The Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology at UT San Antonio is recruiting a tenure-track Assistant Professor. What you'll find here: ✅ A collaborative, fast-growing department ✅ A vibrant, affordable city with a great quality of life 👉 Apply here: bit.ly/4drxSBv

My lab is recruiting a postdoctoral researcher! Interested in astrocyte transcriptional regulation and addiction? We study how astrocytic transcriptional, epigenetic, and chromatin regulation contributes to substance abuse disorders. DM or email me! www.l-holt-lab.com

🚨New paper alert: Excited to share our journey to contrast how multiple dopamine sensors respond to acute morphine treatment. We first compared changes in dopamine transients in rats prepared with VTA DA GCaMP6f, NAcLS dLight1.3b or GRABDA2h 1/5

Winter Brain Enthusiasts! Are you sitting here worried that you missed out on your chance to submit a panel. Did you just come up with a good idea today? I get it I too am a procrastinator. But today is your lucky day....

I don't procrastinate. I just like to do things later.

Alt: Ted Danson says "I don't procrastinate. I just like to do things later."

static.klipy.com

What is that you say!? You're dreaming of frosty slopes when the weather in Durham, NC (or insert your location here) is currently 89F at 7:16pm (which is better than last night!)....well my friends....spend this #LaborDayWeekend putting together a panel for #WCBR2027 !

Zoe McElligott@nanopharmnc.bsky.social · last mo.

Reminding everyone that our due date for panel, short course, and perspectives....and travel award fellow applications is Tuesday, September 15, 2026!!! Please make sure and submit your awesome science! We want to see you in Breck! #WCBR2027

In case you missed the preprint the published version of our paper describing the cellular, molecular, and behavioral consequences of hyperphosphorylated tau in the mouse locus coeruleus is out! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Pathogenic tau in the mouse locus coeruleus produces noradrenergic hyperactivity and neuropsychiatric phenotypes reminiscent of early Alzheimer’s disease - Molecular Psychiatry

Molecular Psychiatry - Pathogenic tau in the mouse locus coeruleus produces noradrenergic hyperactivity and neuropsychiatric phenotypes reminiscent of early Alzheimer’s disease

nature.com

Extremely proud to share @acara333.bsky.social and my new paper, out today in @cp-neuron.bsky.social, where we develop a new fluorescent reporter of neural responses to estrogen! 🔬 paper 📝: www.cell.com/neuron/fullt... addgene page 🧬: www.addgene.org/254753/ #neuroskyence 🧪 1/10

Huge thanks to NIDA / NIH for supporting this STTR grant with Astrocyte Pharmaceuticals and @mikebeckstead.bsky.social. www.astrocytepharma.com/2026/08/astr...

Astrocyte Pharmaceuticals Receives NIH Award to Evaluate AST-004 in Substance Use Disorders - Astrocyte Pharmaceuticals

$400,000 program extends AST-004 into another major CNS indication and reinforces the breadth of its cerebroprotective potential Groton, CT – August 25, 2026 – Astrocyte Pharmaceuticals Inc., a clinic...

astrocytepharma.com

Also check out the Panel Interest form (and put your info on there) if you want to present at Winter Brain and are looking to put together a panel. parthenonmgmt-my.sharepoint.com/:x:/p/ahinne...

Zoe McElligott@nanopharmnc.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Gearing up for #WCBR2027! (Please repost!) Helpful links for submission (panels due 9/15/26, posters 10/13/26) and travel fellowships (Due 9/15/26): winterbrain.org/science-of-t... winterbrain.org/travel-fello...

🚨 New Walton × Bogacz Collab Preprint! POV: dopamine refuses to have just one job.🧠 DLS dopamine carries distinct reward AND action prediction errors — parallel teaching signals that could support value learning and habit formation. Enjoyed working with Yuhao, Juan Carlos, et al. on this one!

Gearing up for #WCBR2027! (Please repost!) Helpful links for submission (panels due 9/15/26, posters 10/13/26) and travel fellowships (Due 9/15/26): winterbrain.org/science-of-t... winterbrain.org/travel-fello...

Important new paper on the role of LC mu opioid receptors in pain from @jordacular.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New opening in our lab!

The Department of Psychology at University of Minnesota seeks an Assistant Professor working on computational approaches related to cognition and/or perception (broadly). This would be in my area of the department and I’m happy to answer any questions. Posting : hr.myu.umn.edu/psc/hrprd/EM...

Careers

Tenure-Track Assistant Professor, Computational Approaches to Perception and/or CognitionDepartment of PsychologyUniversity of Minnesota, College of Liberal ArtsThe Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities announces a search for an outstanding scholar to fill a tenure-track assistant professor position focused on computational approaches to perception and/or cognition. This full-time position in the Department’s Cognitive and Brain Sciences (CAB) Training Program will begin in Fall 2027.Applications are invited from researchers who would extend or complement our historic strengths in combining experimental and computational approaches to perception and cognition. Examples of desired research topics include, but are not limited to, computational approaches in human and/or non-human animal models to study perceptual function and sensory loss, learning, motivation, emotion, and/or higher cognition. While we expect the primary appointment to be in our CAB area, there is  potential for cross-affiliation with other departmental areas.The appointment will be 100%-time over the nine-month academic year (late-August to late-May) and will be made at the rank of tenure-track assistant professor, depending on qualifications and experience and consistent with collegiate and University policy. Salary and start-up packages are competitive. The successful applicant should have and is expected to maintain a strong research program, advise graduate students from a variety of different backgrounds, and teach undergraduate and graduate courses, including core courses within the graduate training program. A strong record of teaching and mentorship is desired. The individual will also be expected to contribute to the service needs of the department, college, university, and profession.A successful candidate's application will demonstrate scholarly distinction, a record of publications, teaching commitment and, if applicable to the research program and the candidate’s career stage, evidence of success in securing and/or pursuing extramural funding.Applicants are invited to review the Workload Principles and Guidelines for Regular Faculty in the College of Liberal Arts, as well as the Standards for Promotion and Tenure in the Department of Psychology.

google.com

On the cover of Science Signaling today, the final version of our initial investigation of functional differences between VTA glutamate-dopamine, nonglutamate-dopamine, and glutamate-only neurons www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Distinct properties of glutamate-dopamine, nonglutamate-dopamine, and glutamate-only ventral tegmental area neurons

Glutamate cotransmission predicts the behavioral functions and characteristics of dopaminergic neurons in the VTA.

science.org

University gets hacked on Friday. Canvas has been down for most of the time since then. University preemptively shuts down all email/team/web portal access and requires password reset. But password portal reset is busted. So nobody on campus has access to emails. Oh and class starts tomorrow

This Is Fine Dog Meme

ALT: This Is Fine Dog Meme

static.klipy.com

Winter Brain enthusiasts! Please see the Important Dates below. Also on the website winterbrain.org/conference-h... we cant wait to see you at #WCBR2027

Updates to NIH K awards starting with October 2027 deadlines. The individual K awards are being consolidated into 4 awards. 🧪 grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Love seeing entirely novel findings about dopamine Move over G proteins! Dopamine can regulate glutamate/NMDA directly and without second messenger systems: D2R physically couples GluN2B to suppress NMDA current directly 🤯 (congrats to team from Javitch & Ford labs) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Dopamine D2 receptors bypass canonical signaling to directly tune NMDA receptor function and aversive learning

Dopamine acts at D2-NMDA receptor heteromers to control glutamatergic transmission and aversive learning.

science.org

We’re hiring a research technician!! We’re an inclusive team of behavioral neuroscientists trying to discover the brain circuits of learning, decision making, and habit. More info👇 wassumlab.psych.ucla.edu/join-the-lab/ Job posting: jobs.ucla.edu/jobs/11232

So proud to have “Early-life stress alters H3K4me1 in VTA to prime stress sensitivity” out now in Neuron! This work spanned Many years and Many people contributed. Huge thanks to @hyejaykim.bsky.social, @ja-balouek.bsky.social, Luke Geiger, and Meaghan Creed www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

Early-life stress alters H3K4me1 in VTA to prime stress sensitivity

Kim, Geiger et al. report that early-life stress increases the chromatin modification H3K4me1 and its enzymatic writer, SETD7, in the ventral tegmental area. They show that this form of epigenetic pri...

cell.com

Please share--the Shansky lab is currently recruiting at all levels to work on an NIH-funded project investigating sex differences in the neural circuits that drive defensive behaviors. The official job ad isn't yet up, but interested folks can contact me as instructed here www.shanskylab.com/join

This guidance is for NCI for now but I assume it will become NIH wide?? "when grant proposals contain animal experiments, the proposal should also contain a plan for validation of the findings of this animal experiment in a human model"

Mike Feigin 🥯@mikefeigin.bsky.social · 2mo ago

New "guidance" on animal studies for NCI grants. This is, uh, interesting. www.cancer.gov/grants-train...

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 · 2mo ago

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

🚨Happy to share a new preprint from Lerner Lab led by graduate student @nadelneurosci.bsky.social! 🚨 “Adolescent stress recruits a latent amygdala-dopamine circuit to drive punishment-resistant reward-seeking” This has been a wholly impressive effort by Jacob; summary below 👇 #neuroskyence🧪

bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Adolescent stress recruits a latent amygdala-dopamine circuit to drive punishment-resistant reward-seeking https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.29.741478v1

The final version of our amygdala dopamine paper is out! BLA dopamine dynamically tracks emotional salience and not value or reward prediction error. Congrats to Dr. Megan Brickner!! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Basolateral amygdala dopamine transmits emotional salience - Nature Communications

The basolateral amygdala dopamine system has received little attention. Here, authors show that BLA dopamine plays a unique role in learning, by encoding the emotional salience of sensory cues to supp...

nature.com

Very excited about this new preprint from @odrake.bsky.social, an incredibly talented MD/PhD student in the lab. 🧵 below, but the TL;DR: we found a rare striatal neuron subtype with unique transcriptional, spatial, and circuit properties that gates opioid reward.

Olivia Drake@odrake.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Our new preprint from @daylab.bsky.social characterizes Chst9-MSNs, a specialized NAc population with high Oprm1 expression and opioid sensitivity that is required for fentanyl reward learning. Excited to share this work! 🧠🧬 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Out on bioRxiv - chemogenetic activation of VTA astrocytes switches pro- to anti-addictive behavior dependent on prior drug exposure - via @mattjwanat.bsky.social and our collaborators at UT Health

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

Ventral tegmental area astrocytes regulate drug-cue associations and drug intake https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.20.739241v1

Oh, and Forms J are coming... grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Check out the new preprint from the lab led by Brandon Garcia-Castañeda! Huge shout out to NIH/NIDA for initially funding this line of research and continuing to support this work in a new R21/R33 with @asoshnev.bsky.social! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Ventral tegmental area astrocytes regulate drug-cue associations and drug intake

Cocaine use disorder remains a critical public health concern with limited treatment options. Astrocytes are increasingly recognized as active regulators of neurotransmission and are emerging as impor...

biorxiv.org