1/6 Opioids trigger a dopamine surge that can create dangerous reward associations—yet that same dopamine signal may help shape central pain perception. Can the dopamine surge and reward associations be separated? Our recent Nature study says yes www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to be joining a fantastic community of neuroscientists!

HHMI@hhmi-science.bsky.social · last yr.

Congrats to HHMI Freeman Hrabowski Scholars @channyskye.bsky.social , Josefina del Mármol (@delmarmollab.bsky.social), @yvetteefisher.bsky.social and Theanne Griffith (@doctheagrif.bsky.social), named 2025 McKnight Scholars for their demonstrated commitment to neuroscience & mentoring others! 🌟

The lab is officially up & running at Duke! 🥳 Huge thanks to @dukemedschool.bsky.social for the amazing space, & to our lab team for getting everything installed & operational within a month 😅 Excited for what’s ahead!

Happy Birthday Dick Tsien! So happy to join former labmembers in celebration. Amazing to be reminded of the breath and depth of your contribution to science - with a strong flavor of "what is the underlying mechanism" @deisseroth.bsky.social @yulonglilab.bsky.social

Honored to speak at Tsien@80—a beautiful reminder that mentorship, curiosity, and generosity leave the deepest legacy. Thank you, Dick Tsien, for welcoming me into your scientific family. Happy 80th! 🎉 #DickTsien80

As an author on the paper Vinny skewers here, I say ouch and read this.

Vinny Costa@vincentcostaphd.bsky.social · last yr.

Tool development and optimization in nonhuman primates is a lot harder than making an Excel spreadsheet.

Superb Duke piece on Alzheimer's Research: today.duke.edu/2025/04/how-...

How Public Supported Studies Bring This Researcher and Patient Closer to a Cure for Alzheimer’s | Duke Today

today.duke.edu

Over 50 yrs since the discovery of protein kinases, 80% of human kinases still have ≤20 known substrates, and many are “dark.” I'm EXCITED to announce our new work towards solving this- combining (1) deep learning with (2) proximity proteomics in vivo! ➡️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

"This is a massive loss for neuroscience,” says Cory Miller. By @avaskham.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/funding/u-s-...

U.S. BRAIN Initiative set to lose $81 million this year

A government spending bill, approved today by the House of Representatives, allocates 20 percent less funding for the program than last year.

thetransmitter.org

Still, while thrilled our 2 TTIs and 3 staff scientists were rescued, many other great scientists were terminated, incl lab and core staff

@LaBonneLaB@labonnelab.bsky.social · last yr.

Dear all, Because of your help shining light on this all 15 were reinstated today. This is a huge win for science - When We Fight We Win!!!

wtaf

Kelton Minor@keltonminor.bsky.social · last yr.

There are days in life that shake you. I’m shattered 💔 to share that I just found out that the US Government terminated my 2024 NIH Director’s Early Independence Award (~$2 million), threatening my long-promised assistant professor job at Columbia University & academic career... 1/🧵

🚨 New lab paper!🚨 A dream study of mine for nearly 20 yrs not possible until now thanks to NIH 🧠 funding & 1st-author lead @seeber.bsky.social We tracked hippocampal activity as people walked memory-guided paths & imagined them again. Did brain patterns reappear?🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Human neural dynamics of real-world and imagined navigation - Nature Human Behaviour

Seeber et al. studied brain recordings from implanted electrodes in freely moving humans. Neural dynamics encoded actual and imagined routes similarly, demonstrating parallels between navigational, im...

nature.com

Suthana et al. studied brain recordings from implanted electrodes in freely moving humans. They show that neural dynamics encoded actual and imagined routes similarly. @suthanalab.bsky.social @seeber.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Human neural dynamics of real-world and imagined navigation - Nature Human Behaviour

Seeber et al. studied brain recordings from implanted electrodes in freely moving humans. Neural dynamics encoded actual and imagined routes similarly, demonstrating parallels between navigational, im...

nature.com

apnews.com/article/trum...

Universities are facing big cuts to research funding. At Duke, it's a time for 'damage control'

Facing the potential loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding, Duke University is preparing for the worst.

apnews.com

“Why Facts Don't Work”—my talk at Winter Brain. Thanks to Joyce Woo for organizing “Synaptic Control of Mesolimbic DA Neurons” & co-presenters Tom Hnasko, Abigail Elerding, Miguel Lujan, Thomas Jhou. Sorry I missed it (thanks United!) but silver lining—here’s the recording: youtu.be/vZAZ6uCkkWI

Tadross WinterBrain

YouTube video by mtadross

youtu.be

Same with general University functions. They think that taking away the words diversity, equity, and inclusion changes things. Libs love their labels (on that I agree 😅) so banning "DEI" will make us all cry. That's really their point, as juvenile as it is. But just live DEI, be it. Can't ban that.

Anthony Hessel, PhD@hesselanthony.bsky.social · 2y ago

To all us NIH grant holders: we must prioritize diversity ideals, even if the current goverment doesn't. Double down on making STEM open to all. We hold the dollars so we still have power. Never forget that you are not the powerless.

Let me give a concrete example of the importance of applications with high risk-high reward as well as the role of NIH staff in taking risks. Decades ago, a physical chemist proposed ideas about doing mass spectrometry on proteins (when this was deemed probably impossible). 1/n

“Why Facts Don't Work”—my talk at Winter Brain. Thanks to Joyce Woo for organizing “Synaptic Control of Mesolimbic DA Neurons” & co-presenters Tom Hnasko, Abigail Elerding, Miguel Lujan, Thomas Jhou. Sorry I missed it (thanks United!) but silver lining—here’s the recording: youtu.be/vZAZ6uCkkWI

Tadross WinterBrain

YouTube video by mtadross

youtu.be

Tune uses epigenetic editing to control gene expression without modifying the DNA sequence itself. The startup's technology is based on research from Tune co-founder and Duke BME Professor Charles Gersbach.

Seattle biotech startup Tune Therapeutics lands $175M to support clinical research

Tune Therapeutics' co-founders, from left: Akira Matsuno, chief financial officer; Charles Gersbach; and Fyodor Urnov, who also serves on the startup's

geekwire.com

Received bad news about Carl Olson. Sad to hear that he passed away. Carl was a major influence on my early years as an Assistant Prof, with our labs down the hall from each other. He was a highly rigorous neurophysiologist, with a wry sense of humor. Please see attached images for more info.

More catchup :) 2 bioRxiv preprints related to our goals of mapping and modeling entire brains: Dense Continuous Membrane Labeling and Expansion Microscopy..., synthneuro.org/publications... Scaling Properties for Artificial Neural Network Models of Entire C. elegans, synthneuro.org/publications...