Wassum Lab Paper 📃🚨
Out today, Melissa Malvaez, Nick Griffin, Andrea Suarez & team discovered that dopamine can enable reward predictions to shape how we pursue reward.
Surprisingly, we find that dopamine can constrain instrumental reward seeking.
www.jneurosci.org/content/46/8...
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A simple voluntary action reduces high-fat diet intake and obesity in mice
This is a very elegant multi-continental study 👏
www.cell.com/current-biol...
I am so proud to share @forrestdrogers.bsky.social’s postdoctoral magnum opus, now out in @nature.com! Forrest discovered a novel role for Agouti in the MPOA of the hypothalamus to integrate socio-environmental information to flexibly tune paternal behavior
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Thread! 👇🏻
New Special Issue out in #AddictionNeuroscience edited by @talialerner.bsky.social on dopamine circuitry and heterogeneity in addiction with articles by @daylab.bsky.social, Tom Hnasko, @mtorregrossa1.bsky.social, and Awatramani Rajeshwar check it out! www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...
Excited to share the Psychopharm Special Issue on Stress, Trauma & Cannabinoids 14 papers examining how the endocannabinoid system shapes stress & trauma responses.
Guest edited with @connorhaggarty.bsky.social, @mayoonthebrain.bsky.social & Christelle Baunez.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
ugh. ugh. ugh.
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Neuroscience has a species problem
The problem is not simply that cross-species translation is difficult; it is that the field has largely accepted this difficulty rather than treating it as a central scientific challenge
www.thetransmitter.org/animal-model...
The special issue in Psychopharmacology from EBPS2023 is now out as a complete collection. You can find the papers all here link.springer.com/journal/213/...
If you had the choice of studying cocaine addiction in rats alone in a cage with only cocaine or at least one other substance, what would you do?
In this new interesting study, Nowak and her co-authors chose the second option.
link.springer.com/content/pdf/...
#eNeuro Open Source Tools and Methods | A Common Iba1 Antibody Labels Vasopressin Neurons in Mice
https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0323-25.2025
Very happy to share a new paper in
@npp-journal.bsky.social I thought I knew what would predict escalation of cocaine use. Well, I was wrong. After tracking behavior daily for weeks, the answer turned out to be the opposite of my prediction, and it changed how I see addiction.
Breaking initial resistance to incentive salience with sufficient drug exposure
Individuals initially resistant to incentive salience can, with sufficient exposure, become sensitized and escalate cocaine use to the same level as more susceptible individuals
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
apropos of absolutely nothing, a lot of scientists could profit from reading this editorial from legendary Conan Kornetsky upon retiring from an editor position.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
What an undertaking this was. So proud of the collection @mayoonthebrain.bsky.social , @brainsbeesbikes.bsky.social , @cbaunez.bsky.social and I collected for the “Stress, Trauma and Cannabinoids” special issue in @psychopharmacology.bsky.social
Editorial: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Tallie Z Baram speaks at UC Irvine
Thrilled to experience @talliezee.bsky.social’s @ucibiosci.bsky.social Dean’s Distinguished Lecture today @ucirvine.bsky.social!
@ucirvinemedschool.bsky.social
On a call with NIH PO this morning - I knew NOSIs were no longer a thing, but wasn't aware they now have these "Highlighted Topics". Not clear how it exactly interfaces with funding and/or how you highlight alignment, but good to keep an eye on!
grants.nih.gov/funding/find...
Hey ventral pallidum fans, see our new paper showing that #VP GABA neurons, known for reward, also regulate aversive motivation! Inhibiting these cells with #DREADDs potentiates active or passive defenses to threats, likely via LHb.
Congrats to Erica Ramirez & Marty Martinez!
doi.org/10.1016/j.yn...
