Do psychiatric symptoms in epilepsy always arise from seizures? In ALDH7A1 models, seizure risk traced to the liver; mood-related behavior to astrocytes. One gene. Two tissues. Two pathophysiologies. Neither begins in neurons. New in Science Advances: doi.org/10.1126/scia... 1/11

Astrocyte redox imbalance underlies prelimbic neuronal hypoactivity and maladaptive affective behaviors in epilepsy

Astrocyte antioxidant imbalance reduces neuronal activity, driving depression-like behavior in epilepsy dissociable from seizures.

doi.org

New preprint from the lab 🥳 We made new knock-in zebrafish 🐟 that fluorescently tag endogenous neurofascins. So now, we can live-image neuronal nfasca/NF186 and glial nfascb/NF155 non-invasively, as nerves, nodes of Ranvier and paranodes develop in vivo 🧵👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Live-imaging of endogenous neurofascins reveals glial adhesion shapes developing nodes of Ranvier

The organisation of myelinated axons into specialised domains is essential for saltatory conduction and depends on the polarised distribution of neuronal and glial cell-adhesion molecules, including n...

biorxiv.org

🎉 Please join us in welcoming Dr. Richard Roth to UHN’s @krembilresearch! Dr. Roth joins us as a Scientist, focusing on the interplay between synaptic plasticity and neural circuit adaptation, and how these processes shape motor learning.    🔗 Learn more about his research: www.motor-plasticity.org

Excited to share my postdoc paper from the @lyons-lab.bsky.social Our question: what controls axon diameter? It varies >100-fold between neurons, shapes signal speed & myelination, and changes in disease. Yet very little is known about what regulates it. 🧵 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

A high-resolution phenotypic screen identifies regulators of CNS axon diameter in zebrafish

Axon diameter is important for action potential conduction speed, but what molecular pathways influence this neuronal property? This study reports a high-resolution imaging-based chemical screening pi...

journals.plos.org

Excited to get started!

Donald K. Johnson Eye Institute@dkjei-uhn.bsky.social · 3w ago

🎉 Please join us in welcoming Dr. Wendy Xin @droligo.bsky.social to @dkjei-uhn.bsky.social and @kbi-uhn.bsky.social! Learn more about her research: www.oligodendrocyte.org @uhnresearch.ca @uoftmedicine.bsky.social (1/2)

Did I even leave California

Our review on glial orchestration of neurodevelopment is online at @cp-devcell.bsky.social! Great fun working with Krissy Sakers and Pat Sheehan from the Eroglu and Schafer labs, and special thanks to first author Krissy for her tremendous work bringing this to fruition! www.cell.com/developmenta...

Glia orchestrate neural circuit development

In this review, Sakers et al. discuss how astrocytes, microglia, and oligodendrocyte lineage cells actively regulate neural circuit formation, refinement, and stabilization. They propose that coordina...

cell.com

We are thrilled to announce the 2026 Zara Weinberg Leading Edge Fellows! 40 remarkable postdocs pursuing transformative research in biological/biomedical sciences. This is the 7th Leading Edge cohort and we are so excited to welcome them! www.leadingedgesymposium.org/fellows/

Myriam Heiman named the director of The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. Heiman, who studies neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, will lead the institute beginning July 1. picower.mit.edu/news/myriam-... #neuroscience

hippocampus brain section keychain? yes please🙂‍↕️

Thrilled to share that I’ll be starting my lab at the SickKids Research Institute and University of Toronto in August! williamsonlab.ca Recruiting at all levels. Get in touch if you’re interested in astrocyte biology of cognition and disease!

Williamson Lab

The Williamson Lab studies astrocyte biology across development, cognition, and disease.

williamsonlab.ca

We updated our preprint, "Mapping spatially organized molecular and genetic signatures of schizophrenia across multiple scales in human prefrontal cortex" to now include spatial eQTL and genetic colocalization analyses: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New paper from the lab. Using longitudinal ca imaging, activity-dependent tagging and optogenetics, we show that newly allocated fear engram neurons in amygdala undergo a brief period of coordinated “offline reverberation” immediately after learning. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Do brain circuits really sit in a 'soup' of neuromodulators? Are neurons like soggy bits of bread soaked in signaling factors? Is the whole brain just squelching around in one big pool of warm modulators?

Woo!!!!!! PenningtonLab.com is live!

Pennington Lab

penningtonlab.com

Deadline fast approaching! ACNP Travel Award Applications are open for the ACNP 65th Annual Meeting: January 10-13, 2027, San Diego, California. Deadline to Submit is May 14, 2026, at 5:00 pm Central. tinyurl.com/5bzaz8va #ACNP2027 #travelawards

New preprint led by recent PhD graduate Dalton Fitzgerald characterizing two distinct populations of VTA dopamine neurons that differ in ion channel expression, intrinsic excitability, and response to drugs of abuse. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Happy to share my postdoc paper with @joeycheers.bsky.social & collaborators! Building on the work of many former lab members, we describe a VP-VTA projection modulated by endocannabinoids that guides action selection informed by learned cues: www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Midbrain endocannabinoids actuate dopamine-based action selection

Dopamine signals guide adaptive responses to reward- and threat-predictive cues, yet the mechanisms shaping these rapid dynamics remain unclear. Luján et al. identify midbrain endocannabinoid signalin...

cell.com

📣 Exciting news: my lab is moving to the Krembil Institute at the University of Toronto’s University Health Network in Fall 2026. We’ll be recruiting for all roles, so reach out if you’re interesting in joining us to study spinal circuits for sensorimotor control www.levine-lab.org

Excited to share our latest in @currentbiology.bsky.social (they who publish the coolest papers!) Memories are encoded by sparse neuronal ensembles (engrams). But most evidence comes from "simple" associative learning tasks. What about more integrative memories like spatial navigation?

#neuroskyence Help! Anyone know of a freezing stage microtome that is still in production? Leica and Epredia have both inexplicably discontinued their models 😢

Excited to share the latest one from the lab led by José Solano @jolusolo.bsky.social who explored how early life #stress impacts the mouse 🐭 brain 🧠 vasculature Science 🧪🔬 can be surprising & 2x stress can induce beneficial adaptations leading to resilience, phew! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Delighted to share our discoveries about one of the brain's neurotransmitter systems: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Together with colleagues at the @alleninstitute.org, we have learned a lot about a tiny cluster of neurons in the brainstem locus coeruleus (LC) that releases norepinephrine (NE). 1

Meet @zachtpennington.bsky.social, a new researcher at the DMCBH and @psych.ubc.ca who is exploring how the brain regulates stress and emotion. He is also an advocate of building open-source tools to make science more accessible for all. Read more: www.centreforbrainhealth.ca/news/from-sk...

From skateparks to synapses: Meet Dr. Zach Pennington - Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health | DMCBH

When Dr. Zach Pennington was growing up, he never imagined he would become a scientist. “I wanted to be a professional skateboarder, a guitarist in a punk

centreforbrainhealth.ca

Latest offering. How myelin ensheathes axons! Born from chat with Dwight Bergles on "weird things" we saw oligodendrocytes do, like making "bridges" between sheaths. Driven forward by Cody Call, Kelly Monk, and myelin folks @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social Enjoy! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Flexible ensheathment of axons enables myelination of complex CNS networks - Nature

The rate of axon ensheathment varies within individual myelinating processes, resulting in chains of myelin sheaths connected by bridges consisting of thin cytoplasmic processes that provide&nbsp...

nature.com

Incredibly proud of this paper led by @ossamaghenissa.bsky.social and @mathiasgua.bsky.social titled Basolateral 'Amygdala Astrocytes Encode Anxiety States'. www.cell.com/neuron/fullt... 🧵 below

Basolateral amygdala astrocytes encode anxiety states

Ghenissa et al. provide evidence that basolateral amygdala astrocytes reliably encode anxiety states. Using simultaneous in vivo calcium recordings across an array of behavioral tasks, combined with g...

cell.com

Registration for the @canacn.bsky.social 2026 Neural Circuits and Behaviour satellite meeting is now live! Looking forward to hosting this event with @franklandlab.bsky.social again, and we're looking to have 4 trainee talks as part of the satellite. Register at www.eventbrite.com/e/1984146883...

Neural Circuits and Behaviour CAN 2026 Satellite Meeting

The third-annual CAN satellite event, bringing together Canadian neuroscientists studying circuits and behaviour.

eventbrite.com

Very excited to share that I’m starting my lab at the Krembil Brain Institute @kbi-uhn.bsky.social at UHN and the University of Toronto! If you’re interested in motor learning and circuit plasticity, please reach out - we are hiring! www.motor-plasticity.org 1/

Roth Lab

Welcome! We study the synaptic and circuit bases for motor control and motor learning. The brain’s ability to learn and form new memories relies on the precise reorganization of neuronal circuits, inv...

motor-plasticity.org

Super stoked to share that I’m starting my lab at UHN @dkjei-uhn.bsky.social / @kbi-uhn.bsky.social and the University of Toronto! If you’re interested in neuron-myelin interactions in circuit maturation and cognition, please reach out - we are hiring! www.oligodendrocyte.org 1/

Xin Lab

Welcome! We study the cellular interactions between neurons and oligodendrocytes, which produce myelin in the central nervous system. Myelination - the process by which oligodendrocytes ensheath neuro...

oligodendrocyte.org