This month’s featured researcher is Karine Fenelon. Karine is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology. Read a wonderful profile about her life’s journey in the Stories of Women in Neuroscience. Her lab investigates the neural circuitry that underlies sensory gating. They recented publised a paper in the journal Brain Research titled, “Deciphering the role of brainstem glycinergic neurons during startle and prepulse inhibition“. This paper, which was the PhD dissertation work of NSB student, Wanyun Huang, shows the contribution of glutamatergic and glycinergic neurons to acoustic startle responses. Karine will be one the featured speakers in the Interdisciplinary Neurosciences Conference on May 30th.

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.

This month’s featured researcher is Dr. Courtney Babbitt. Courtney is an Associate Professor in the Biology Department. Her lab studies gene regulation with a particular focus on primate brain evolution. She has two publications already this year, one in the journal eLife, titled, “Tempo and mode of gene expression evolution in the brain across primates“, shows variations in gene expression in humans and chimps that correlate with brain size. The other paper, published in Genome Biology and Evolution, shows that human and chimp astrocytes have contributed greatly to glucose metabolism in humans.

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

This month’s featured researcher is Dr. Alissa A. Nolden, who is an Assistant Professor and holds the Clydesdale Professorship in the Department of Food Science. Her lab studies chemosensory perception in humans. In particular they examine how individual differences in responses to foods and chemicals is associated with genetic variability, and how chemosensory perception changes as a result of dietary exposure, disease or therapeutic compounds. She was recently an author on a paper in the Journal of Voice titled, “Examining the Influence of Chemosensation on Laryngeal Health and Disorders“. She has examined taste loss in cancer patients. She was recently quoted in Science Magazine regarding a study that examined why the COVID-19 remedy paxlovid makes things taste bitter.

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

This month’s featured research is Dr. Meghan Huber. Meghan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering in the College of Engineering. She also has adjunct appointments in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences. Meghan runs the Human Robot Systems Laboratory, which focuses on understanding how humans and robots can learn from the physical interactions of one another. She has a recent paper in the Journal of Neurophysiology, which examines energy expenditures during human walking by simulating responses on a split treadmill. She applies some of this knowledge to wearable exoskeletons as described in a recent BioRxiv preprint.

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.

This summer’s featured Researcher in Dr. ChangHui Pak, who is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She has joined UMass in 2018 after completing postdoctoral research in the lab of Nobel laureate, Thomas Sudhof. The Pak Lab studies the molecular signaling pathways involved in synapse formation. One of the techniques that they use is the creation of brain organoids from induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs). She was recently senior author on a Book Chapter titled, “Method to Generate Dorsal Forebrain Brain Organoids from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells” published in Stem Cell-Based Neural Model Systems for Brain Disorders.

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

This month’s featured researcher is Alexander Suvorov, who is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and the Graduate Program Director of Environmental Health Sciences in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences. Alexander is also an associate member of the Neuroscience & Behavior Graduate program. His lab studies environmental endocrine disruptors that have the ability to interfere with endogenous hormonal signaling. Exposure to these substances during critical periods of prenatal or neonatal life may cause permanent reprogramming of target tissues, likely epigenetic in nature, which often do not present immediate phenotypes but can ultimately lead to adulthood onset diseases. He is a co-author on a review article that appeared recently in Human Reproduction Update titled, “Age-associated epigenetic changes in mammalian sperm: implications for offspring health and development“. This work dovetails with a recent NSB seminar by Bianca Marlin on transgenerational transmission of information. It also resonates with the theme of the Neuroscience of Aging for the May 3st Interdisciplinary Neurosciences Conference

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.

This month’s featured researcher is Dr. Lucy Xiaolu Wang. Lucy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Resource Economics in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. She is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Germany and a Faculty Associate at the Canadian Centre for Health Economics. In March, she and a collaborator published an article in The Conversation, describing her economic analysis published in PLoSOne of the Human Brain Project (HBP), a controversial $1.3 billlion European initiative that was originally led by Henry Markham. They examined the user interactions on the HBP public-access online forum to determine the value of online collaborative platforms.

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.

This month’s featured researcher in Benjamin Marlin. Ben is an Associate Professor in the Manning College of Information and Computer Science, where he directs the Robust and Efficient Machine Learning (REML) group. Their work is s research is informed by real-world applications including clinical and mobile health. He was an author on paper that was published in January in the Journal Translational Behavioral Medicine, which describes some of the efforts of the Intensive Longitudinal Health Behaviors Network (ILHBN) to harmonize data collection across many different studies and data streams. Ben is also and Associate Director of the Massachusetts AI & Technology Center for Connected Care in Aging & Alzheimer’s Disease (MassAITC), which fosters the development of artificial intelligence for technology that support healthy aging at home for older adults and individuals with Alzheimer’s disease.

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

This month’s featured researcher is Dr. Gerald Downes, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology. His lab uses zebrafish to understand how genes and neural networks in the brain and spinal cord control movement. They are also studying mechanisms that contribute to epilepsy with the hope of developing new therapeutics to treat these disorders. He and his PhD students are authors on a paper titled, “Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis-Associated Persistent Organic Pollutant cis-Chlordane Causes GABAA-Independent Toxicity to Motor Neurons, Providing Evidence toward an Environmental Component of Sporadic Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis“, which appeared this month in Chemical Neuroscience. This work was a collaboration with researchers at Wesleyan University.

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

This month’s featured research is Dr. Agnès Lacreuse. Agnès is a Professor in the Department Psychological & Brain Sciences. Her work is focused on age-related cognitive decline in a nonhuman primate with a short lifespan, the common marmoset (C. jacchus). Research from her lab recently appeared in the journal, Hormones and Behavior, showing that Letrozole, an aromatase inhibitor used in breast cancer treatment, alters gene expression in neurons of the hippocampus, a region of the brain involved with memory. The first author on this intriguing study was Melise Edwards, a PhD student in the Neuroscience and Behavior Graduate Program.

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

This month’s featured researcher is Dr. Rebecca Spencer. Bekki is a Professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, where she runs the Somneurolab, dedicated to studying the neuroscience of sleep. She recently authored a publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, titled, “Contributions of memory and brain development to the bioregulation of naps and nap transitions in early childhood” in which she and her co-author, Tracy Riggins propose that nap transitions are more related to hippocampal development than age specifically. The story has received a lot of attention in the press, including the Boston Globe. You can read about it from the College of Natural Sciences.

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.

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.

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.

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.