GIF THREAD ALERT – With pleasure, we present our @SfNJournals #JNeurosci article www.jneurosci.org/content/45/4... by my grad student Jackson Schumacher and former post doc Mieke Van Holstein

How do hormones affect the brain and our behaviours, and what does that mean for Canadians? 🧠 Hear from @kiransoma.bsky.social, who was recently elected as a Fellow to the Royal Society of Canada. @psych.ubc.ca @src-rsc.bsky.social Read more: www.arts.ubc.ca/news/two-art...

A final reminder for all the SfN types- Psychopharmacology Social. (Tues, Nov 18, 7-9 pm, Marriott Marquis-Grand Ballroom Salon 5). Come vibe with like minded researchers one last time!

Awesome work by lead author Lauren Burgeno et al: Dopamine evoked by non-contingent cues increases over cocaine use, producing greater cue reactivity; whereas dopamine evoked by contingent cues decreases over cocaine use, producing escalation of drug consumption. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@sfn.org and neuro peeps! For 10+ years, you have honored us w/your attending our Psychopharmacology Social. #SfN2025 will be the last time I and @jaredwyoung.bsky.social will host this event (Tues, Nov 18, 7-9 pm, Marriott Marquis-Grand Ballroom Salon 5). Drink, groove and mingle one last time-AND-

Ok, something is not quite right with the "Similar Articles" algorithm on PubMed. I mean, I know the OFC is adjacent to the "mid forehead brow"...but seriously?

Out today at Neuron, our experiments show that frontal cortical representation of economic variables is jointly determined by spatial organization and downstream connectivity of neurons, revealing a structured, multi-scale code for economic variables. www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

Outstanding work by my former trainee @ppiantad.bsky.social !

Time to get working on your symposium proposals! 📣 Roll call -Who's coming to Cape town? -Who needs speaker suggestions for a panel? -Who'd like to join a panel (especially trainees!) @mfendt.bsky.social @dr-stan.bsky.social @nicoleferrara.bsky.social @eelkesnoeren.bsky.social

Excited to share that I landed my dream job!🎉🎉🎉 The Pennington Lab will be opening at the University of British Columbia in January 2026! @ubcpsych.bsky.social @dmcbrainhealth.bsky.social

1. Media coverage of a new paper by @ryantomm.bsky.social w @brandonforys.com, @dr-stan.bsky.social et al. Building on Stan’s rodent work, Ryan found that > depression levels were associated w reduced capacity to learn to actively button-press to avoid a nasty sound www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...

Touchscreen-based assessments are transforming our understanding of brain regulation in complex behaviors. Piantadosi et al. (2025) published a guide about experimental design and essential hardware modifications for specialized research. Check it out: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Strategic placement of this 🇨🇦 Billboard on Westwood. Many physicians drive through this spot to enter campus.

#SBN2025 was full of great science, people, and fun! Big thanks to @dr-stan.bsky.social and our students for helping organize!! 🥰

Please read this 🙏🏾

Praise of the rat "At a fork in the evolutionary road, the rat chose complexity as a survival trait whereas the mouse chose simplicity. The rat became social, intelligent, complex, and skilled, all of which are attributes it shares with humans." lan Whishaw, 1999 1/

Inspirational meme for all my Gen X'ers out there

I think it would be good to get some women in charge of the countries that have nuclear weapons. Women talk to each other. Women can be reasonable. Enough with the macho men and swinging dicks.

Nature Neuroscience What dopamine teaches depends on what the brain believes www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#JNeurosci: Findings from Jenni, Bercovici, and @dr-stan.bsky.social‬ provide novel insight into the functional contribution that mOFC–BLA and PL interactions make to distinct processes that shape decision-making in situations of reward uncertainty in rats. vist.ly/3n6asip

Still time left to submit an abstract and book a room on campus!

Ok ok...admittedly a bit of a flex here, but, this is one of the most amusing positive instructor eval comments I've seen in my 20+ yrs of doing this schtick: "Dr. Stan is the best lecturer I've ever seen and I think I'd taken a class on paint drying if he were teaching it."

Correction: deadline to submit an abstract is May 30. Still plenty of time.

Actually, he did get it right.

I love how this is being referred to as doing "a Canada" 👊

Heard from a former (undergrad) student who just defended her PhD. Students: tell your old profs about your successes and achievements. It's not bragging, and we love to hear about it. It's one of the best parts of being an educator. #academicsky

💥GIF THREAD ALERT – pleased to share our latest paper @sfnjournals.bsky.social in J Neurosci- an epic over 5 years in the making examining amygdala and prefrontal interactions with the medial OFC in risk/reward decisions by Nicole Jenni and Deb Bercovici www.jneurosci.org/content/45/1...

Pleased to share the final published version of @glopez.bsky.social's work in @currentbiology.bsky.social! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... "Region-specific nucleus accumbens dopamine signals encode distinct aspects of avoidance learning" Congrats, Gaby!!!

Just a few weeks left until 29th Annual Meeting of the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology! 🎉🎉 Join us on Jul 13 - 16, 2025 for unique networking opportunities and an incredible lineup of speakers. Get your tickets now before it's too late! whova.com/portal/regis...

likely my favourite week i've ever had as a PI. celebrating the defense of dr. @neurosully.bsky.social and hanging out with awesome neuro peeps on both sides of the border - @tuthill.bsky.social @dr-stan.bsky.social @unidentifieditem.bsky.social @kiransoma.bsky.social and many other wonderful folks

The bipartisan belief that America would be a better place if *other people* worked in a factory. www.ft.com/content/8459...

Here's the link to the piece @liisagalea.bsky.social and I wrote for The Tyee on the threats to medical research funding buried in the Conservative party platform 😬

👀

Look, it's great that Canada's trying to attract disenchanted US-based researchers, but researchers who are here right now would like some of that funding and support, too, please. 🙏

Tracy Bale is one of the most competent neuroscientists, there is a reason why she is the current President of the International Brain Research Organization. Firing her and other neuroscientists from any NIH board is not only unusual and unprecedented but also very intentional. They want chaos.

This cause is close to my heart - please sign: you.leadnow.ca/petitions/ca...

Our latest! We measure dopamine signals as rats disambiguate cues that predict reward or threat. We find that dopamine flexibly tracks the changing salience and value of cues, but according to region-specific scales, rapid within-trial dopamine fluctuations prioritize different stimulus features.

💥Hey all, dropping my 1st Bluesky GIF thread describing this cute little study we recently published examining the role of the basolateral amygdala in active vs inhibitory avoidance and reward seeking www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

“Even infrequent users—those who used, on average, roughly three times a month—scored higher on a delusional-thought scale than ex–ketamine users, people who took other drugs, and people who didn’t use drugs at all.”

Canadian scientists: 1. Please support US scientists! You can do so in many ways. There are protests in US cities *this Fri* (Mar 7). You can donate here. standupforscience2025.org 2. Stand up for science in Canada! We need to constantly remind the general public why our work is important. 🙏🏾

Russia’s greatest military asset is not any bomb, tank, plane or ship. It is the Republican Party.

Woooooooooooootwoooooooootwoooooooot 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦

Perfection😂

delighted to share our work revealing a new type of excitatory hippocampal neuron we call the "ovoid cell", which has really exquisite properties relative to adjacent pyramidal cells! superb work of first-author @adriennekinman.bsky.social and many others in the lab www.nature.com/articles/s41...

After, let's call it a good night sleep for the sake of argument, a good night sleep, I read the "Supplemental Guidance to the 2024 NIH Grants Policy Statement: Indirect Cost Rates" more carefully at the suggestion of an experience colleague. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide... 1/n

It’s true.