Here’s what else is new for ‘ ”University of Massachusetts” AND Amherst AND neuroscience’ in PubMed. These publications appeared online in 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.
UMass neuroscientists are presenting their research at the Society for Neuroscience Conference in San Diego. Here is a list of titles and authors for those presentations. Click on the number to read the abstract.
028.15. Synaptic protein levels and physiological activity in primary cortical neurons are influenced by time of day. J. WANG, B. L. ROBERTS, I. N. KARATSOREOS;
031.02. Neuronal cell type mapping in the ring and rhinophore ganglia of a gastropod mollusc using single cell transcriptomics M. D. RAMIREZ, T. N. BUI, P. S. KATZ
094.07. LC-NE regulation of goal directed behaviours E. M. Vazey Mini symposium talk
185.15. Quantitative assessments of neurodevelopmental disorders using deep learning and systems neuroscience techniques K. DOCTOR, D. WU, A. PHADIS, J. NURNBERGER, Jr, M. PLAWECKI, J. V. JOSE
209.01. Structure and organization of the olfactory system in the mollusc Berghia stephanieae C. C. TAIT, M. D. RAMIREZ, P. S. KATZ
209.02. A connectomics approach to an enigmatic ganglion in a gastropod mollusc H. H. SANT, B. D. DRESCHER, Y. MEIROVITCH, R. SCHALEK, Y. WU, J. LICHTMAN, P. S. KATZ
224.02. Sex differences in adrenergic ?1 regulation of reinforcement behavior E. M. RODBERG, S. Y. YU, E. M. VAZEY
291.10. Sensory Neuron Dysfunction in Orthotopic Mouse Models of Colon Cancer C. GAFFNEY, M. BALOGH, J. ZHANG, N. KALAKUNTLA, N. T. NGUYEN, R. T. TRINH, C. AGUILAR, H. V. PHAM, B. MILUTINOVIC, J. M. NICHOLS, R. MAHALINGAM, A. J. SHEPHERD;MD Anderson
309.11. Circadian desynchronization-induced metabolic disorder is ameliorated by endocannabinoid receptor knockout, without change in feeding or activity B. FALCY, G. L. PEARSON, T. L. LEISE, I. N. KARATSOREOS
386.06. The Chilean brush tailed mouse (Octodon degus): a diurnal precocial rodent as a new model to study visual receptive field properties of superior colliculus neurons. N. I. MÁRQUEZ, P. FERNÁNDEZ?ABURTO, A. R. DEICHLER, I. PERALES, J.-C. LETELIER, G. J. MARÍN, J. MPODOZIS, S. L. PALLAS
445.08. Accelerated aging process with neurodegeneration in the cerebral cortex of cognitively impaired aged marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) C. FREIRE-COBO, E. ROTHWELL, M. VARGHESE, W. G. M. JANSSEN, A. LACREUSE, P. R. HOF
468.17. The Contribution of 5-HT1A/2AReceptors and GABAergic Neurons of the Pedunculopontine Tegmental Area to Sensorimotor Gating E. CORRELL, G. CASTELLANO, K. FENELON
468.18. Spatiotemporal identification of amygdala neurons active during sensorimotor gating W. HUANG, K. FÉNELON
478.02. Selective recruitment of offspring-responsive medial preoptic area networks modulates caregiving behavior attuned to the needs of offspring K. COPELAS, N. CELESTIN, M. PEREIRA
478.05. Chemogenetic activation of the medial preoptic area ameliorates deficits in maternal motivation in the wistar-kyoto rat model of depression A. A. ANDERSON, M. P. HESTER, M. PEREIRA
478.11. Neuroestrogen regulation of inhibitory synaptic transmission in genetically-identified auditory neurons H. KANG, Y. YAZAKI-SUGIYAMA, Y. MOROHASHI, L. REMAGE-HEALEY
487.08. EEG bifurcation dynamics in the absence of report in a visual masking paradigm C. DEMBSKI, K. ORTEGO, C. STEINHILBER, M. COHEN, M. PITTS
543.09. Characterizing a Circuit Linking Auditory Pallium and the Social Behavior Network J. A. SPOOL, A. LALLY, P. CHEN, L. REMAGE-HEALEY
645.16. Topographic, network-level organization of response profiles in the songbird auditory forebrain. F. A. CINI, L. REMAGE-HEALEY
647.07. Neuroimmune activation of the olfactory bulb is regulated by time of day G. PEARSON, B. FALCY, J. WANG, S. AKLI, I. KARATSOREOS
657.01. Where do I remember this? Recognition memory for low-level visual stimuli. N. DE LA ROSA-RIVERA, D. E. HUBER, R. A. COWELL
662.14. Explicit exploration during virtual throwing and skill transfer to a real-world task in healthy children and young adults M. CHENG, M. E. HUBER, M. SADEGHI, L. CHUKOSKIE, D. STERNAD, D. LEVAC
752.07. Material Engineering Toolset for Neurological Interfaces S. RAO
For over 25 years, this distinguished award has paid tribute to a more advanced doctoral student in the NSB PhD program, honoring academic performance, research performance, and contributions that enhance the quality of the NSB program. Wayne continually sets a new bar for quality and rigor for his science. Wayne’s latest publication in Genetics titled “The GABAA ? subunit control of hyperactive behavior in developing zebrafish.” This paper describes a set of eloquent studies that used a multiplex CRISPR-Cas9 somatic mutation approach to screen for hyperactivity phenotypes linked to GABAergic alpha subunit mutations. Wayne discovered that a3 and a5 subunits regulate distinct aspects of zebrafish swimming behavior, which are important steps to identify circuit mechanisms of how GABA controls locomotion.
Genetics issue with Wayne’s work on the cover.
The value of this work and Wayne’s keen talent in putting together beautiful scientific illustrations was recognized when it was chosen for the cover of an issue of Genetics as well!
During his years as NSB president, Wayne made focusing on awareness and education of diversity and inclusion within NSB and the other Interdepartmental Graduate Programs one of his top priorities. Notably, his leadership and impact go well beyond NSB, as was evident with his role in spearheading and promoting the widely endorsed petition to our Chancellor to address inequality and racism in our university and community. As one of his nominators said so perfectly about Wayne, “he models for all of us a patient yet persistent approach that brings people into this awareness, into conversations, and into actions.” Finally, on top of all these achievements, Wayne was also praised for his stellar teaching skills in the classroom and mentoring of undergraduate students in the Downes lab.
This award is designated for a 1st or 2nd year student in the NSB PhD program showing excellence in academics, research, and/or outreach. Madison’s service to the University has been invaluable, through her roles on various high-level committees at the College and Departmental level, as well as in the NSB program. According to one nominator, “Madison simply does it all, and she does it well!”. She got As in all of her classes in her 1st two years, she was nominated for a distinguished teaching award for her work as a TA, and has mentored or is actively mentoring 5 undergraduate and postbaccalaureate students in the Downes lab. Her research productivity is excellent, and she has a coauthored paper in press with another on the way out the door.
The Golden Neuron Award celebrates an exciting new finding from any PhD or MA student in the NSB program. The finding must have been published or presented at a conference within the last year. Joe used viral circuit mapping and whole brain imaging and found over 50 brain regions that synapse onto aromatase neurons in the medial amygdala. The breadth of these connections is exciting and suggests these pathways are tying social behavior states like mating to states relating to stress, parenting, social recognition, and aggression. The paper associated with these findings was published in eNeuro in 2022, titled “Brain-Wide Synaptic Inputs to Aromatase-Expressing Neurons in the Medial Amygdala Suggest Complex Circuitry for Modulating Social Behavior.”
This month’s featured researcher is Sara A.M. Holec. Dr. Holec is a postdoctoral associate in Dr. Amanda Woerman’s lab in the Department of Biology and Institute of Applied Life Sciences. Sara earned her PhD in 2019 at Creighton University and joined Dr. Woerman’s lab in 2020. She is interested in studying ?-synuclein prion strains and understanding how these differences contribute to human disease. Dr. Holec is the first author on a paper that appeared in Acta Neuropathologica this month that was a collaboration with Nobel Laureate Stanley Prusiner, titled “Multiple system atrophy prions transmit neurological disease to mice expressing wild-type human ?-synuclein.” They show that six different MSA patient samples transmit neurological disease and induce ?-synuclein prion formation in mice expressing wild-type human ?-synuclein. This paper helps validate the use of mice for the study of human prion diseases.
1: Holec SAM, Lee J, Oehler A, Ooi FK, Mordes DA, Olson SH, Prusiner SB, Woerman AL. Multiple system atrophy prions transmit neurological disease to mice expressing wild-type human ?-synuclein. Acta Neuropathol. 2022 Oct;144(4):677-690. doi: 10.1007/s00401-022-02476-7. Epub 2022 Aug 26. PMID: 36018376.
Here’s what else is new for ‘ ”University of Massachusetts” AND Amherst AND neuroscience’ in PubMed. These publications appeared online in September. They are just a fraction of the neuroscience research that occurs on campus. You can click on the PubMed ID to find the publication.
The semester is now in full swim and we have exciting plans for the coming academic year. Based on a series of faculty forums held last year, we identified neuroscience and women’s health and well-being as a major strength at UMass. We will use this theme as the focus of the Interdisciplinary Neurosciences Conference to be held in the spring of 2023.
This summer, I attended my first off campus in-person conference since the start of the pandemic. It was so much more rewarding to be in an audience of real people instead of staring at a screen. I got to meet people and make new contacts. One of those contacts, will be our next IONs Distinguished Lecture, Dr. Venessa Ruta from the Rockefeller University. She examines the neural basis of complex behaviors of the fruit fly. On November 9th, we will hold a Neuroscience poster preview session in conjunction with her talk. This will be your opportunity to practice presenting your poster for the Society for Neuroscience Conference or to see the amazing work that will presented at this conference without having to travel to San Diego.
This month’s featured researcher is Katherine Dixon-Gordon. Dr. Dixon-Gordon is an associate professor in the Clincal Program in the Department Psychological & Brain Sciences. She directs the Clinical Affective Science lab, whose mission is to harness innovative research methods to advance our understanding of emotional suffering and intentional self-injury and improve evidence-based, compassionate, and accessible treatments. She received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Simon Fraser University and she completed her residency and did clinical work at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Dr. Dixon-Gordon is a board certified Dielectic Behavioral Therapy Trainer at Behavioral Tech LLC. She directs the DBT Program in the Psychological Services Center at UMass. She co-authored a paper in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, titled, “The Effectiveness of 6 versus 12 Months of Dialectical Behavior Therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder: A Noninferiority Randomized Clinical Trial“, which recently appeared in PubMed.
Here’s what else is new for ‘ ”University of Massachusetts” AND Amherst AND neuroscience’ in PubMed. These publications appeared online this summer. They are just a fraction of the neuroscience research that occurs on campus. You can click on the PubMed ID to find the publication.
The Interdisciplinary Neurosciences Conference that we held in person last week was a great success. We had over 100 people register. The talks and posters generated a lot of discussion. This week we are continuing the theme of Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence with two hands-on workshops to learn how to use MATLAB to apply Machine Learning techniques to neuroscience data. We are also pleased to announce the recipients of the Inspiration Awards. These graduate students and postdocs truly are inspirations in how they are working across neuroscience, engineering, and computer science in innovative and creative ways. Please take a moment to look at the projects that they proposed. My hope is that these trainees will help lead UMass to the next level of neuroscience research that is truly interdisciplinary.
This month’s featured researcher in Michael Barresi, who is a Professor of Biological Sciences at Smith College. His lab studies neural and glial development in zebrafish. Michael received his PhD as Wesleyan University and did postdoctoral research in Rolf Karlstrom’s lab at UMass, before joining the faculty at Smith College. He has a recent publication in the journal, Developmental Neurobiology that provides a comprehensive account of the cells that correlate with the timing and position of commissural axon pathfinding in the early forebrain that may be necessary for proper commissure development.
Here’s what else is new for ‘ ”University of Massachusetts” AND Amherst AND neuroscience’ in PubMed. These publications appeared online in May. They are just a fraction of the neuroscience research that occurs on campus. You can click on the PubMed ID to find the publication.
I’m excited that we will be holding the first in-person UMass Interdisciplinary Neurosciences Conference in three years on Thursday, May 26th in the Student Union Ballroom. We have two outstanding keynote speakers, Irina Rish and Tatyana Sharpee who each approach the intersection of Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence from different angles. In addition, we will have five UMass speakers and over 30 posters from researchers at UMass. The merging of the fields of biological and machine learning is an exciting new direction.
We had a great response to our call for Inspiration Award proposals. We received twenty proposals from graduate students and postdocs in ten departments across four colleges for research projects at the interface of neuroscience and either engineering or computer sciences. We will announce the winners of the awards at the Interdisciplinary Neurosciences Conference.
I am also excited to announce that we will be hosting a two-part hands-on workshop by MathWorks on Thursday June 2nd to help researchers use MATLAB to apply Machine Learning to data analysis. We will have a listen and learn informational session on Thursday May 26th at 11am just before the Interdisciplinary Neurosciences Conference.
I’m looking forward to seeing all of you later this month.
Here’s what else is new for ‘ ”University of Massachusetts” AND Amherst AND neuroscience’ in PubMed. These publications appeared online in April. They are just a fraction of the neuroscience research that occurs on campus. You can click on the PubMed ID to find the publication.
We had a great response to the IONs Inspiration Award Competition. We received twenty applications from students and postdocs in seven departments across three colleges. We have assembled a panel of reviewers and will announce the winners next month.
Don’t forget to register to present a poster at this year’s UMass Interdisciplinary Neurosciences Conference. The deadline for registration is April 22nd. The conference will take place on Thursday May 26th. We have two outstanding keynote speakers as well as UMass speakers.
We are planning to host a workshop prior to the conference on the use of MATLAB for AI analysis. We could still use your input to help shape that workshop. Please fill out this brief survey to let us know what you would like to get out of the workshop.
If you missed Friday’s April Fools Day announcement, check out it out here. Don’t miss the SpongeBob SquarePants reference.
This month’s Featured Researcher, Youngbin Kwak, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Youngbin is interested in the brain mechanisms that can bias decision-making in humans. Her lab has an upcoming paper in the journal Cortex that appeared PubMed recently showing changes in brain waves that corresponded to when subjects expected a larger reward when executing a movement.
Here’s what else is new for ‘ ”University of Massachusetts” AND Amherst AND neuroscience’ in PubMed. These publications appeared online in March. They are just a fraction of the neuroscience research that occurs on campus. You can click on the PubMed ID to find the publication.
Brennan Falcy, an NSB graduate student in Ilia Karatsoreos’s lab, was awarded a prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF). The award aims to fund research that demonstrates rigorous intellectual merit as well as the potential for broader impacts for our society.
Brennan graduated with a B.S. in Neuroscience from UCLA in 2018. He came to UMass to work with Ilia Karatsoreos, where he could apply his neuroscience background to ask questions related to circadian biology and cellular metabolism. Brennan’s proposed research aims to study the dynamic interactions of astrocytes and neurons over the circadian period. Neurons exhibit 24-hour rhythmic fluctuations in excitability. Brennan will test the hypothesis that this phenomenon originates from rhythmic astrocytic input of redox-buffering metabolites. He will perform electrophysiology on cultured neurons and record the response of neurons to oxidative challenges in the presence and absence of astrocytes at different times of day. Brain activity – from the cellular level to the network level – is rhythmic across the 24-hour period. Uncovering how neuronal function is influenced, for example by astrocytes, is critical to understanding emergent functions such as cognition. Further, discovering how brain cell function changes over the circadian period has implications for time-of-day phenomena, such as sleep or susceptibility to injury.
As a former undergraduate transfer student himself, he works to help demystify grad school to undergraduate transfer students. In his free time he enjoys running and exploring the outdoors of New England. On behalf of IONs and NSB, congratulations, Brennan!
04/01/2022. UMass neuroscientists announced today that they had discovered the source of human consciousness. Lead researcher, Arby Jenkins said, “It’s really surprising because it has been staring us in the face all these years and somehow nobody every noticed.”
Looking for the seat of consciousness.
It turned out people were looking in all the wrong places. “Years ago, Crick had proposed that the habenula was the seat of consciousness, but he was basically too deep.”, said Jenkins, who is known for superficiality.
I am very excited to announce that after a two year hiatus we will once again host the Interdisciplinary Neurosciences Conference. This year, the talks will be focused on the interface between Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence. There will be two outside speakers and five UMass faculty speakers. In addition, as before, we will have an evening poster session. UMass has a historical strength in reinforcement learning. This conference will be a chance for Neuroscientists, Computer Scientists, and Engineers to learn from each other. The conference also dovetails with the IONs Inspiration Awards for Neuroscience & Technology, which is an opportunity for UMass graduate students and postdocs to receive funding for research proposals that use new technology or employ existing methodologies in new ways to address problems in neuroscience or problems inspired by neuroscience. The deadline for application is March 25th.
