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! 👇🏻

Superior Colliculus Projections Drive Dopamine Neuron Activity and Movement But Not Value To navigate dynamic environments, animals must rapidly integrate sensory information and respond appropriately to gather rewards and avoid threats. It is well established that dopamine (DA) neurons in...

So stoked to have our image on the cover of this week's issue of Journal of Neuroscience!! @sfnjournals.bsky.social #JNeurosci #SfN25. Check out the final version of the paper here www.jneurosci.org/content/45/4...

Cocaine seeking and consumption are oppositely regulated by mesolimbic dopamine in male rats - Nature Communications Here authors demonstrate how opposing trajectories of dopamine transmission underlie changes in drug seeking and taking over chronic drug use. Increased dopamine to drug cues elevates craving, whereas...

Thought now was as good a time as ever to join bsky - Excited to share a big part of my PhD work is finally published- 7+ years of experiments from a great team of people. Wishing I could be at #sfn2025 to celebrate with you guys! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fascinating work from the Giardino Lab- Congratulations!

A dual-pathway architecture for stress to disrupt agency and promote habit - Nature Adaptive decision-making often requires an understanding of our agency in a situation; however, chronic stress can disrupt agency and promote inflexible, habitual behaviour by turning off a brain path...

🚨📃New Wassum Lab Paper📃🚨

Out today, @jackiegio.bsky.social discovered brain pathways that support agency and habit and how chronic stress disrupts them to rob of us our agency and cause us to form rigid habits 🧵👇

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

Free full text: rdcu.be/eaxEv

Great new review from @renatamarchette.bsky.social on dynorphin/opioid receptor signaling and their relevance for opioid addiction treatment!

rdcu.be/d8JDj

Loss of excitatory inputs and decreased tonic and evoked activity of locus coeruleus neurons in aged P301S mice Tau pathology in the locus coeruleus (LC) is associated with several neurodegenerative conditions including Alzheimers disease and frontotemporal dementia. Phosphorylated tau accumulates in the LC and...

@tdowns.bsky.social 's latest is up!! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Retrieval of an ethanol-conditioned taste aversion promotes GABAergic plasticity in the anterior insular cortex - PubMed Blunted sensitivity to ethanol's aversive effects can increase motivation to consume ethanol; yet, the neurobiological circuits responsible for encoding these aversive properties are not fully underst...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39779373/

woot @lisataxier.bsky.social first Kash Lab first author paper is out. Congrats to her and the team!

How dopamine enables learning from aversion Dopamine is heavily studied for its role in reward learning, but it is becoming increasingly appreciated that dopamine can also enable learning from a…

As I board my flight home for the holidays, I wanted to share that a review I wrote with @talialerner.bsky.social just came out! It’s titled “How dopamine enables learning from aversion.” Super grateful for the opportunity - hope you can check it out! 😊😊🎄🎄
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Paper figure showing Allen Inst snRNAseq UMAPs of genes marking dopamine neuron clusters, relevant channels, and receptors

Nothing says cozy reading by the fireplace like our new review, “Molecular heterogeneity and development of the VTA”
Thanks @bensaunders.bsky.social and @bellonec.bsky.social for the invitation to contribute to this special issue on #Dopamine!
authors.elsevier.com/a/1kIwj8MqMi...