Opioid addiction vs. sugar addiction: Mesocorticolimbic stimulation controls motivation for remifentanil or alternative reward https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.12.758585v1

A Mechanistic Theory Unifying Value and Schema in the Prefrontal Cortex https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.17.759791v1

Our paper is out! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Chemogenetic inhibition of the ventrolateral orbitofrontal cortex disrupts novelty-guided updating of spatial memories and alters hippocampal engram reactivation - Psychopharmacology

Rationale Adaptive behavior requires revising memories when outcomes deviate from expectations. The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is implicated in representing outcome expectancies, but its role in memor...

link.springer.com

Distinct amygdala-striatal and amygdala-cortical circuits encode and retrieve predictive learning to guide choice and decision-making https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.12.758667v1

Very excited to share our new preprint. We identify the basolateral amygdala dopamine system as an important interface between dynamic shifts in the environment and decisions to engage in vigorous drug use. Really challenging studies led brilliantly by Dr. Megan Brickner.

The basolateral amygdala dopamine system shapes dynamic drug seeking states

Drug-associated sensory cues and contexts exert powerful influence over drug seeking motivation, but in vivo brain mechanisms governing this process remain unclear. Here, we recorded and manipulated d...

biorxiv.org

Our department seeks a teaching professor for neuroscience courses. If interested apply here jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...

For those interested in a neuroscience PhD - the University of Minnesota Graduate Program in Neuroscience www.neuroscience.umn.edu is hosting a virtual open house event on Oct. 26th. Learn about the program and meet students and faculty! Register here: forms.gle/CXRLvz2EGPwG...

Chronic semaglutide treatment attenuates cue-induced reinstatement of cocaine-seeking and cocaine-induced stereotypy in male and female rats https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.21.753157v1

📣 Assistant Professor of Teaching in Neuroscience at UCLA! ☀️ 🧠 Apply before Nov 9th recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF11315

Assistant Professor of Teaching in Neuroscience in the UCLA Department of Psychology and Undergraduate Neuroscience Interdepartmental Program

University of California, Los Angeles is hiring. Apply now!

recruit.apo.ucla.edu

🚨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

Our new investigation examining how #SBI-553 a biased modulator of NTSR1 alters motivated feeding and NST potentiation of inhibitory transmission in the extended amygdala is now online! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🚨 new work from the lab! "Dissociable cortical-hippocampal dopamine dynamics support memory-guided behavior" by @albitc.bsky.social et al. congratulations whole-heartedly to the team and we're excited to hear everyone's thoughts on the work! 👇🏽 www.cell.com/current-biol...

Pavlovian conditioned approach with different reward magnitudes reveals opposing effects of acute and chronic semaglutide treatment https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.08.750149v1

I’m on the faculty job market this fall! 🐦🧠 I’m an NIH K99/R00 awardee studying how the brain learns complex skills, using birdsong to connect molecules, synapses, circuits, behavior & computation. Know of a search where I might fit? Please send it my way & share!

Drew Schreiner, Ph.D. | Neuroscience of Learning

I use birdsong to understand how the brain learns complex skills across molecules, synapses, circuits, behavior, and computation. On the 2026–27 faculty job market.

drewschreiner.github.io

New lab preprint! OFC—>M2 in rule selection. Project led by the amazing @margole.bsky.social

Margo Le@margole.bsky.social · 2mo ago

New preprint! 🧠🐭🔬 Reward-predictive cues can bias action selection, but can they also influence the *rules* we use to complete a sequence of actions? sPRInT through this thread to find out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

My lab is looking for a new postdoc (or exceptional grad student) to tackle an interesting hypothesis on Parkinson's disease and learning. The position is funded and we are looking for someone that can start ASAP. See thread, and please follow these instructions to apply: www.kmcostalab.com/join-us

K.M. Costa Lab - Join us

Join

kmcostalab.com

My behavioral neuroscience lab at Northeastern is looking to recruit two new research techs! Job description and link to apply is here: northeastern.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/careers/job/...

Congrats @jespass.bsky.social on her new paper! PFC is widely thought to talk to HPC via nucleus reuniens - but no one has tested if this actual connectivity exists. Turns out it's wired to block it: PFC inputs to reuniens contact only neurons projecting back to PFC, not ones projecting to HPC. 🧪🧠📈

Nucleus reuniens is organised as parallel circuits rather than a prefrontal-hippocampal relay

Interactions between the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus (HPC) are crucial for flexible and memory guided behaviour. Because there are no direct projections from PFC to HPC, it is widely presu...

biorxiv.org

Thanks @rudebecklab.bsky.social and @realdiehllab.bsky.social for chairing a fantastic GRC Frontal Cortex! Lasting impact and inspiration 🫶🏼

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

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

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 · 3mo 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 · 3mo 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

🧠🧬 What are the effects of intravenous fentanyl self-administration on the habenula and amygdala transcriptomes? In our new Addiction Biology paper, we addressed this question using a chronic long-access model in rats! Here are some highlights 🧵👇 Paper 👉 dx.doi.org/10.1111/adb....

Transcriptional Response to Chronic Long‐Access Fentanyl Self‐Administration in Rat Habenula and Amygdala

Chronic intravenous long-access fentanyl self-administration in rats produced transcriptional remodeling in the habenula and amygdala. Bulk RNA-sequencing identified 453 habenula and 3,041 amygdala d...

dx.doi.org

How does the brain represent the value of knowledge? In our paper--out now at Nature Neuroscience--we identify a representation of intrinsic information value within neural population structures in the orbitofrontal cortex in mice. www.nature.com/articles/s41593-026-02377-y #neuroskyence 🧠🧪 (1/8)

Representations of the intrinsic value of information in mouse orbitofrontal cortex - Nature Neuroscience

Mice are motivated to seek information of no extrinsic value. Recording neural activity in orbitofrontal cortex reveals a representation of the value of information that is distinct from the value of ...

nature.com

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

The President of OHSU Shereef Elnahal and the OHSU Board of Directors will be voting to effectively gut research and shutdown the Oregon National Primate Research Center on 7/27/2027. Public comments can be submitted here until 3PM EST today. savescienceoregon.org/contact

Dopamine and sodium appetite! Sodium appetite causes a 'sign change' in the taste of hypertonic NaCl solutions. We've previously shown that generation of the appetite recruits phasic dopamine to the taste of NaCl; here we show the 'derecruitment' process during satiation.

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

Rapidly decreasing phasic dopamine responses precede a hedonic switch during satiation of sodium appetite https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.16.738888v1

Chemogenetic Inhibition of the Ventrolateral Orbitofrontal Cortex Disrupts Prediction Error and Salience-Guided Memory-Updating at the Hippocampal Engram Level https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.16.738971v1