Be my neighbor! @rwjms.bsky.social Neuroscience is hiring! jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/258...

Important topic, high potency THC is a different game.

We worked so well as a team for the #GRCPsychedelics @vyazovskiy.bsky.social @viditavaidya.bsky.social @melissaherman.bsky.social and congrats to @theborislab.bsky.social and @mikaelpalner.bsky.social, who will be the future vice-chairs!

Meet Area Postrema!

I will fly to anywhere in the United States on my own dime to talk to people about basic science! I encourage all of you, particularly senior scientists to make this commitment. If you are looking for material ask @karalmarshall.bsky.social She has put together an amazing basic talk!

Given all that is going on consider this quote from Bertram Russell's 1930 book The conquest of Happiness: “The man who can be interested in the structure of atoms or the way in which a beetle navigates, is likely to get a joy in life which no amount of success in the pursuit of power can give. ”

1/ Why do patients with late-stage cancer lose motivation & sink into apathy? 🔥 Our new Science paper shows chronic inflammation activates a cytokine-sensing brain circuit that lowers motivation. Huge team effort: Aelita Zhu, Sarah Starosta, Pignatelli & Janowitz labs! 🧵 🔗 doi.org/10.1126/scie...

I graduated high school in 1990. For this year's graduates, this music is to them what 60's music was to me when I was their age. Wild.

We’ve created a new field called “chronogenetics”: controlling gene expression with the cell’s internal clock! Lara Pferdehirt & Anna Damato made living implants that sync to the body & automatically deliver biological drugs on a 24 hr cycle. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Important work by my colleagues @robgereau.bsky.social & team! A new non-opioid chronic pain treatment, a peripherally restricted CB1 agonist without psychoactivity or tolerance.

Congrats to @michellemonje.bsky.social and F Winkler on the Brain Prize! Well deserved recognition for groundbreaking work in cancer neuroscience! Such a cool field, exciting, with important implications for disease and just getting started!

Congratulations to Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton on the well-deserved Turing Award! Their groundbreaking work in reinforcement learning has had an enormous impact across AI, neuroscience, robotics, and beyond. The ripple effects are still unfolding!

Having funded teams/contracts that required six figure+ funds a few times now, these numbers SOUND really huge in isolation to normal folks but they're not! Don't make floating numbers! I like to say things like this: "A cancer lab is basically a small business, with many jobs created by each grant"

Project 2025: 🔹 Break NIH’s monopoly on research direction 🔹 Shift NIH grant funding to states via block grants 🔹 Keep NIH funding, but at a reduced, “modest” level Buckle up!!

Doing some light bedtime reading on Project 2025 for what’s ahead: "The NIH monopoly on directing research should be broken. Congress should consider block granting NIH’s grants budget to states to fund their own scientific research.... doesn't preclude more modest federal funding through NIH."