Ciarán Murphy-Royal
@murphyroyallab.org
Glia-neuron interactions - Astrocytes, Synapses, Behaviour, & Stress Principal Investigator, CRCHUM Associate Professor Dept. Neuroscience Université de Montréal www.murphyroyallab.org
Super fun symposium at Neuro2026 Kobe discussing ‘Adaptive glia: from homeostasis to allostasis under stress’ with Micheal Wheeler, @cate-cholamine.bsky.social , Josselyn Soto, @junnagai.bsky.social and myself! Such a fascinating and innovative field!
After a busy week in Nagoya at the Neuroendocrinology meeting, both @mathiasgua.bsky.social & @ossamaghenissa.bsky.social made the lab proud, presenting at the Japanese Neuroscience society meeting (Neuro2026) in Kobe
Pain avoidance can protect us, but in chronic pain, it can become part of the problem. Our new collaborative study reveals altered pain-avoidance learning in CRPS, linked to anxiety and reduced prefrontal alpha activity. doi.org/10.1002/ejp.... #CRPS #PainResearch @crchum.bsky.social
Excellent overview of our recent publication in Neuron by Xinzhu Yu and Bal Khakh ! www.cell.com/neuron/abstr...
Amygdala astrocytes encode anxiety states
In this issue of Neuron, Ghenissa and colleagues1 show that intracellular Ca2+ signaling within populations of astrocytes in the basolateral amygdala of mice encodes anxiety states that are regulated ...
cell.com
It was lovely to see Thomas Papouin at #FENS2026. Thomas presented a really exciting story and it was lovely to catch up! He's such a star ✨ @papouinlab.bsky.social
The social event of the European Glial Cells Network was a fantastic opportunity to meet, connect, and exchange ideas with fellow glial cell researchers over delicious tapas 🥘, refreshing beers 🍻, and authentic sangria 🍷. Great conversations, new connections, and a wonderful atmosphere! 🧠✨ #FENSGlia
Excellent symposium on glial cell sex differences at #FENS2026! A great reminder that sex is a critical biological variable in neuroscience. Thanks to Kerstin Lenk, Julia Schulze-Hentrich, @murphyroyallab.org and @dibenedetto-lab.bsky.social for the inspiring talks! #FENSGlia #Astrocytes
Delighted to see @lewisholt.bsky.social receive this prestigious recognition for all his hard work in the lab! 💪
Canadian Association for Neuroscience@canacn.bsky.social · last mo.Research led by Lewis Depaauw-Holt shows brain cells called astrocytes play key roles in sex-specific changes in brain and behaviour caused by early-life stress - can-acn.org/brain-star-a...
I'm looking to hire a research technician/lab manager. This role is ideal for someone looking to gain experience and independence after undergraduate research on their way to graduate school. Please encourage anyone interested to apply: hr.myu.umn.edu/jobs/ext/374... (job code 374183)
Careers
The Fraser Lab at the University of Minnesota (https://fraserlab.psych.umn.edu/) is recruiting a full-time research technician to support the lab. As a part of the Department of Psychology we are involved in the greater neuroscience research community at the University of Minnesota which provides excellent access to training and professional development. The Fraser Lab is interested in the neurobiological basis of motivated behavior and investigates how defined brain circuits contribute to behavioral regulation. We make use of modern neuroscience approaches to record and manipulate neural activity in real-time as rodents perform complex behavioral tasks to relate precise aspects of neural activity to well-defined psychological processes. To do so, we regularly use optogenetics, chemogenetics, calcium imaging, biosensors, pharmacology, and immunohistochemistry. Our ultimate goal is to decipher the neural mechanisms regulating behavior and to characterize how these are altered in psychiatric illness, such as addiction, or by differences in lived experience, such as after early life adversity, to potentially identify novel therapeutics. We seek a team member who can play a lead role in lab operations, collaborate closely with the PI, and engage in team-building and growth.Duties:Laboratory logistics, maintenance and operations (30%):
hr.myu.umn.edu
www.journaldemontreal.com/2026/06/16/3...
Pour étudier l'alzheimer, le suicide et la dépression: 3800 cerveaux conservés dans une banque à Montréal
La plus grande banque de cerveaux au Canada permet des études sur l’alzheimer, le parkinson, mais aussi le suicide et la dépression majeure.
journaldemontreal.com
Great initiative from Marie-Josette de Medeiros (PhD student) who invited a group of local high-school students to spend a day seeing what being a scientist is all about ! Most have never visited a lab, so it’ll be interesting to hear their opinions by the end of the day.
🧠 New preprint from our lab! #Hippocampal #astrocytes actively contribute to: 👉 the encoding of #context-specific #aversive stimuli 👉 predict #recall of #fear #behavior. @icvs-uminho.bsky.social @caixaresearch.bsky.social #PTglia
bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 2mo agoHippocampal astrocytes contribute to encoding context-specific aversive stimuli to regulate fear-related behavior https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.22.727208v1
Great turnout for the career networking session this afternoon at @canacn.bsky.social ! Huge thanks to all the participants for making it great!
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
Lots of great feedback on some of the lab work I shared today at CANGlia. Thanks to all the organisers for putting on such a fantastic meeting!
CANGlia@canglia.bsky.social · 3mo agoDr. Murphy-Royal closing out our symposium today with a great talk about early life stress and #astrocytes!!
@mathiasgua.bsky.social doing the lab proud at @canglia.bsky.social meeting in the @theneuro.bsky.social
Such a great list of up and coming stars in Canadian neuroscience including former student from our lab @lewisholt.bsky.social !
Canadian Association for Neuroscience@canacn.bsky.social · 3mo agoCAN and CIHR-INMHA are very proud to announce the winners of the 2025 Brain Star awards. See all their profiles here: can-acn.org/congratulati...
Congrats to @maxlevinson.bsky.social for pulling this off in the middle of 2020's lockdown and the shortage of liquid helium in 🇨🇦. Grateful to our 🇬🇧 colleagues who saved us with grace and wit and more.
Max Levinson@maxlevinson.bsky.social · 3mo agoNEW PAPER🚨👀 in Science Advances with a wonderful transatlantic team. (incl @sylvainbaillet.bsky.social @olejensen.bsky.social @katduecker.bsky.social) Using human MEG, we found lower-order and higher-order neural processes that underlie illusory transitions in conscious visual perception. 🧵👇
Not long left til the @canacn.bsky.social annual meeting in Montreal! I'm excited for the Career Networking event that I am hosting with @lohmanaw.bsky.social We'll give you a free lunch and a chance to sit down with people from all different career trajectories! 👇 can-acn.org/meeting-2026...
Career Networking event – Canadian Association for Neuroscience
can-acn.org
Sharing the latest from the lab. Led by Yunlong Liu, this work explores how microglia and engram neurons interact during fear extinction in the hippocampus. rdcu.be/fgNH7
Microglia-dependent regulation of fear memory extinction
Nature Neuroscience - Liu et al. show in mice that microglia are recruited to the soma and dendritic processes of fear engram neurons during extinction learning and that they weaken fear memories...
rdcu.be
Incredibly proud of both @mathiasgua.bsky.social and @ossamaghenissa.bsky.social who were both offered doctoral fellowships from @fondsrechercheqc.bsky.social !! 🥳🥳 It’s been a terrific year for the lads 💪(photo from past summer in France)
Anyone who has seen me talk lately knows that i have a fascination with Taylor Swift. I was introduced to her music by my daughter & her friends. So when @sfn.org asked me to write a review... Engrams and Memory: My Scientific "Eras Tour" www.jneurosci.org/content/jneu...
Astrocytes do so much more than any of us thought - they even communicate among specific brain regions across hemispheres! The journey to this paper spanned nearly a decade, but I'm most excited to see what everyone else does with the tools we've built. There's so much for all of us to explore!
Astrocytes connect specific brain regions through plastic networks - Nature
Communication between distant brain regions is mediated by plastic networks of gap junction-coupled astrocytes.
nature.com
Proud to share an overview of the CAN Hill Day which took place last week - engaging with Parliamentarians and civil servants to highlight the important work neuroscientists do for Canada and the importance of government support for Canadian Research. can-acn.org/can-parliame...
CAN Parliament Hill Day 2026 – Canadian Association for Neuroscience
Canadian Association for Neuroscience
can-acn.org
Really fun session on astrocytes and behaviour organized by @papouinlab.bsky.social at the American Society of Neurochemistry meeting in St Charles With @olsenlab-vt.bsky.social , Grant Gordon, Xinzhu Yu, and myself
Very nice manuscript from @papouinlab.bsky.social ! Take a look at the figures 🤩 Great timing as I catch a flight to see Thomas at the American Society for Neurochemostry meeting
bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 4mo agoAstrocytes mediate the pro-cognitive value of α7nAChRs and of α7nAChR-targeting therapeutics https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.16.719027v1
