This month’s featured researcher is Jeff Podos. His lab studies bird communication in the lab and in the field. Together with graduate student, Katie Schroeder, he recently published a paper in Science Magazine titled, “Ecological speciation in Darwin’s finches: Ghosts of finches future“. Darwin’s finches are famous for the adaptations of their beaks to different foraging niches. Podos and Schroeder present a model that supports the idea that the acoustic structure of their songs were affected by ecological factors such as droughts. The model predicts speciation based on acoustic recognition of songs.
Here’s what else is new for ‘ ”University of Massachusetts” AND Amherst AND neuroscience’ in PubMed. These publications appeared online in September and October. They are just a fraction of the neuroscience research that occurs on campus. You can click on the PubMed ID to find the publication.
1: Matias AA, Serviente CF, Decker ST, Erol ME, Giuriato G, Le Fur Y, Nagarajan R, Bendahan D, Layec G. Repeatability of alkaline inorganic phosphate quantification in the skeletal muscle using 31P-magnetic resonance spectroscopy at 3 T. NMR Biomed. 2024 Sep 3:e5255. doi: 10.1002/nbm.5255. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 39225116.
2: Stebbins K, Somaiya RD, Sabbagh U, Khaksar P, Liang Y, Su J, Fox MA. Retinal Input Is Required for the Maintenance of Neuronal Laminae in the Ventrolateral Geniculate Nucleus. eNeuro. 2024 Sep 3;11(9):ENEURO.0022-24.2024. doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0022-24.2024. PMID: 39160068; PMCID: PMC11373735.
3: Katz PS. Circuits and the single neuron. J Neurophysiol. 2024 Sep 1;132(3):765-766. doi: 10.1152/jn.00312.2024. Epub 2024 Jul 31. PMID: 39081212.
4: Wang L, Mirabella VR, Dai R, Su X, Xu R, Jadali A, Bernabucci M, Singh I, Chen Y, Tian J, Jiang P, Kwan KY, Pak C, Liu C, Comoletti D, Hart RP, Chen C, Südhof TC, Pang ZP. Analyses of the autism-associated neuroligin-3 R451C mutation in human neurons reveal a gain-of-function synaptic mechanism. Mol Psychiatry. 2024 Jun;29(6):1620-1635. doi: 10.1038/s41380-022-01834-x. Epub 2022 Oct 24. PMID: 36280753; PMCID: PMC10123180.
5: Nippert KE, Rowland CP, Vazey EM, Moorman DE. Alcohol, flexible behavior, and the prefrontal cortex: Functional changes underlying impaired cognitive flexibility. Neuropharmacology. 2024 Dec 1;260:110114. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropharm.2024.110114. Epub 2024 Aug 10. PMID: 39134298.
6: Dougan CE, Roberts BL, Crosby AJ, Karatsoreos IN, Peyton SR. Short-term neural and glial response to mild traumatic brain injury in the hippocampus. Biophys J. 2024 Oct 1;123(19):3346-3354. doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2024.07.040. Epub 2024 Jul 31. PMID: 39091025; PMCID: PMC11480756.
7: Pavon N, Sun Y, Pak C. Cell type specification and diversity in subpallial organoids. Front Genet. 2024 Sep 26;15:1440583. doi: 10.3389/fgene.2024.1440583. PMID: 39391063; PMCID: PMC11465425.
8: Varnum MEW, Baumard N, Atari M, Gray K. Large Language Models based on historical text could offer informative tools for behavioral science. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 Oct 15;121(42):e2407639121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2407639121. Epub 2024 Oct 9. PMID: 39382999.
9: Folker A, Peviani KM, Deater-Deckard K, Bickel WK, Steinberg L, Casas B, Kim-Spoon J. Negative Affect, Sensation Seeking, and Adolescent Substance Use Development: The Moderating Role of Executive Function. J Youth Adolesc. 2024 Nov;53(11):2654-2668. doi: 10.1007/s10964-024-02065-9. Epub 2024 Aug 10. PMID: 39126563; PMCID: PMC11467108.
10: Spool JA, Lally AP, Remage-Healey L. Auditory pallial regulation of the social behavior network. Commun Biol. 2024 Oct 16;7(1):1336. doi: 10.1038/s42003-024-07013-8. PMID: 39414913; PMCID: PMC11484815.
11: Croteau J, Fornaciai M, Huber DE, Park J. The divisive normalization model of visual number sense: model predictions and experimental confirmation. Cereb Cortex. 2024 Oct 3;34(10):bhae418. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhae418. PMID: 39441025.