If you're interested in Parkinson's disease or dietary interventions for PD, check out this podcast where we discuss our recent EJN article. FENS-EJN Journal club Episode 1: Mitochondria, Ketones & Dopamine with Vikrant Mahajan and Armando Salinas www.podbean.com/ew/pb-ikekv-...

Our article exploring the neurobiological correlates of prenatal cannabis exposure is now out! "Prenatal cannabis exposure, the brain, and psychopathology during early adolescence" https://rdcu.be/dMJqH

My quote of the day For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled. Richard Feynman

If you inject a CaMk promoter controlled or D1-cre dependent virus into PFC, you get anterograde viral transport AND frequently infect D1 expressing cells in striosomes in medial striatum (red). This is a D1-Cre mouse with a cre dependent AAV9 virus. CaMK is less selective.

But what about SST/CaMK+ GABA projections? I’ve seen them between CLA and PL www.cell.com/current-biol...

Nice work, but what about PrL cortex to DM striosomes vs M1 projections to matrix? Maybe that’s coming… www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

Cannabinoid receptors in basket cell axons surrounding a hippocampal pyramidal cell. The CB1 receptor is presynaptic and expressed at high levels on GABAergic axons. Not necessarily ‘excitatory’ for the PC. It’s the oscillations!

Addition to the oddities of transgenics: When breeding NR2A knockouts back in the day, they would have seizures upon introduction. They recovered quickly and resumed the task, but weren’t great breeders or mothers. (Thinking of those of you forced to cull your mice. They have no idea…)

Useful information for those new to mice. See Jax Labs for more excellent information on all things mouse.

This is actually a mini paper shredder for sale at Target. I had to do a double-take. IYKYK

Dr. Francis Collins, a man of science, music, and evangelical Christianity, retired from the NIH yesterday. This video encapsulates so much of what our country has lost in the first 2 months of 2025. m.youtube.com/watch?v=kDfN...

It’s @katherinejwu.com with the receipts. The NIH memo undercutting the NIH came directly from Trump officials. www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

Another odd transgenic phenomenon that we accidentally found when using a retired breeder to work out some staining conditions. The wildtype mom had green cells in her brain. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

Can whole-brain imaging of cellular c-Fos signals be used to classify #psychedelics? 🧠🔬💊 Our study by @aboharbf.bsky.social and @pashadavoudian.bsky.social, developing an imaging and machine learning pipeline to test a panel of psychoactive drugs. Paper here 👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Random image of a caudal striosome but I don’t remember the stain, other than it’s an example of myelin auto fluorescence in purple. This part of the brain is full of bidirectional fibers.

Fun Fact: Cats mirror the behavior of their mothers. This is the origin of the phrase “copy cat”. I think my cat needs some Freudian therapy #catsofbluesky #cats

Let’s play a game. You’re opto recording in the central amygdala and this probe is to scale. What dies? Remember, it’s a 3D probe. In the old days we would stain for transsynaptic target degeneration and call it a vivisected pathway. Just something to consider when recording deep in the brain.

Sharing this again because some of you asked protocols.io/view/laborat...

They misspelled catatonic and hyperphagic www.upi.com/Odd_News/202...

The thalamus gets no love. mPFC rgAAV2. Interesting that you see a similar pattern with AAV9 in the SST-Cre line, which can transport retrograde. Long range GABAergic projections?

CB1 #cannabinoid receptors on axons in the thalamus and hypothalamus in blue. Ears (nuclear stain) are DAPI. #sciart #synapticsystems mouse MoAb exquisitely titrated 😏

Dense CB-1 #cannabinoid receptor expression (red) in the hippocampus, cortex, and lateral substantia nigra on the Nr4a1 GFP background. See Davis MI et al 2018 #plosone for that story about #cannabinoid receptors in the basal ganglia. #sciart

This is one of my favorites. I always did a test cross with an FP reporter on my Cre lines. This told me what could happen and gave me sections to stain with antibodies to verify expected expression. This is a SST ires CrexAi 14 cross with gorgeous ectopic developmental expression in Purkinje cells

Here’s an interesting observation that ruined my plan to knock out CB1 in D2 neurons with an A2A Cre cross. There’s developmental expression in striosomes so I questioned the utility of the cross. If you do a knockout with an injection in the adult, expressed in matrix. Immuno is another story….

This cross was part of an experiment that I only published part of. If you knock out CB1 in cortical terminals with EMX1 Cre, it causes cable-like, twisted axon trajectories in the dorsal striatum. This Cx CB1 KO is on the Nr4a1-GFP (striosome) background with a Cre dependent tomato reporter.

Our fully 3D-printed microscope is featured in @newscientist.bsky.social www.newscientist.com/article/2462...

More NIH Diversity Double-speak drugmonkey.scientopia.org/2025/01/10/m...

Testing PV Cre tomato reporter cross with a PV antibody. Do you check your mice for correct expression throughout the brain? Note where they differ from what’s expected?

This would be an interesting journal club paper…. 🤔https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/17/1/149

@raskin.house.gov @ocasio-cortez.house.gov @repmoskowitz.bsky.social can you guys take this opportunity to address the source of the H1B visa controversy and improve STEM education in the US? This seems like an issue that both parties can get behind.

GFP goes everywhere! Who looks outside of the brain for Cre or FP expression?

Taxi drivers are steering neuroscience toward better understanding Alzheimer’s - STAT

Three must read papers for PhD students. #scisky #PhD #science #research #academicsky 1. The importance of stupidity in scientific research Open Access journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

Hoping that cross immunity from having H1N1 in 2009 will be somewhat protective www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Young hawk staring me down.

Hippocampus from the 5HT3 GFP mouse at PN14

Ectopic expression of a DBH Cre line in deep layers of cortex. #sciArt