New preprint! “Anhedonia buffers the effects of early-life unpredictability on threat-reward decision making” w\ @malejandra.bsky.social, Yifan Zhang, @mikeyassa.bsky.social, @aaronbornstein.bsky.social & many more! 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

One week until my PhD defense! Please join me next Friday, as I discuss my research on the neurobiology of anhedonia following early life unpredictability in adolescent and young adult cohorts using neuroimaging and cognitive neuroscience techniques. Register here: uci.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

See you tonight! Here to chat about motivational conflict, early life adversity, anhedonia, and more 💡

Publishing highlight of 2025, getting to look at PVT neurons under the microscope and co-first-authoring this paper :D

I think these findings raise interesting questions about the adaptive function of anhedonic attitudes. Find @biancaleonard.bsky.social and myself to learn more!

#ACNP2026 - Wednesday afternoon @biancaleonard.bsky.social will present a computational model-driven motivational conflict challenge that identifies novel, *opposing* influences of early-life unpredictability and anhedonia @mikeyassa.bsky.social @hartleylabnyu.bsky.social @malejandra.bsky.social

📰👀 What does a chunk of thalamus have to do with mental health? Find out in my 1st PhD first-author paper✨about functional connectivity between the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) and nucleus accumbens in young adults with anhedonia. sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

My good friend and inspiring colleague Bianca @biancaleonard.bsky.social sharing her work at #ACNP2023 on imaging the PVT in humans and exploring its role in adversity-induced changes in reward behaviors at yesterday’s hot topics session! Check out her poster on Tuesday (T95)!