UMass Neuroscience Publications – November 2020

Hava Siegelmann

This month’s featured researcher is Hava Siegelmann, who is a Professor in the College of Information and Computer Science. Hava runs the Biologically Inspired Neural & Dynamical Systems (BINDS) Laboratory. She recently returned to UMass after leading an artificial intelligence initiative for the Department of Defense. This month an article that she co-authored, entitled, “A modeling framework for adaptive lifelong learning with transfer and savings through gating in the prefrontal cortex“, was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in which neural network modeling was used to create a process that might mimic how the prefrontal cortex uses and expands its own memory. Hava herself was recently featured in a UMass article, A Campus Visionary.

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

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UMass Neuroscience Publications – October 2020

This month’s Featured Researcher is Agnès Lacreuse. Dr. Lacreuse is a Professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences. Her lab studies age-related cognitive decline in a nonhuman primate with a short lifespan, the common marmoset. This month in collaboration with researchers at the University of Massachusetts Worcester and Worcester PolyTech, they published a paper in Science Reports that found sex differences in brain connectivity as marmosets age.

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

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UMass Neuroscience Publications – September 2020

Buju Dasgupta

This month’s featured researcher is Nilanjana “Buju” Dasgupta, who is a professor in Psychological & Brain Sciences, the Director of Faculty Equity and Inclusion in the College of Natural Sciences, and Director of the Institute of Diversity Sciences. Her research focuses on implicit bias. This month, she appeared in Pubmed as an author on a paper entitled, “Open science, communal culture, and women’s participation in the movement to improve science

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

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UMass Neuroscience Publications – August 2020

This month’s featured researcher is Melinda Novak. Melinda is a professor in Psychological and Brain Sciences. She is one of the founders of the Neuroscience and Behavior Graduate Program. Her research has centered around neuroendocrinology and stress. She and her long-term collaborator and colleague, Jerry Meyer wrote a review paper, which was published this month in Developmental Pyschobiology and summarizes work on non-invasive measurements of stress in newborns.

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

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UMass Neuroscience Publications – July 2020

Dr. Rebecca Ready

This month’s featured researcher is Rebecca Ready. Rebecca is a Professor and Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. She is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and of the American Psychological Association and heads the Aging, Emotion, and Cognition Lab here at UMass. This month she had a paper appear in PubMed in which a team validated testing measure to determine outcomes of patients with Huntington’s Disease.

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

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UMass Neuroscience Publications – June 2020

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.

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UMass Neuroscience Publications – April/May 2020

This month’s featured researcher is Courtney Babbitt. Courtney is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology. Courtney researches how cis-regulatory element evolution affects phenotypic evolution. In particular, she has investigated brain evolution in humans and other primates. She is the senior author on a review that appeared in PubMed this month examining technological progress in elucidating the role of metabolic changes in human brain evolution.

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

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UMass Neuroscience Publications – March 2020

This month’s featured researcher is Richard van Emmerick. Richard is a professor in the Department of Kinesiology in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences. His lab studies motor control and coordination, applying principles from complex and nonlinear dynamical systems to the study of posture and locomotion. More specifically, they examine mechanisms of balance and gait disorders due to aging and neurological disease, such as Parkinson’s disease and Multiple Sclerosis (MS). This month, a publication of theirs appeared in PubMed related to MS patients.

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

UMass Neuroscience Publications – February 2020

This month’s featured researcher is Yahya Modarres-Sadeghi. Yahya is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering in the College of Engineering. He is the Graduate Program Director for Mechanical Engineering. His lab studies fluid structure interactions. He has studied the fluid movements of fish and crayfish through water. In his paper, which appeared in PubMed in February, he proposes a model that provides patient-specific details for cerebral aneurysms.  Yahya is a co-PI on the recently submit NSF NRT graduate training grant on Biological Neurotechnology

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

UMass Neuroscience Publications – January 2020

This month’s featured researcher is Sarah Pallas. Sarah joined the Biology Department at UMass in September 2019, arriving from Georgia State University.  Her lab studies the mechanisms underlying development, plasticity, and evolution of sensory pathways in the brain. Her latest paper in PubMed shows that gradients of growth factors and receptors change in response to brain injury. This helps adjust maps of the visual world in the brain constant despite loss of brain tissue. Sarah also has a collaborative project with a lab in Chile that studies the visual system of a diurnal South American rodent called a Degu.

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

UMass Neuroscience Publications – December 2019

This month’s Featured Researcher is Ilia Karatsoreos, who just joined the faculty of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Ilia’s research addresses how the body’s internal circadian clock and “stress response” systems help maintain mental and physical health.  His latest paper, which just appeared in the December issue of Frontiers in Neuroendrinology, reviews the research explaining how the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis interacts with downstream pathways to mediate resilience to environmental stresses.  Ilia is joining UMass from Washington State University. We are pleased to have him aboard. His lab is located in the newly renovated Neuroscience Wing on the 2nd floor of Morrill Science Center 4N.

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

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UMass Neurosciences Publications – November 2019

This month’s featured researcher is Guangyu Xu. Guangyu is an assistant professor in the the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering. He was recently appointed to the Dev and Linda Gupta Professorship. Guangyu joined UMass in 2016, before which he was a postdoc at MIT with Ed Boyden, who presented the November Neuroscience Distinguished Lecture. Guangyu runs the Integrated Nanobiotechnology Laboratory, which builds tools for subcellular molecular detection that have important uses in Neuroscience. His most recent paper in iScience demonstrates a technology for optogenetic control of intracellular calcium dynamics using micro-LEDs, which may allow for more efficient pharmaceutical screening of drugs and fundamental studies on a variety of cell networks.

Here’s what else is new for ‘ ”University of Massachusetts” AND Amherst AND neuroscience’ in PubMed. These publications appeared on line in November. They are just a fraction of the research that occurs on campus. Continue reading

UMass Neurosciences Publications – October 2019

This month’s featured researcher is Rebecca Spencer. Bekki is a professor in Psychological and Brain Sciences. She runs the Somneurolab, which studies many aspects of sleep and brain functions affected by sleep. As people age, sleep and memory. The lab has funding from the National Institute of Aging to study how sleep quality decreases and memory impairments increase in older adults. They also have funding from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to study the benefits of midday naps for preschool children. Her recent publication with post-doc Bethany Jones, which appeared in the journal Neurobiology of Learning and Memory shows that sleep helps consolidate aspects of emotional responses that are associated with memories.

Here’s what else is new for ‘ ”University of Massachusetts” AND Amherst AND neuroscience’ in PubMed. These publications appeared on line in October. They are just a fraction of the research that occurs on campus. Continue reading

UMass Neurosciences Publications – Sept 2019

This month’s featured researcher is Eric Bittman. Eric is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biology. His lab studies the molecular and neural bases for circadian rhythms. His most recent paper appears in the Journal of Biological Rhythms. He recently showed how certain gene alleles alter the function of the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus in ways that may contribute to changes in circadian rhythms.

Here’s what else is new for ‘ ”University of Massachusetts” AND Amherst AND neuroscience’ in PubMed. These publications appeared on line in September. They are just a fraction of the research that occurs on campus. Continue reading

UMass Neurosciences Publications – August 2019

This month’s featured researcher is Dr. Rebecca Ready. Dr. Ready is a professor and Director of Clinical Training in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. She works on the assessment of emotion regulation in healthy aging adults and in clinical populations, including Mild Cognitive Impairment, Alzheimer’s disease, and Huntington’s disease. She studies emotion reactions in the lab and in daily life and is interested in how individual differences, such as executive functions, memory, and personality affect emotion regulation outcomes.  She is a member of the Center for Research on Families and the Center for Personalized Health Medicine. She has had 5 papers appear recently in PubMed (see below).

Here’s what else is new for ‘ ”University of Massachusetts” AND Amherst AND neuroscience’ in PubMed. These publications appeared on line in August. They are just a fraction of the research that occurs on campus. Continue reading