Please share with anyone who cares about NSF support for graduate students and take 30 seconds to sign and leave a comment. The deadline for the 2025 Graduate Research Fellowship Program is about one month away and literally no one can apply. #NSFGRFP jasonjwilliamsny.github.io/grfp2025/

UCLA’s funds reinstated after yesterday’s court order! Thanks to the brave researchers and their amazing counsel, including Dean Chemerinsky, who brought suit. This is just another turn in the ongoing fight, but a great result for now.

This is huge: “A drug that provides near-perfect protection against H.I.V. with shots just twice a year will be made available at $40 per patient annually in low- and middle-income countries, offering new hope… making lenacapavir a realistic choice in countries with constrained resources.”

Exciting opportunity to work with an awesome person!!

In the early years of my PhD I remember being asked if we'd ever treat or cure diseases like HIV or Huntington's. I remember saying maybe, but not knowing if I believed. Seeing research pay off as real impact on human lives is - incredible. www.bbc.com/news/article... www.bbc.com/news/article...

Excited to share this new work from the lab, in collaboration with @jtuscher.bsky.social & Rob Sorge! Here, we used single cell transcriptional profiling to define molecular adaptations induced by chronic pain and opioid experience, which often occur in conjunction. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

For those interested in a neuroscience PhD - the University of Minnesota Graduate Program in Neuroscience www.neuroscience.umn.edu is hosting virtual open house events coming up on Oct 6th and Oct 30th. Learn about the program and meet students and faculty! Register here: forms.gle/kANEp4Fmd3ut...

5 pounds of tomatillos and other bounty after a hot September

For those interested in a neuroscience PhD - the University of Minnesota Graduate Program in Neuroscience www.neuroscience.umn.edu is hosting virtual open house events coming up on Oct 6th and Oct 30th. Learn about the program and meet students and faculty! Register here: forms.gle/kANEp4Fmd3ut...

A spatially resolved transcriptomic atlas of the primate amygdala (human, macaque, and baboon) now out in Science Advances (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...). The amygdala contains 32 types of neurons with many neuron types specific to particular subdivisions. Lots of updates from the preprint!

Why is this the first I am hearing about rodents having thumbnails?? Well anyways if they have thumbs we can give them tiny phones and tiny social medias and maybe tiny sports betting apps. No better mousetrap has ever been devised @smithsonianmag.bsky.social www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/r...

New funding opportunity from the BRAIN Initiative! Applications due Oct 28! grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Got some nice news today and one of the best things about my job is that when we get good news it's usually actually someone else's good news too and we get to celebrate and be excited together.

Scrolling through all the Robert Redford posts

Data visualization apps for both snRNA-seq and spatial transcriptomics data for our new human 🧠 nucleus accumbens resource are here - please reach out with any questions or comments!

I am leading a workshop tonight for students in my department on how to apply for the NSF GRFP, but have not received answers from NSF to my questions about whether they are still funding applications in neuroscience and cognitive science, etc. If anyone has info please let me know. (continued)

It was awesome to be a part of this project and continue probing molecular heterogeneity in the NAc! Check out Prashanti's thread below

Going on more than six weeks without $500 million in federal research grants cut under Trump, UCLA faculty and students took their cases public this week in the "Science Fair for Suspended Research" -- including demonstrations with preserved human brains: www.latimes.com/california/s...

Happy to share our recent work attempting to better understand the impact of early life maternal separation on locus coeruleus function. Super proud of first author (the now Dr.) Chayla Vazquez. She brought this idea when she joined in… March 2020… and she carried it through these rough few years!

It's been a busy time for NIH grants staff — the agency seems on track to spend its budget this fiscal year But, because of multi-year funding, fewer projects are being funded than in previous years. The number of R grants has fallen from 5,633 to 3,758 analysis by @jaspar.bsky.social

Spatiomolecular mapping reveals anatomical organization of heterogeneous cell types in the human nucleus accumbens https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.10.675374v1

A substantial part (but not all) of this increased investment is multi-year funded grants. My current estimate is that multi-year funding has been used in lieu of ~2400 annually funded grants that could have been made. 2/2

Excited to share this update to our paper investigating the role of superior colliculus inputs to the ventral midbrain in learning and movement. Studies led by the amazing Dr. @carlipoisson.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

While full solicitation isn’t up, looks like we have 2025 proposal deadlines for the GRFP: www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Some potatoes I grew - learning that they need a TON of sun for a good yield

We are looking for a postdoc fellow to join the group. Focus on studying feeding-relevant slow dynamics in the brain using invivo microscopy approaches. Please share with anyone interested. Thank you. www.training.nih.gov/jobs/pdf-inf...

It is still Bandcamp Friday.

a lot of our trainees are thinking about going abroad for GS (who can blame them) but they're seeing that Masters Degrees are required for PhD programs? Can folks weight in on this?

In case anyone is following these grant conversions - just had an NIMH R01 converted to an RF1 and the final 2 years paid out at once instead of the regular R01 year 4.

The NIMH Director job announcement and search is back on: hr.nih.gov/jobs/search/... The NIMH Director provides executive direction and scientific leadership for NIMH, overseeing a $2.3 billion budget and ~1600 employees, trainees, and contractors. Up for the challenge 😉? Apply!

We took the paywall down on this one. defector.com/how-the-fuck...

This tactic - pressuring corporations financially until they put a regime friendly voice in charge - is exactly how Orbán took over the free press in Hungary

🧠 1/ In our latest study, we show that stress responses aren't one-size-fits-all. CB1 receptors in norepinephrine & epinephrine neurons modulate stress reactivity contextually. A nuanced look at the endocannabinoid system's role in emotional regulation www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🧪 I might be the only author on Blueksy, so here we go. Serotonin in the caudate while doing uniquely human things (a social game) provides information about movement disorder diagnosis. This work started a long time ago with Ken (when he was at Wake Forest) working with Read at VT. rdcu.be/eDDPf

🧪 And House appropriators say: no cuts to NIH budget! House subcommittee version just came out (link below). Holds NIH flat at $48 billion. To be clear: this is far from over. But a good sign that science still matters across both sides of aisle. YOUR VOICE MATTERS!!

NIH cuts kill people - including children. "The Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium, an association of 16 academic centers and children’s hospitals dedicated to trials of novel treatments for pediatric brain cancer, directed its members last week to stop enrolling... www.nytimes.com/2025/08/28/w...

Right now, your ability to get access to a COVID vaccine this fall is in jeopardy, whether or not you fit the new, restricted eligiblity criteria. Please send a letter to your member of Congress here. And spread the word. @defendpublichealth.bsky.social actionnetwork.org/letters/writ...

Very few PhD students finish within 4 years. But international students will need to do that if US proposed visa rules change go through. Sound reasonable to you? Fed register is accepting comments for next month. Details at the link & comment button www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

Honored to be the next co-chair of the Gordon Research Conference on Catecholamines with amazing @bensaunders.bsky.social! This meeting is a vibrant space for cutting-edge science & community, deepening understanding of how catecholamines shape brain circuits and behavior. Excited for what’s ahead!

Honored to be elected to serve as the next vice co-chair, along with the amazing @sciolinolab.bsky.social, for the Catecholamines Gordon Research Conference. I first came to this meeting in 2011 as a grad student and it was transformative for my career. Excited to help cultivate that for others.

"We’re all in favor of a gold standard for science. But it’s misleading, & even a little insulting, to say that somehow NIH didn’t already support that. Everything that NIH stands for is rigor in sci...There’s some implication here that NIH has been systematically sloppy. I reject that conclusion."🛟

Proud of Amy and Nick, who review technical and theoretical gaps in timescales of dopamine fluctuations. We argue that DA fluctuations are hierarchical control signals, and “tonic” DA relays goal alignment across planning horizons and C-BG hierarchy. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

My hero!!!!

Here's what this means: it's probably unlawful forPOTUS to stop NIH funds from going to medical research, but POTUS can stop that medical research for a lengthy period of time while the Court of Federal Claims hears lawsuits This, essentially, destroys the capacity for medical research in the US

🚨 SCOTUS just issued a decision in the NIH grant termination cases. And it's awful. In plain English, the likely result of this is that SCOTUS just re-terminated ~900 NIH grants worth over $1.9 billion in unspent funds This is an atrocious decision by Justice Barrett & the right wing of the Court.

Very excited to share this major update to our paper delineating VTA GABA neuron encoding of valence and decision conflict. Studies led by the amazing @margestelzner.bsky.social. We leaned in here, taking the opportunity to add a lot of cool new data. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

And now for an update on my office window. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Now out in @natneuro.nature.com What happens to the brain’s body map when a body-part is removed? Scanning patients before and up to 5 yrs after arm amputation, we discovered the brain’s body map is strikingly preserved despite amputation www.nature.com/articles/s41593-025-02037-7 🧵1/18

saving American research should IMO be the top priority for Dems in this budget session, unless saving Medicaid is on the table