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...

Contrary to a very odd (rambling and misinformed) op-ed in the NYT today, science is flourishing in the quest to address Alzheimer's. Now, if only there weren't NIH cutbacks and a war with universities. news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

🚨Our preprint is online!🚨 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... How do #dopamine neurons perform the key calculations in reinforcement #learning? Read on to find out more! 🧵

Had such a great time in Napa Valley at the @onemindorg.bsky.social Summit on the Future of Mental Health Research 🧠 As a past One Mind Rising Star Awardee, it was so inspiring to connect with other awardees and see the incredible research being done by this year’s winners ⭐️

Following up: searching for the distribution of estrogen receptors in the brain, I realized the Allen Brain Atlas is male only. How is it possible that something this fundamental is still missing?

Harvard wins lawsuit regarding withheld grant funding [Gift Link] wapo.st/47tdz4A

Finally finally got the NoA for the 3rd year of my NIMH R01 (5 months late) hallelujah

One of my former students sent me an update letting me know she got into medical school and included a picture of her white coat ceremony. It made my day! Send your professors updates on what you're doing, it's a real highlight in this job.

This rule would have meant I couldn't do my Ph.D. in America. I did do it in America. Became a professor. 12 thriving U.S. labs are now headed by trainees from my research lab. Like me, they are all working hard to enrich American knowledge and society. With this self-harming rule, none of that.

A week of connecting with Catecholamines nerds in Maine complete ♥️ Bye everyone and hope to see you at the Basal Ganglia GRC! 😌

Nearly all PhDs take 5 years--with finishing in 4 a rare outcome. This is deliberately designed to eliminate the international powerhouse that is US postgraduate training.

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.

Katz Early Stage Investigator Research Project Grant is back. Share with your ESI colleagues! grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

“It’s people who will get cancer in 10, 20 or 30 years who will really pay the price for these cuts”

My thoughts after my first day of e-bike commuting: 1. "It's basically a motorcycle?? We're sure I'm allowed to do this?" 2. "Whoa fun"

If I, as a reviewer, gave your grant a good enough score to be 4th percentile, I *DO NOT* want to see your freaking revision. I don't want to spend time reading or discussing what was already deemed fantastic. It's not getting any better... What is the point if 4% can't get funded?

Please sign! Science funding got strong support from the Senate but is now in the House! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

The Trump attack on UCLA for alleged antisemitism is the first on a public institution State Sen @scottwiener.bsky.social has thoughts: “Trump is now using Jews as human shields to achieve political goals having nothing to do with antisemitism." www.sfchronicle.com/politics/joe...

NIH saves lives. And the Trump Administration has been illegally trying to stop it from doing so. This finding makes it all the more clear: the Admin needs to release these funds NOW so that NIH can continue its critical work.

Congrats to @manhuazhu.bsky.social for a very very long-awaited (extremely well-deserved) NoA for her NRSA fellowship. Yay ManHua! 🙌🏼

this year this meme comes with extra layers of meaning! 😂😭

There's nothing like observing the joy of my lab members at the delivery of a new microwave in the break room.

"The underlying purpose of these deals is to get funding back, and, more broadly, to get the government to leave the schools alone. But will it? No." www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/negotiatin...

Every reputable expert I know considers mRNA vaccine technology to be one of the most revolutionary advances in medicine in our lifetimes. Its inventors won the Nobel Prize in 2023. Shutting it down now is pointless self-harm to humanity.

We're looking for a research assistant to work in our neuroscience lab at @princetonneuro.bsky.social @hhmi.org where we study learning and decision-making circuitry. Apply here: research-princeton.icims.com/jobs/21001/r... Pls share w/ anyone who might be interested!

Is it true? Can it be true?

On Thursday, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to grant them a stay on the Massachusetts vs Kennedy/ APHA vs NIH ruling. This decision will occur on the shadow docket, with no formal hearing.

Lerner Lab picnic by the lake 🥰

Has anyone out there used RuBi-GABA and have tips to share? #neuroskyence help!

This will devastate all of my colleagues that do neuroscience in mice. Drugs don't always translate from mouse to human, But 90% of our genes are shared. They allow recordings and manipulations that cannot be done in humans. We will cede discovery to Europe and China with this unnecessary handicap.

For the first time in forever ... Leaving on vacation and NOT taking my laptop. Even convinced @noranewcombe.bsky.social to do it, too 😉 Work will (probably) be there when we get back. Byeee 🧳✈️ 💅🏼

Congrats to Lerner Lab grad student Nkatha Mwenda on her Best Poster award at #IBNS2025!!! #proudPI #neuroskyence I'm sad to have missed this conference - Norway looks 🤩

Very VERY excited to see this addition to the SCIMaP project. @joshuasweitz.bsky.social @asinclair.bsky.social BOTTOM LINE: Proposed NIH cuts are estimated to result in ~50b in economic losses and over 200k job losses. But hey! How are those egg prices?? scienceimpacts.org/fy26

This should be a very loud wake-up call for the Dem party

I have been meaning to share this story all week (but it has been busy)... [Free with registration] defector.com/an-interview... 1/n

Congrats! An awesome list to see!

I wrote a quick-start guide for people to replicate this across the country. It was, in our experience, a very effective way to get real action in a short amount of time. People are willing to talk to scientists! And when you provide everything, they are happy to contact their reps too. Try it!

Dopamine Decoded: 5 Myths, 10 Facts | Psychology Today www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/betw... With yours truly 😊🧪👩🏼‍🔬

Judge Young is beyond livid — and fuming. He has another hearing that was supposed to begin minutes ago, and he's still going. "I've never seen a record where racial discrimination is so palpable. I've been on the bench for 40 years. I've never seen government racial discrimination like this."

STAT story about the ruling www.statnews.com/2025/06/16/n... 1/n

🧬🌽 Happy Transposon Day! 🌽🧬 Today we celebrate the birthday of Barbara McClintock - scientist extraordinaire and discoverer of jumping genes. Still the only woman to have an unshared Nobel Prize in the biomedical sciences #TransposonDay2025

The NIH's scientifically illegitimate leadership is acting illegally. There is no negotiated path to restoring funding that does not further degrade universities and undermine science. Courts and elections...that's it.

#NoKings rally in Chicago

We the people serve no king 👑🚫 A crowd out in Chicago! #NoKings @standupforscience.bsky.social

🧪Good News! A key committee in the House of Representatives rejected the administration’s plan to make deep cuts to research programs at the USDA; the leader of the Senate’s appropriations panel called the 40% cut to the NIH’$47 billion budget “disturbing.” www.science.org/content/arti...

Lerner Lab farewell to AJ Miller-Hansen, who is heading off to San Francisco to Robert Edwards lab at UCSF - we will miss you a lot, AJ! p.s. look out for AJ's very cool motor learning data as he finishes analysis over the next few months 😉

What does 18,000+ brave signatories look like standing together in massive solidarity with the #NIH heroes of the historic Bethesda Declaration??... Find out by adding YOUR NAME to our #NIHLove letter here! - actionnetwork.org/forms/add-na... #StandUpForScience #BethesdaDeclaration #StopTrump

Check out @fabbs.org resources for researchers eager to engage with Congress. fabbs.org/resources/co... You can also fill out a form to express your interest in engagement!

Supporting the training of new scientists is getting harder and harder. The United States is facing a lost generation of science if we cannot work things out soon. 💔

Huge congratulations to Lerner Lab undergraduate researcher Baran Demir, who won this year's Aryeh Routtenberg Prize in Neuroscience for his honors thesis!!!! Baran will stay in the lab for a year as a research technician and be looking at grad school soon :)