And a second new preprint from Lerner Lab on the same day! 👀 🎉 Led by graduate student Nkatha Mwenda! “Dopamine dips during unrewarded actions promote punishment-resistant reward seeking” #neuroskyence🧪

bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 3d ago

Dopamine dips during unrewarded actions promote punishment-resistant reward seeking https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.01.742224v1

Collette is right on target: Fight back and we can win. Write your Senator now to make sure its included in the final bill

Colette Delawalla, PhD@cdelawalla.bsky.social · 3d ago

THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE POWER ACCOMPLISHES! Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who wrote comments, contacted Congress, and yelled! This is OUR WIN! @standupforscience.net www.politico.com/news/2026/08...

New work preprinted from the Daniels Lab!

SIRT1 remodels astrocyte metabolism and promotes viral replication during neurotropic orthoflavivirus infection

Orthoflaviviruses depend on host metabolic resources to replicate, but how distinct cell types in the central nervous system (CNS) alter their metabolism in response to infection remains incompletely ...

biorxiv.org

Fascinating paper on the progression of women in academia. 👩🏻‍🔬 ⚛️ 🧪 #AcademicSky docs.iza.org/dp18477.pdf?... Here's an excerpt from the conclusion:

Two-photon calcium imaging. What makes for good data? How can we optimize experiments to get good data? New post labrigger.com/blog/2026/07... and new free web apps from @filip-tomaska.bsky.social (1/8)

Our new study ⬇️inspired by the question: does psilocybin influence meta-learning and cortical processing of unexpected uncertainty? Why is this important? Meta-learning may be critical for therapeutic effects of psychedelics and how the trip creates a window that facilitates clinical intervention

Stop what you’re doing and listen to the Mr. Trash Wheel song. Now. I’m not kidding. Do it. Do it now. youtu.be/KUgAOBlEEzM?...

Mr. Trash Wheel: Hero of the Harbor OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO

YouTube video by Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore

youtu.be

Wow we humans (& our brains) aren’t as unique as we thought. Very well written, easy to understand and highly impactful study revealing varicose projection astrocytes are conserved actors in neuropathology across species #neuroskyence #neuroinflammation #glia www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Varicose projection astrocytes: Conserved reactive cells in brain pathology

Varicose projection astrocytes emerge as a conserved reactive phenotype linked to inflammation and brain pathology.

science.org

Centro de Neurociencias Cajal@cncajal-csic.bsky.social · 2w ago

What if a brain cell once considered a hallmark of healthy tissue was actually linked to disease? Our latest study, by @ulloaseverinolab.bsky.social, identifies varicose projection astrocytes as a neuroinflammatory phenotype across mammals. More info: shorturl.at/4Oti1

GIFT: Wow. www.theatlantic.com/family/2026/...

The Researchers Who Want Dads-to-Be to Stop Drinking

If you’re “actively trying to have babies,” one expert told me, “both the man and the woman should be abstaining” from alcohol.

theatlantic.com

I am pleased to share that our research on the role of TRPA in morphine-withdrawal has now been published in Neuropharmacology, highlighting sex- and brain region- specific mechanisms. #opioids #neuroskyence #TRPA1 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

TRPA1 antagonism reveals sex-specific mechanisms in morphine withdrawal-induced negative emotional behavior via dopaminergic pathway

Chronic opioid use facilitates changes in brain reward and affective systems. Cessation of opioid use induces negative affective states characterized …

sciencedirect.com

The first work of the #FalconeLab is finally out!!! 🤩 A story of #astrocytes from evolution to disease. Thanks everyone who made this possible! Varicose projection astrocytes: Conserved reactive cells in brain pathology | #ScienceAdvances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @towsonu.bsky.social

Stoked to announce I’ve been awarded my K99 from NIDA, where I will be investigating central and peripheral immune mechanisms underlying drug-seeking behavior in a novel model of comorbid HIV and opioid-cocaine polysubstance use! Eternally grateful to @jbarkerlab.bsky.social for her mentorship!

This analysis of the public comments suggests overwhelming opposition to the OMB grant making take over plan www.techpolicy.press/the-public-r...

The Public Rejects OMB's Federal Financial Assistance Rule

Tens of thousands of scientists, clinicians, and ordinary citizens warned OMB about putting political appointees in charge of which research gets funded.

techpolicy.press

New work from our lab done by the amazing @scred62.bsky.social! ⭐️ check it out!

Wesley R. Evans@scred62.bsky.social · 3w ago

I am so excited to share with the community my newest pre-printed manuscript w/ my mentor @brainsonmymind.bsky.social investigating striatal astrocytes and neuromodulation in Parkinsonian conditions! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Trainees, use the ORCID link on your biosketch to your advantage. Make sure your publications are linked on it and that your education/employment reflects your training path.

The blood pressure drug prazosin reduces alcohol consumption primarily by lowering daily cravings, with craving reductions accounting for a 67% decrease in next-day drinking.

Prazosin-related reductions in daily craving mediates treatment-related daily alcohol use outcomes in alcohol use disorder

Prazosin has been shown to reduce drinking, particularly in individuals with alcohol withdrawal symptoms, possibly due to reducing craving as shown in experimental studies. However, it is unclear…

bpsgos.org

Let's learn a lesson from the nearly 500K of us who mobilized to comment on the OMB rules. We can leave the sidelines, take action and it can make a difference. After 15 months of inaction, our scientific societies finally woke up and mobilized members. It doesn't stop there 1/n

Excited to share this work, led by Andrew Zimnik and Sherry An, from @mchurchland.bsky.social and my labs! www.cell.com/neuron/fullt... 1/2

Sparse component analysis: A method that uncovers separable computations within neural population activity

Zimnik et al. provide a new, interpretable, unsupervised dimensionality approach for neural population activity. Their approach, sparse component analysis (SCA), reveals the latent factors correspondi...

cell.com

For folks asking why bother commenting because the OMB won't care: comments help build cases for the courts by explicitly laying out harms. That's why it's really important to have your comments be as specific as possible. Also, contact your senators and reps! They actually do care about this.

Jacquelyn Gill@jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 4w ago

Monday is the deadline for public comment! The Heritage Foundation has been mobilizing its members to leave comments in favor of the rule change, so every unique comment matters (don’t use a form letter or copy/paste—similar comments are batched and treated as one).

🚨 It's that time of year again! 🚨 We are happy to share that we are returning to a nationwide search this year for our SPINE postdoc fellows! Application instructions, meeting registration, and relevant dates can be found in this flyer or at SPINEphilly.org

I am happy to share our latest manuscript, led by newly-minted PhD Justin Wang, identifying a neural population that selectively controls hedonic, but not homeostatic, feeding. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Ventral pallidal GABAergic neurons control hedonic feeding and obesity

Food intake is governed by two interacting drives. The homeostatic hunger drive regulates food intake to fulfill caloric needs while the hedonic drive promotes intake of palatable foods outside of cal...

biorxiv.org

Our paper "Neural timescales from a computational perspective" is finally out in @natneuro.nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41... We discuss how computational models and methods can distill empirical observations on neural timescales into quantitative, testable theories of brain computation.

Neural timescales from a computational perspective - Nature Neuroscience

This review integrates computational approaches to provide a unified view on how data analysis methods, biophysical mechanistic models and machine learning approaches can help to uncover the origins a...

nature.com

What if part of Huntington's disease wasn't just damage, but a circuit stuck in the wrong pattern? Our new paper, out today in Nature, tests that idea.

Individual variability of neural computations underlying flexible decisions www.nature.com/articles/s41... #neuroscience

Individual variability of neural computations underlying flexible decisions - Nature

Behavioural experiments to study decision-making in response to context-dependent accumulation of evidence provide testable models that are consistent with the heterogeneity in neural signatures among...

nature.com

How do neural circuits allow for #sensory processing to change with context? This study by @nuttidanuttida.bsky.social &co reveals how inhibitory microcircuits support flexible, context-specific integration, supporting adaptive decision-making 🧪 #AcademicSky #neuroscience plos.io/4vL2Qf9

Excited to share this preprint from @ianoldenburg.bsky.social . To evoke movement with holo stim, you need the right pattern at the right time! Interestingly, the preparatory state before spont motion is not the same as the state permissive for evoked motion. Dig in! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The Importance of Synchrony in the Neural Control of Movement

Throughout the mammalian cortex, populations of neurons must work together to enact behaviors. While population recordings in motor cortex have revealed many aspects of when neurons fire during behavi...

biorxiv.org

Our new preprint is out!! The human brain runs on ~20 watts. Computers and modern AI systems require vastly higher energy. This gap raises a fundamental question: how does the brain compute so efficiently? In our new study, we take a critical step toward measuring and understanding this directly 1/3

bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · last mo.

Learning Shapes the Energy Cost of Neural Tasks https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.01.735889v1

NEW! Explore @thetransmitter.bsky.social’s newest tool, Neuro Funding Finder. Discover grants, fellowships and funding opportunities for neuroscience research at all career stages. Find your next funding source and apply, all in one place: thetransmitter.org/neuroscience... #neuroskyence

New results! A new method that analyzes brain waves and spike timing together. This lets us pinpoint exactly which rhythms neurons are locking to. BAYESIAN STATE-SPACE MODEL FOR JOINT INFERENCE OF OSCILLATORY DYNAMICS AND POINT-PROCESS COUPLING doi.org/10.64898/202... #neuroscience

BAYESIAN STATE-SPACE MODEL FOR JOINT INFERENCE OF OSCILLATORY DYNAMICS AND POINT-PROCESS COUPLING

Under a range of behavioral and physiological conditions, spike times and local field potential (LFP) oscillations exhibit phase coupling within specific frequency bands. Classical measures such as sp...

doi.org

“Our findings provide rare, prospective evidence that large-scale, targeted undergraduate training programs can move the needle on diversifying the US biomedical research workforce…the observed effects are unlikely to be explained by preexisting academic preparation or initial aspirations.” 🧪

Jeremy Berg@jeremymberg.bsky.social · last mo.

The paper from Woodcock et al. was published recently in Science Advances. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... The results demonstrate a 2-fold increase in PhD completion. 2/16