We are thrilled to announce the 2026 Zara Weinberg Leading Edge Fellows! 40 remarkable postdocs pursuing transformative research in biological/biomedical sciences. This is the 7th Leading Edge cohort and we are so excited to welcome them! www.leadingedgesymposium.org/fellows/

Myriam Heiman named the director of The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. Heiman, who studies neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, will lead the institute beginning July 1. picower.mit.edu/news/myriam-... #neuroscience

hippocampus brain section keychain? yes please🙂‍↕️

Thrilled to share that I’ll be starting my lab at the SickKids Research Institute and University of Toronto in August! williamsonlab.ca Recruiting at all levels. Get in touch if you’re interested in astrocyte biology of cognition and disease!

We updated our preprint, "Mapping spatially organized molecular and genetic signatures of schizophrenia across multiple scales in human prefrontal cortex" to now include spatial eQTL and genetic colocalization analyses: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New paper from the lab. Using longitudinal ca imaging, activity-dependent tagging and optogenetics, we show that newly allocated fear engram neurons in amygdala undergo a brief period of coordinated “offline reverberation” immediately after learning. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Do brain circuits really sit in a 'soup' of neuromodulators? Are neurons like soggy bits of bread soaked in signaling factors? Is the whole brain just squelching around in one big pool of warm modulators?

Woo!!!!!! PenningtonLab.com is live!

Deadline fast approaching! ACNP Travel Award Applications are open for the ACNP 65th Annual Meeting: January 10-13, 2027, San Diego, California. Deadline to Submit is May 14, 2026, at 5:00 pm Central. tinyurl.com/5bzaz8va #ACNP2027 #travelawards

New preprint led by recent PhD graduate Dalton Fitzgerald characterizing two distinct populations of VTA dopamine neurons that differ in ion channel expression, intrinsic excitability, and response to drugs of abuse. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Happy to share my postdoc paper with @joeycheers.bsky.social & collaborators! Building on the work of many former lab members, we describe a VP-VTA projection modulated by endocannabinoids that guides action selection informed by learned cues: www.cell.com/cell-reports...

📣 Exciting news: my lab is moving to the Krembil Institute at the University of Toronto’s University Health Network in Fall 2026. We’ll be recruiting for all roles, so reach out if you’re interesting in joining us to study spinal circuits for sensorimotor control www.levine-lab.org

Excited to share our latest in @currentbiology.bsky.social (they who publish the coolest papers!) Memories are encoded by sparse neuronal ensembles (engrams). But most evidence comes from "simple" associative learning tasks. What about more integrative memories like spatial navigation?

#neuroskyence Help! Anyone know of a freezing stage microtome that is still in production? Leica and Epredia have both inexplicably discontinued their models 😢

Excited to share the latest one from the lab led by José Solano @jolusolo.bsky.social who explored how early life #stress impacts the mouse 🐭 brain 🧠 vasculature Science 🧪🔬 can be surprising & 2x stress can induce beneficial adaptations leading to resilience, phew! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Delighted to share our discoveries about one of the brain's neurotransmitter systems: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Together with colleagues at the @alleninstitute.org, we have learned a lot about a tiny cluster of neurons in the brainstem locus coeruleus (LC) that releases norepinephrine (NE). 1

Meet @zachtpennington.bsky.social, a new researcher at the DMCBH and @psych.ubc.ca who is exploring how the brain regulates stress and emotion. He is also an advocate of building open-source tools to make science more accessible for all. Read more: www.centreforbrainhealth.ca/news/from-sk...

Latest offering. How myelin ensheathes axons! Born from chat with Dwight Bergles on "weird things" we saw oligodendrocytes do, like making "bridges" between sheaths. Driven forward by Cody Call, Kelly Monk, and myelin folks @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social Enjoy! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Incredibly proud of this paper led by @ossamaghenissa.bsky.social and @mathiasgua.bsky.social titled Basolateral 'Amygdala Astrocytes Encode Anxiety States'. www.cell.com/neuron/fullt... 🧵 below

Registration for the @canacn.bsky.social 2026 Neural Circuits and Behaviour satellite meeting is now live! Looking forward to hosting this event with @franklandlab.bsky.social again, and we're looking to have 4 trainee talks as part of the satellite. Register at www.eventbrite.com/e/1984146883...

Very excited to share that I’m starting my lab at the Krembil Brain Institute @kbi-uhn.bsky.social at UHN and the University of Toronto! If you’re interested in motor learning and circuit plasticity, please reach out - we are hiring! www.motor-plasticity.org 1/

Super stoked to share that I’m starting my lab at UHN @dkjei-uhn.bsky.social / @kbi-uhn.bsky.social and the University of Toronto! If you’re interested in neuron-myelin interactions in circuit maturation and cognition, please reach out - we are hiring! www.oligodendrocyte.org 1/

Applications are open for our Next Generation Leaders program! Our NGL program recognizes emerging scientific leaders and invites them into a supportive network. 🔗 Apply by March 31: https://alleninstitute.org/about/people/next-generation-leaders/

Happy to announce that our latest paper is now out! Have you ever wondered how neural tissues control their size? In this paper, we show that cell division orientation is critical in both the cortex and retina. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New preprint from Xhoela Bame et al shows that dying oligodendrocytes stick around for weeks to months without mitochondria! This happens after single cell DNA damage or when mitochondrial Fis1 is deleted in oligodendrocytes. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Super excited to share this new paper led by @sejpaton.bsky.social that I briefly mentioned at #ACNP2026 yesterday! 🧪🧠🤓 We tested preventive strategies to protect the brain vasculature #BBB during stress exposure, mix of mouse 🐭 and human data So proud of my team 🤘 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨 PI position in dept. of Neuroscience with lab located the @crchum.bsky.social Hiring at assistant/associate prof level in the fields of neural regeneration, stem cells and spinal-associated pathologies can-acn.org/professor-re...

We identified how mechanical forces shape myelin development. The TMEM63A channel in oligodendrocytes converts physical cues into molecular signals that control myelin growth. Oligodendrocyte mechanotransduction channel TMEM63A regulates myelin sheath geometry: Neuron www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

New Year, new paper from our lab. Emily Kramer used 3D light-sheet imaging and tissue clearing to examine the spatial architecture of mouse amygdala engram ensembles. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

“Basic neuroscience hasn’t produced new drugs.” 💊 Not true - zuranolone (PPD), suzetrigine (pain), gepants (migraine), and more... were born out of a long arc of studies in the lab. I wrote a Perspective on why this matters. @thetransmitter.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/drug-develop...

Alicia Pietramale et al. discovered a disconnection between microglial processes that surveil or respond to acute damage and those that contain mitochondria. Cytoskeletal components and metabolic enzymes underlie these differences. Final version just published! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our new paper showcasing molecular connectomics with pan-expansion microscopy is out in @natbiotech.nature.com! www.nature.com/articles/s41... This wonderful collaboration with @bewersdorflab.bsky.social was led by Ons M'Saad (now founder/CEO of Panluminate) and @allisonphysics.bsky.social. (1/5)

If you are attending #SfN25, please join @amygleichman.bsky.social and I on Monday at 9PM for a casual social gathering to discuss all things non-neuronal! Date: Monday, Nov 17th Time: 9PM till close Location: The Smoking Gun SD, 555 Market St. All welcome, please free to spread the word!

If you’re interested in the roles of glia in stroke and TBI, kick off #SfN2025 with a minisymposium on Saturday afternoon in room 6B! @droligo.bsky.social and I are also hosting a glia get-together Monday night, sponsored by Avantor and @plasmidsaurus.bsky.social - all glia-inclined are welcome!

The Gowrishankar lab will be opening its doors @neuro_MUSC on Dec 1, 2025! We will be hiring at all levels. I will also be at @SfNtweets presenting my lab's vision on Wednesday, Nov 19, 8AM-12PM at poster board GG7. If you're interested, please reach out! www.raajgowrishankarlab.org

Our latest collaboration with @rongfan8.bsky.social, spatial triomics to investigate myelin and cortical brain development, and demyelination, spearheaded by Leslie Kirby in our lab @ki.se and Di Zhang in Rong's lab! Check it out @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In How to Change a Memory, neuroscientist @okaysteve.bsky.social shares his disarmingly personal account of the new science of memory manipulation.⁠ ⁠ 🎧️📔 The #audiobook, read by the author himself, is out now! Add it to your #audio library: press.princeton.edu/books/audio/...

Meet our 2025 cohort of Next Generation Leaders! For the next 3 years, they will network with other rising stars, participate in professional development, and share their ideas for future research directions.

Important article from @marymunson4.bsky.social @joann-trejo.bsky.social @needhibhalla.bsky.social

Our latest paper is out! While the circadian photoentrainment circuit has been extensively studied, the mechanisms regulating its development remain poorly understood. Here we show that retinal Müller glia play a key role in this process. Check it out! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Excited to share the latest from the lab on the molecular mechanisms of silencing and un-silencing a hippocampal engram ensemble. Was fun using a variant of the EPSILON technique developed by Adam Cohen's lab. (1/2) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

If you are attending #SfN25, please join @amygleichman.bsky.social and I on Monday at 9PM for a casual social gathering to discuss all things non-neuronal! Date: Monday, Nov 17th Time: 9PM till close Location: The Smoking Gun SD, 555 Market St. All welcome, please free to spread the word!

Fantastic opportunity at The Hospital for Sick Children. Please repost. www.nature.com/naturecareer...

I am proud to share our work on X-linked Dystonia-Parkinsonism — a rare neurodegenerative movement disorder driven by a SINE-VNTR-Alu retrotransposon insertion in the TAF1 gene. Read our two companion papers: 🔹 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🔹 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵 Highlights below!

New paper from the lab 🚨 Led by Ali Golbabaei, this study explores the how the composition of prefrontal cortical engrams changes with memory age: authors.elsevier.com/a/1lzT-3BtfH...

In the desert of tools to manipulate oligodendrocytes in the brain, we built an OASIS. 🌿 Pun intended. I’m still in awe every time I spot an amazing-looking cell. The beauty of OL and myelin never fails me! Hope this tool helps more people see it too.

Just out in Nature! “The astrocytic ensemble acts as a multiday trace to stabilize memory.” We identified astrocytic ensembles that link experiences across days to stabilize memory nature.com/articles/s41.... New astrocyte tools are openly available at Addgene: addgene.org/Jun_Nagai/. 1/8

Thrilled to share this work from my postdoc with Tom Carmichael, available online @ Neuron! Long story short: we find even more evidence that all reactive astrocytes are not equal, and we can take advantage of those differences to improve repair after stroke. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Huge congrats @amygleichman.bsky.social on this phenomenal study, demonstrating regional differences in astrocyte responses to stroke and a key role for astrocytes in post-stroke angiogenesis and repair! (see also - gorgeous astrocytes for fluorescence Friday) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...