This month’s featured researcher is Joseph Bergan. Joe is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences. His lab examines neural circuits underlying social behaviors in rodents. His latest publication to appear in PubMed was published in the journal eNeuro and looks at sex-specific synaptic connections in the medial amygdala. They found anatomical differences in aromatase-expressing circuits that underlie sex-differences in response to social stimuli.

Here’s what else is new for ‘ ”University of Massachusetts” AND Amherst AND neuroscience’ in PubMed. These publications appeared on line in June. They are just a fraction of the research that occurs on campus. You can click on the PubMed ID to find the publication.

1: Bauernfeind AL, Babbitt CC. Genetic diversity underlying behavioral plasticity in human adaptation. Prog Brain Res. 2019;250:41-58. doi: 10.1016/bs.pbr.2019.06.002. Epub 2019 Jul 23. Review. PubMed PMID: 31703908.

2: Sakurai A, Katz PS. Command or Obey? Homologous Neurons Differ in Hierarchical Position for the Generation of Homologous Behaviors. J Neurosci. 2019 Aug 14;39(33):6460-6471. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3229-18.2019. Epub 2019 Jun 17. PubMed PMID: 31209170; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6697393.

3: Billing A, Henrique Correia M, Kelly DA, Li GL, Bergan JF. Synaptic Connections of Aromatase Circuits in the Medial Amygdala Are Sex Specific. eNeuro. 2020 Jun 26;7(3). pii: ENEURO.0489-19.2020. doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0489-19.2020. Print 2020 May/Jun. PubMed PMID: 32471845.

4: Velez-Perez A, Holder MK, Fountain S, Blaustein JD. Estradiol increases microglial response to lipopolysaccharide in the ventromedial hypothalamus during the peripubertal sensitive period in female mice. eNeuro. 2020 Jun 18. pii: ENEURO.0505-19.2020. doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0505-19.2020. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 32554430.

5: Huber DE, Potter KW, Huszar LD. Less “story” and more “reliability” in cognitive neuroscience. Cortex. 2019 Apr;113:347-349. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2018.10.030. Epub 2018 Dec 25. PubMed PMID: 30638584; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6702667.