Rebekah Evans
@cellularscale.bsky.social
Assistant Professor Georgetown University Department of Neuroscience
This paper was a LONG time coming! We functionally mapped excitatory and inhibitory inputs onto dopamine neuron dendrites using spatial optogenetics.
bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · yesterdayDendrite-specific synaptic inputs onto dopaminergic SNc neurons https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.02.742307v1
🚨🚨 FEDS and everyone else 🚨🚨 🧵Tomorrow is the last day to comment on the Office of Personnel Management rule, “Promoting Employee Accountability" at www.regulations.gov/commenton/OP... This rule eliminates employee protections and rights, and hastens the firing process. Specifically, it... 1/4
Regulations.gov
regulations.gov
Meeting Location and Transportation: Georgetown University Medical Center New Research Building Auditorium Room WG10 3970 Reservoir Rd. NW Washington DC, 20057 4/4
Talks will be selected from abstracts and we encourage submissions from early career researchers. Please use this link (forms.gle/Czs4S6NP8vxB...) to register and submit abstracts. The deadline for abstract submission is October 5 and selected speakers will be notified by October 19. 3/n
Motor Symposium 2026
Registration
forms.gle
Meeting Scope: This meeting has a traditional focus on spinal and brainstem circuits for motor control and recent meetings have expanded to include sessions on sensory circuits, descending and ascending pathways, cortical motor control, development, motor system injury and disease, and more. 2/n
Hi All! Rebekah Evans @cellularscale.bsky.social, Kim Dougherty, and I are delighted to invite you to the 19th Annual Pre-SfN Motor Symposium, to be held Friday, November 13 at Georgetown University! 1/n
How does Parkinson's pathology affect dopamine neurons early in disease progression? Well first of all, it doesn't affect ALL the dopamine neurons the same way. In our newest preprint, we find that alpha synucein accumulation reduces t-type currents in only the most vulnerable neurons.
bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 3w agoα-Synuclein pathology differentially alters T-type calcium currents in vulnerable and resilient substantia nigra dopaminergic subpopulations. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.10.737840v1
The 80s saw the horror of AIDS. Science Magazine recognized Lenacapavir as the 2024 Breakthrough of the Year. These type of breakthroughs, w/ humble beginnings in academic labs, would not see the light of day if it weren’t for #NIH funding. 🧪 www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/lena...
Lenacapavir: the HIV Breakthrough Proving Why NIH Funding Matters | Think Global Health
Biomedical advances such as lenacapavir depend on years of publicly funded basic research
thinkglobalhealth.org
Ths is flying under the radar, but Russ Vought is advancing a new scheme to give Trump's cronies total control of nearly $179B in federal grant funds. Billions for lifesaving disaster relief and medical research would be subject to Trumpian loyalty oaths. Make no mistake: this is fascism.
Alarm Grows Over Vought Plan to Give Trump Cronies Control of Federal Grant Money | Common Dreams
"The test will be a simple one: Are you sufficiently loyal to the president? If the answer is no, it will result in the
commondreams.org
White House proposes new rules giving political appointees final approval of research grants These proposed Office of Management and Budget regulations would render the federal research grant review process opaque www.scientificamerican.com/article/whit...
White House proposes new rules giving political appointees final say on research grants
These proposed Office of Management and Budget regulations would render the federal research grant review process opaque
scientificamerican.com
Megathread about responding to new OMB grant funding rules (feel free to add/link more!) I was collecting these for me, but figured I'd round 'em up for everyone 🧪 What's the problem? arstechnica.com/science/2026... elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of...
Proposed new US funding rules: We can cancel any grant at any time
Peer review now optional, political staff would screen grants for forbidden topics.
arstechnica.com
And my own take on some of the key points in what OMB/Vought is trying to do here: "If you wanted to cripple science research and were disappointed that Congress continued to fund it, this is the sort of document you would produce."
Proposed new US funding rules: We can cancel any grant at any time
Peer review now optional, political staff would screen grants for forbidden topics.
arstechnica.com
• Submit a comment opposing the destruction of 🇺🇸 science; • Pressure every org, professional body, association, uni, etc. you are affiliated with to submit the strongest possible comment opposing this calamity (highest ROI move for most of us) • Make sure your electeds see those comments 🧪
Trump's Russ Vought Is Trying To Kill American Science. We Can Try To Stop Him, | Shouldn't Need to Be a Lawyer by Matthew Cortland
Trump's Russ Vought Is Trying To Kill American Science. We Can Try To Stop Him, by Shouldn't Need to Be a Lawyer by Matthew Cortland on Patreon. Join Shouldn't Need to Be a Lawyer by Matthew Cortland...
patreon.com
Calling all Scientists! Research Administrators! Deans! Fans of Science! No one is coming to save us. Here is your assignment. I have written a step by step, easy to understand "how-to" document to help you comment on the proposed OMB rule. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/what-we-ne...
What We Need to do NEXT: OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule (OMB 2026-10817)
What OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule Means in Practice
elizabethginexi.substack.com
"The document itself is an odd grab-bag of micromanaging grant processes, assertion of presidential power, and airing of cultural grievances... Its lack of coherence, however, will not prevent it from causing staggering damage to the US scientific system." 👇 arstechnica.com/science/2026...
Proposed new US funding rules: We can cancel any grant at any time
Peer review now optional, political staff would screen grants for forbidden topics.
arstechnica.com
Well. This is startling. “At least one of the NIH’s 27 institutes and centres has lost so many GMSs that it has asked early-career researchers, including postdocs and graduate students, who work in the NIH’s own labs to consider working temporarily as a GMS on a volunteer basis”
Jeremy Berg@jeremymberg.bsky.social · 3mo ago@maxkozlov.bsky.social covered the staffing shortages at NIH. www.nature.com/articles/d41... 1/3
The staffing crunch is so severe that the NIMH has asked its intramural grad students and postdocs to volunteer in this admin capacity temporarily. Also: the institute's acting deputy director - the second in charge - is devoting half of her time to grants management.
NEW: A serious staffing shortage — of the Trump admin's own making — is delaying the agency's ability to send billions to universities around the country, leaving labs reeling in the meantime. “I thought we were at rock bottom”, a senior NIH official said. “We are below rock bottom now.”
NIH staffing shortage could slash number of new grants issued this year
Some units at the US funding giant are so understaffed, they are focusing on mandated grant renewals rather than new awards.
nature.com
To cope with the lack of staff, institutes like the NHGRI are using multi-year funding, giving approved projects their money upfront as a lump sum rather than annually. This helps the NIH use up its budget more quickly, but it also means that fewer overall researchers and labs receive funding.
🚨Exiting new preprint from Lerner Lab postdoc AJ Miller-Hansen examining the thalamus as a physiological driver of local, acetylcholine-dependent dopamine release! 🚨 DA-ACh interactions have been 🔥but what’s really going on in vivo? We think we have some answers. #neuroskyence🧪
bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 3mo agoThalamus orchestrates local acetylcholine-dependent dopamine release in the learning striatum https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.08.723861v1
Really pleased that this work with @dudman.bsky.social is now out in Neuron: A global dopaminergic learning rate enables adaptive foraging across many options
Neuron@cp-neuron.bsky.social · 3mo agoOur newest preprint shows sex specific effect of exercise on motor coordination and dopamine neuron excitability! This was actually really surprising to us.
bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 3mo agoSex-specific effects of exercise on motor coordination and extended basal ganglia physiology. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.24.720719v1
Through March 31, the number of grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health is down by more than half compared with the same period last year, a Post analysis found. There are also fewer grants focused on women’s health, cancer and mental health, the analysis found. https://wapo.st/48dWJWX
Down 70% (!!!) from the before times. We've plateaued and it's only April. So, so many labs will close this year.
Pam Herd@pamherd.bsky.social · 4mo agoThe number of NIH competitive awards is down 50% from 2025, and down ~70% from prior years. Even if they catch up by the end of the year, only wealthy institutions can bridge these huge funding gaps.They're killing science-and violating the constitution-by weaponizing the bureaucracy
The Trump administration is just getting started. They told us their plans for science in Project 2025. We should believe them. Then we should stop them. Part of their plan is death by paperwork. (Ironically, a complaint they latched onto to seize power in the first place. As Mike Lauer said...
NIH is not okay. @nytimes.com highlights how grant-making & ability to obligate funding is at risk from staff shortages and time consuming screening processes designed to censor research to align with the administration's political ideology. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/s... Some highlights:
Pace of N.I.H. Funding Slows Further in Trump’s Second Year
nytimes.com
Setting the record straight to get an NIH grant, it is: 1) incredibly more competitive 2) more paperwork for arbitrary reasons 3) award amounts have STILL not kept up with inflation 4) also will be a shorter award because of how multi-year funding is implemented Sounds like the hunger games!
Jenna Norton@jenna-m-norton.bsky.social · 4mo ago"American scientists already spend some 40 percent of their time on grant-related administrative tasks. Now they are being deluged by ever more paperwork, said Dr. Michael Lauer, who led external grantmaking at the N.I.H. until last year.
First up: F grants These support individual grad students and post-docs (and some college students). # of new grants issued through April 15 in FY2024 (the last “normal” year): 652 FY2025: 402 FY2026: 74
Very informative post from Elizabeth Ginexi about NIH grant delays. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/the-execut...
The Executive Orders Blocking Your NIH Grant
This image was generated by Google AI (Gemini)
elizabethginexi.substack.com