Paper We're Discussing This Week:

Gu X., Johansen J.P. (2024) Prefrontal encoding of an internal model for emotional inference. BioRxiv: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.04.22.590529

Previously:

Li HQ, Jiang W, Ling L, Pratelli M, Chen C, Gupta V, Godavarthi SK, Spitzer NC. (2024) Generalized fear after acute stress is caused by change in neuronal cotransmitter identity. Science. 383:1252-1259. doi: 10.1126/science.adj5996.

Zhang X, Liu Y, Hong X, Li X, Meshul CK, Moore C, Yang Y, Han Y, Li WG, Qi X, Lou H, Duan S, Xu TL, Tong X. (2021) NG2 glia-derived GABA release tunes inhibitory synapses and contributes to stress-induced anxiety. Nat Commun. 12(1):5740. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-25956-y.

Zhu F, Elnozahy S, Lawlor J, Kuchibhotla KV. The cholinergic basal forebrain provides a parallel channel for state-dependent sensory signaling to auditory cortex. (2023) Nat Neurosci. 26:810-819. doi: 10.1038/s41593-023-01289-5.

Yamada J, Maeda S, Tojo M, Hayashida M, Iinuma KM, Jinno S. (2023) Altered regulation of oligodendrocytes associated with parvalbumin neurons in the ventral hippocampus underlies fear generalization in male mice. Neuropsychopharm. 48:1668-1679. doi: 10.1038/s41386-023-01611-6.

Sun W, Liu Z, Jiang X, Chen MB, Dong H, Liu J, Südhof TC, Quake SR. (2024) Spatial transcriptomics reveal neuron-astrocyte synergy in long-term memory. Nature. Mar;627(8003):374-381. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-07011-6

Walker EY, Pohl S, Denison RN, Barack DL, Lee J, Block N, Ma WJ, Meyniel F. (2023) Studying the neural representations of uncertainty. Nature Neuroscience, 10.1038/s41593-023-01444-y

Asokan M.M., Watanabe Y., Kimchi E.Y., Polley D.B. (2023) Potentiation of cholinergic and corticofugal inputs to the lateral amygdala in threat learning. Cell Reports 42: 113167.

Yu H, Chen L, Lei H, Pi G, Xiong R, Jiang T, Wu D, Sun F, Gao Y, Li Y, Peng W, Huang B, Song G, Wang X, Lv J, Jin Z, Ke D, Yang Y, Wang JZ. (2022) Infralimbic medial prefrontal cortex signalling to calbindin 1 positive neurons in posterior basolateral amygdala suppresses anxiety- and depression-like behaviours. Nat Commun. 13:5462.

Cummings KA, Bayshtok S, Dong TN, Kenny PJ, Clem RL. (2022) Control of fear by discrete prefrontal GABAergic populations encoding valence-specific information. Neuron, doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2022.07.004.

Yanpallewar S, Tomassoni-Ardori F, Palko ME, Hong Z, Kiris E, Becker J, Fulgenzi G, Tessarollo L. (2022) TrkA-cholinergic signaling modulates fear encoding and extinction learning in PTSD-like behavior. Transl Psychiatry 12(1):111.

Ben-Ami Bartal I, Rodgers DA, Bernardez Sarria MS, Decety J, Mason P. (2014) Pro-social behavior in rats is modulated by social experience. Elife 3:e01385

Huggins A.A, Weis C.N., Parisi E.A., Bennett K.P., Miskovic V., Larson C.L. (2021) Neural substrates of human fear generalization: A 7T-fMRI investigation. Neuroimage 239: 118308.

Fu X, Teboul E, Weiss GL, Antonoudiou P, Borkar CD, Fadok JP, Maguire J, Tasker JG. (2022) Gq neuromodulation of BLA parvalbumin interneurons induces burst firing and mediates fear-associated network and behavioral state transition in mice. Nat Comm 13: 1290.

LA Osso, KA Rankin, JR Chan (2021) Experience-dependent myelination following stress is mediated by the neuropeptide dynorphin Neuron 109: 3619-3632.e5

Rachel A. Walker, Rebecca L. Suthard, Taylor N. Perison, Nora M. Sheehan, Caitlin C. Dwyer, Jillian K. Lee, Eghosa K. Enabulele, Madelyn H. Ray and Michael A. McDannald (2022) Dorsal raphe 5-HT neurons utilize, but do not generate, negative aversive prediction errors eNeuro. 0132-21.2022

Joffe ME, Maksymetz J, Luschinger JR, Dogra S, Ferranti AS, Luessen DJ, Gallinger IM, Xiang Z, Branthwaite H, Melugin PR, Williford KM, Centanni SW, Shields BC, Lindsley CW, Calipari ES, Siciliano CA, Niswender CM, Tadross MR, Winder DG, Conn PJ. (2022) Acute restraint stress redirects prefrontal cortex circuit function through mGlu 5 receptor plasticity on somatostatin-expressing interneurons. Neuron S0896-6273: 01044-8.

Sánchez-Bellot C, AlSubaie R, Mishchanchuk K, Wee RWS, MacAskill AF. (2022) Two opposing hippocampus to prefrontal cortex pathways for the control of approach and avoidance behaviour. Nat Comm 13: 339

Whittle N, Fadok J, MacPherson KP, Nguyen R, Botta P, Wolff SBE, Müller C, Herry C, Tovote P, Holmes A, Singewald N, Lüthi A, Ciocchi S. (2021) Central amygdala micro-circuits mediate fear extinction. Nat Comm 12: 4156

Lazic SE. (2010) The problem of pseudoreplication in neuroscientific studies: is it affecting your analysis? BMC Neurosci 11:5.

Yu W, Pati D, Pina MM, Schmidt KT, Boyt KM, Hunker AC, Zweifel LS, McElligott ZA, Kash TL (2021) Periaqueductal gray/dorsal raphe dopamine neurons contribute to sex differences in pain-related behaviors. Neuron 109:1365-1380.

Benamer N, Vidal M, Balia M, Angulo MC. (2020) Myelination of parvalbumin interneurons shapes the function of cortical sensory inhibitory circuits. Nat Communications 11:5151.

Cai LX, Pizano K, Gundersen GW, Hayes CL, Fleming WT, Holt S, Cox JM, Witten IB. (2020) Distinct signals in medial and lateral VTA dopamine neurons modulate fear extinction at different times. eLife: 9:e54936. doi:10.7554/eLife.54936.

Shine JM, Müller EJ, Munn B, Cabral J, Moran RJ, Breakspear M. (2021)
Computational models link cellular mechanisms of neuromodulation to large-scale neural dynamics. Nat Neurosci. doi: 10.1038/s41593-021-00824-6.

Khalighinejad N, Bongioanni A, Verhagen L, Folloni D, Attali D, Aubry JF, Sallet J, Rushworth MFS. (2020) A Basal Forebrain-Cingulate Circuit in Macaques Decides It Is Time to Act. Neuron 105: 37-384.

Sohn JMB, de Souza STF, Raymundi AM, Bonato J, de Oliveira RMW, Prickaerts J, Stern CA. (2020) Persistence of the extinction of fear memory requires late-phase cAMP/PKA signaling in the infralimbic cortex. Neurobiol Learn Mem. 172:107244.

Kim CK, Sanchez MI, Hoerbelt P., Fenno LE, Malenka RC, Deisseroth K, Ting AY (2020) A Molecular Calcium Integrator Reveals a Striatal Cell Type Driving Aversion. Cell 183: 2003-2019.

Pan S., Mayoral S.R., Choi H.S., Chan J.R., Kheirbek M. (2020) Preservation of a remote fear memory requires new myelin formation. Nat. Neurosci 23: 487-499.

Qin C, Bian XL, Wu HY, Xian JY, Cai CY, Lin YH, Zhou Y, Kou XL, Chang L, Luo CX, Zhu DY. (2020) Dorsal Hippocampus to Infralimbic Cortex Circuit is Essential for the Recall of Extinction Memory. Cereb Cortex Nov 14;bhaa320.

Cho KKA, Davidson TJ, Bouvier G, Marshall JD, Schnitzer MJ, Sohal VS. (2020) Cross-hemispheric gamma synchrony between prefrontal parvalbumin interneurons supports behavioral adaptation during rule shift learning. Nat Neurosci. 23:892-902.

Companion discussion paper:

Buzsáki G, Schomburg EW. (2015) What does gamma coherence tell us about inter-regional neural communication? Nat Neurosci.18:484-9.

Lovett-Barron M, Chen R, Bradbury S, Andalman AS, Wagle M, Guo S, Deisseroth K. (2020) Multiple convergent hypothalamus-brainstem circuits drive defensive behavior. Nat Neurosci.

McMurray KMJ, Gray A, Horn P, Sah R. (2020) High Behavioral Sensitivity to Carbon Dioxide Associates with Enhanced Fear Memory and Altered Forebrain Neuronal Activation. Neuroscience 429: 92-105.

Day HLL, Suwansawang S, Halliday DM, Stevenson CW. (2020) Sex differences in auditory fear discrimination are associated with altered medial prefrontal cortex function. Sci Rep. 10:6300.

van Holstein M., MacLeod P.E., Floresco S. (2019) Basolateral amygdala - nucleus accumbens circuitry regulates optimal cue-guided risk/reward decision making. Prog Neuropsychopharm and Biol Psych. 98: 109830.

Dolensek N, Gehrlach DA, Klein AS, Gogolla N. (2020) Facial expressions of emotion states and their neuronal correlates in mice. Science 368 :89-94.

Dabney W., Kurth-Nelson Z., Uchida N., Starkweather C.K., Hassabis D., Munos R., Botvinick M. (2020) A Distributional Code for Value in Dopamine-Based Reinforcement Learning. Nature 577: 671-675.

Gao C, Leng Y, Ma J, Rooke V, Rodriguez-Gonzalez S, Ramakrishnan C, Deisseroth K, Penzo MA. (2020) Two genetically, anatomically and functionally distinct cell types segregate across anteroposterior axis of paraventricular thalamus. Nat Neurosci. 23:217-228.

Zhang B, Ma S, Rachmin I, He M, Baral P, Choi S, Gonçalves WA, Shwartz Y, Fast EM, Su Y, Zon LI, Regev A, Buenrostro JD, Cunha TM, Chiu IM, Fisher DE, Hsu YC. (2020) Hyperactivation of sympathetic nerves drives depletion of melanocyte stem cells. Nature 577:676-681.

Scheggia D, Managò F, Maltese F, Bruni S, Nigro M, Dautan D, Latuske P, Contarini G, Gomez-Gonzalo M, Requie LM, Ferretti V, Castellani G, Mauro D, Bonavia A, Carmignoto G, Yizhar O, Papaleo F. Somatostatin interneurons in the prefrontal cortex control affective state discrimination in mice (2020) Nature Neurosci 23:47-60.

Blume R.S., Padival M., Urban J.H., Rosenkranz A.J. (2019) Disruptive effects of repeated stress on basolateral amygdala neurons and fear behavior across the estrous cycle. Sci Rep 9:12292. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6707149/

Forkosh O, Karamihalev S, Roeh S, Alon U, Anpilov S, Touma C, Nussbaumer M, Flachskamm C, Kaplick PM, Shemesh Y, Chen A.(2019) Identity domains capture individual differences from across the behavioral repertoire. Nature Neuroscience. Nov. 4.

Kasugai Y, Vogel E, Hörtnagl H, Schönherr S, Paradiso E, Hauschild M, Göbel G, Milenkovic I, Peterschmitt Y, Tasan R, Sperk G, Shigemoto R, Sieghart W, Singewald N, Lüthi A, Ferraguti F. (2019) Structural and Functional Remodeling of Amygdala GABAergic Synapses in Associative Fear Learning. Neuron 104:1-14.

Smith EH, Horga G, Yates MJ, Mikell CB, Banks GP, Pathak YJ, Schevon CA, McKhann II GM, Hayden BY, Botvinick MM, Sheth SA. (2019) Widespread temporal coding of cognitive control in the human prefrontal cortex. Nature Neuro, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-019-0494-0

Du. J., Price M.P., Taugher R.J., Gigsby D., Ash J.J., Stark A.C., Saad M.Z.H., Singh K., Mandal J., Wemmie J.A., Welsh M.J. (2017) Transient acidosis while retrieving a fear-related memory enhances its lability. eLife;6:e22564.

Hasan MT, Althammer F, Silva da Gouveia M, Goyon S, Eliava M, Lefevre A, Kerspern D, Schimmer J, Raftogianni A, Wahis J, Knobloch-Bollmann HS, Tang Y, Liu X, Jain A, Chavant V, Goumon Y, Weislogel JM, Hurlemann R, Herpertz SC, Pitzer C, Darbon P, Dogbevia GK, Bertocchi I, Larkum ME, Sprengel R, Bading H, Charlet A, Grinevich V. (2019) A Fear Memory Engram and Its Plasticity in the Hypothalamic Oxytocin System. Neuron.103:133-146.e8.

Yaeger CE, Ringach DL, Trachtenberg JT. (2019) Neuromodulatory control of localized dendritic spiking in critical period cortex. Nature 567:100-104.

Stephenson-Jones M., Bravo-Rivera C., Ahrens S., Furlan A., Ferndandes-Henriques C., Li B. bioRxiv preprint, posted 3/31/19. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/594887v1

Falkner AL, Grosenick L, Davidson TJ, Deisseroth K, Lin D. (2016) Hypothalamic control of male aggression seeking behavior. Nat Neurosci 19:596.

Zhang K., Chen CD, Monosov IE (2019) Novelty, Salience, and Surprise Timing are Signaled by Neurons in the Basal Forebrain. Current Biology 29:134.

Baek J, Lee S, Cho T, Kim SW, Kim M, Yoon Y, Kim KK, Byun J, Kim SJ, Jeong J, Shin HS. (2019) Neural Circuits Underlying a Psycho-therapeutic Regimen for Fear Disorders. Nature, 566: 339.

Pryluk R., Kfir Y., Gelbard-Sagiv H., Fried I., Paz R. (2019) A Tradeoff in the Neural Code Between Regions and Species. Cell 176: 597-609.

Popper, K. (1935) Theory. In The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London and New York: Routledge Classics.

Ronovsky M, Zambon A, Cicvaric A, Boehm V, Hoesel B, Moser BA, Yang J, Schmid JA, Haubensak WE, Monje FJ, Pollak DD. (2019) A role for miR-132 in learned safety. Sci Reports 9: 528.

Seo C, Guru A, Jin M, Ito B, Sleezer BJ, Ho YY, Wang E, Boada C, Krupa NA, Kullakanda DS, Shen CX, Warden MR. (2019) Intense threat switches dorsal raphe serotonin neurons to a paradoxical operational mode. Science. 363:538-542.

Corder G., Ahanonu B., Grewe B.F., Wang D., Schnitzer M.J., Scherrer G. (2019) An amygdalar neural ensemble that encodes the unpleasantness of pain. Science 363: 276-281.

Zhang X., Li B. (2018) Population coding of valence in basolateral amygdala. Nat Comm 9: 5195.

Nelson A., Mooney R. (2016) The basal forebrain and motor cortex provide convergent yet distinct movement-related inputs to the auditory cortex. Neuron, 90: 635-648.

Allsop SA, Wichmann R, Mills F, Burgos-Robles A, Chang CJ, Felix-Ortiz AC, Vienne A, Beyeler A, Izadmehr EM, Glober G, Cum MI, Stergiadou J, Anandalingam KK, Farris K, Namburi P, Leppla CA, Weddington JC, Nieh EH, Smith AC, Ba D, Brown EN, Tye KM. (2018) Corticoamygdala Transfer of Socially Derived Information Gates Observational Learning. Cell, 10.1016/j.cell.2018.04.004

Ren J, Friedmann D, Xiong J, Liu CD, Ferguson BR, Weerakkody T, DeLoach KE, Ran C, Pun A, Sun Y, Weissbourd B, Neve RL, Huguenard J, Horowitz MA, Luo L. (2018) Anatomically Defined and Functionally Distinct Dorsal Raphe Serotonin Sub-systems. Cell, doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.07.043

Aitta-Aho T, Hay YA, Phillips BU, Saksida LM, Bussey TJ, Paulsen O, Apergis-Schoute J. (2018) Basal Forebrain and Brainstem Cholinergic Neurons Differentially Impact Amygdala Circuits and Learning-Related Behavior. Curr Biol, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.06.064.

Giardino WJ, Eban-Rothschild A, Christoffel DJ, Li SB, Malenka RC, de Lecea L. (2018) Parallel circuits from the bed nuclei of stria terminalis to the lateral hypothalamus drive opposing emotional states. Nat Neurosci 21:1084-1095.

Ahrens S., Wu M.V., Furlan A., Hwang G-R., Paik R., Li H., Penzo M., Tollukuhn J., Li B. (2018) A central extended amygdala circuit that modulates anxiety. J Neurosci 38: 5567-5583.

Marek R, Xu L, Sullivan RKP, Sah P. (2018) Excitatory connections between the prelimbic and infralimbic medial prefrontal cortex show a role for the prelimbic cortex in fear extinction. Nat Neurosci 21:654-658.

Ashley J, Cordy B, Lucia D, Fradkin LG, Budnik V, Thomson T. (2018) Retrovirus-like Gag Protein Arc1 Binds RNA and Traffics across Synaptic Boutons. Cell 172: 262-274.

Marek R, Jin J, Goode TD, Giustino TF, Wang Q, Acca GM, Holehonnur R, Ploski JE, Fitzgerald PJ, Lynagh T, Lynch JW, Maren S, Sah P. (2018) Hippocampus-driven feed-forward inhibition of the prefrontal cortex mediates relapse of extinguished fear. Nat Neuroscie 21:384-392.

Salay N.D.S., Ishiko N., Huberman A.D. (2018) A midline thalamic circuit determines reactions to visual threat. Nature, doi: 10.1038/s41586-018-0078-2.

Kuchibhotla KV, Gill JV, Lindsay GW, Papadoyannis ES, Field RE, Sten TA, Miller KD, Froemke RC (2017) Parallel processing by cortical inhibition enables context-dependent behavior. Nat Neurosci 20: 62-71.

Madarasz TJ, Diaz-Mataix L, Akhand O, Ycu EA, LeDoux JE, Johansen JP. (2016) Evaluation of ambiguous associations in the amygdala by learning the structure of the environment. Nat Neurosci 19: 965

Steinmetz NA, Buetfering C, Lecoq J, Lee CR, Peters AJ, Jacobs EAK, Coen P, Ollerenshaw DR, Valley MT, de Vries SEJ, Garrett M, Zhuang J, Groblewski PA, Manavi S, Miles J, White C, Lee E, Griffin F, Larkin JD, Roll K, Cross S, Nguyen TV, Larsen R, Pendergraft J, Daigle T, Tasic B, Thompson CL, Waters J, Olsen S, Margolis DJ, Zeng H, Hausser M, Carandini M, Harris KD. (2017) Aberrant Cortical Activity in Multiple GCaMP6-Expressing Transgenic Mouse Lines. eNeuro. 4(5). pii: ENEURO.0207-17.2017.

Murugan M, Jang HJ, Park M, Miller EM, Cox J, Taliaferro JP, Parker NF, Bhave V, Hur H, Liang Y, Nectow AR, Pillow JW, Witten IB.(2017) Combined social and spatial coding in a descending projection from the prefrontal cortex. Cell 171: 1663 - 1677.

Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Routledge Press, 1959 (Chapters I and II).

Espinosa N, Alonso A, Morales C, Espinosa P, Chávez AE, Fuentealba P. (2017) Basal Forebrain Gating by Somatostatin Neurons Drives Prefrontal Cortical Activity. doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhx302

Davis P., Zaki Y., Maguire J., Reijmers LG. (2017) Cellular and oscillatory substrates of fear extinction learning.Nat. Neurosci: doi: 10.1038/nn.4651

Martin-Fernandez M., Jamison S., Robin L.M., Zhao Z., Martin E.D., Aguilar J., Benneyworth M.A., Marsicano G., Araque A. (2017) Synapse-specific astrocyte gating of amygdala-related behavior. Nat Neurosci: doi:10.1038/nn.4649.

Wimmer R.D., Schmitt L.I., Davidson T.J., Nakajima M., Deisseroth K., Halassa M.M. (2015) Thalamic control of sensory selection in divided attention. Nature 526: 705-709.

Han W., Tellez L.A., Rangel Jr. M.J., Motta S.C., Zhang X., Perez I.O., Canteras N.S., Shammah-Lagnado S.J., van den Pol A.N., de Araujo I.E. (2017) Integrated control of predatory hunting by the central nucleus of the amygdala. Cell 168:311-324.

Gielow M.R., Zaborzsky L. (2017) The input-output relationship of the cholinergic basal forebrain. Cell Rep 18:1870-1830.

Halladay L.R., Blair H.T. (2015) Distinct ensembles of medial prefrontal cortex neurons are activated by threatening stimuli that elicit excitation vs. inhibition of movement. J Neurophysiol 114:793-807.

Grewe B.F., Gründemann J., Kitch L.J., Lecoq J.A., Parker J.G., Marshall J.D., Larkin M.C., Jercog P.E., Grenier F., Li J.Z., Lüthi A., Schnitzer M.J. (2017) Neural ensemble dynamics underlying a long-term associative memory. Nature 543: 670-675.

Kim W.B., Cho J-H. (2017) Synaptic targeting of double-projecting ventral CA1 hippocampal neurons to the medial prefrontal cortex and basal amygdala. J Neurosci 37:4868-4882.

Otis J.M., Namboodiri V.M., Matan A.M., Voets E.S., Mohorn E.P., Kosyk O., McHenry J.A., Robinson J.E., Resendez S.L., Rossi M.A., Stuber G.D. (2017) Prefrontal cortex output circuits guide reward seeking through divergent cue encoding. Nature 543: 103-107.

Wallis C.U., Cardinal R.N., Alexander L., Roberts A.C., Clarke H.F. (2017) Opposing roles of primate areas 25 and 32 and their putative rodent homologs in the regulation of negative emotion. PNAS 114: E4075-4084.

Gruene T.M., Lipps J., Rey C.D., Bouck A., Shansky R.M. (2014) Heat exposure in female rats elicits abnormal fear expression and cellular changes in prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Neurobiol Learn Mem 115: 38-42.

Miniscope workshop (Becky).

Day H.L.L., Reed M.M., Stevenson C.W. (2016) Sex differences in discriminating between cues predicting threat and safety. Neurobiol Learn Mem 133: 196-203.

Danielle and Margo are presenting posters on April 5 & 6 this week at the Undergraduate Research Conference.

A competitive inhibitory circuit for selection of active and passive fear responses.

Fadok JP, Krabbe S, Markovic M, Courtin J, Xu C, Massi L, Botta P, Bylund K, Müller C, Kovacevic A, Tovote P, Lüthi A.(2017) Nature, 542: 196.

An inhibitory pull-push circuit in frontal cortex.

Garcia-Junco-Clemente P., Ikrar T., Tring E., Xu X., Ringach D.L., Trachtenberg J.T. Nat Neurosci 20:389.

Gq/5-HT2c receptor signals activate a local GABAergic inhibitory feedback circuit to modulate serotonergic firing and anxiety in mice.

Spoida K, Masseck OA, Deneris ES, Herlitze S. PNAS 111:6479.

An intra-amygdala circuit specifically regulates social fear learning

Twinning R.C., Vantrease J.E., Love S., Padival M., Rosenkranz J.A. Nat Neurosci 20: 459. (2017)

Distinct hippocampal pathways mediate dissociable roles of context and memory retrieval.

Xu C., Krabbe S., Grundemann J., Botta P., Fadok J., Osakada F., Saur D., Grewe B.F., Schnitzer M.J., Callaway E.M., Luthi A.

Basal forebrain neuronal inhibition enables rapid behavioral stopping

Jeffrey D. Mayse, Geoffrey M. Nelson, Irene Avila, Michela Gallagher, and Shih-Chieh Lin,

Dysregulation of Prefrontal Cortex-Mediated Slow-Evolving Limbic Dynamics Drives Stress-Induced Emotional Pathology.

Hultman R, Mague SD, Li Q, Katz BM, Michel N, Lin L, Wang J, David LK, Blount C, Chandy R, Carlson D, Ulrich K, Carin L, Dunson D, Kumar S, Deisseroth K, Moore SD, Dzirasa K.

Cortical cholinergic signaling controls the detection of cues

Howard J. Grittona , William M. Howea , Caitlin S. Mallorya , Vaughn L. Hetricka , Joshua D. Berkea , and Martin Sartera,1

A shared neural ensemble links distinct contextual memories encoded close in time

Denise J. Cai1 *, Daniel Aharoni1,2,3*, Tristan Shuman2,3*, Justin Shobe1 *, Jeremy Biane4,5, Weilin Song1 , Brandon Wei1 , Michael Veshkini1 , Mimi La-Vu1 , Jerry Lou2,3, Sergio E. Flores2,3, Isaac Kim1 , Yoshitake Sano1 , Miou Zhou1 , Karsten Baumgaertel6, Ayal Lavi1 , Masakazu Kamata7 , Mark Tuszynski4,5, Mark Mayford6, Peyman Golshani2,3 & Alcino J. Silva1

New paper out

December 07, 2020

In our new review paper, “White Matter Plasticity in Anxiety: Disruption of Neural Network Synchronization during Threat-Safety Discrimination”, we argue that stress- and anxiety-related disorders are associated with altered myelin plasticity. In turn, changes in myelin plasticity, compromise synchronous communication within circuits that are crucial for proper learning of threat - safety discrimination.

Liu J., Likhtik E., Shereen D.A., Dennis-Tiwary T.A., Casaccia P. (2020) White Matter Plasticity in Anxiety: Disruption of Neural Network Synchronization during Threat-Safety Discrimination. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience.

12/4 Friday CNC Seminar - Jan Grundemann

December 02, 2020

Friday, December 4, 3:00 - 4:30 pm

Imaging deep: sensory and state coding in subcortical circuits

Dr. Jan Gründemann (University of Basel)

Email el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu to attend

11/25 CNC Neuroscience Seminar - Annalisa Scimemi

November 24, 2020

Wednesday, Nov. 25, 3:00 - 4:30pm

Circadian modulation of hippocampal function

Dr. Annalisa Scimemi (SUNY Albany)

Email el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu to attend

CNC Neuroscience Seminar - Carmel Martin-Fairey

November 13, 2020

Friday, November 13, 2020 3:00 - 4:30pm

A Time to Deliver

Dr. Carmel Martin-Fairey (Harris-Stowe State University)

Dr. Martin-Fairey will discuss the roles that genetic and environmental disruptions of circadian rhythms play in risks for preterm birth.

Please email el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu to attend

CNC Neuroscience Seminar - Ivan de Araujo

November 03, 2020

Friday, November 6, 2020, 3:00 - 4:30pm

The Gut-Brain Axis and Reward

Dr. Ivan de Araujo (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)

Please email el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu for link to attend

Neuroscience Seminar: Nesha Burghardt

October 16, 2020

Friday, October 16th, 3:00 - 4:30 pm

Vulnerable and Resilient Phenotypes in a Mouse Model of Anorexia Nervosa.

Dr. Nesha Burghardt (Hunter College, CUNY)

Please email el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu for link to attend

New paper out

October 13, 2020

How can we boost the ability to learn about safety? When we amplify the salience of stimuli that signal safety, we improve their effectiveness. But that’s not all - we also improve discrimination of new non-threatening stimuli, and increase exploration of new environments, thereby decreasing generalized fear.

Our new paper is out showing these positive behavioral effects of Salient Safety training in the Safety issue of Behavioural Brain Research.

Nahmoud I., Ganay Vasquez J., Cho H., Dennis-Tiwary T., Likhtik E. (2020) Salient safety conditioning improves novel discrimination learning. Behav Brain Res 397: 112907.

We Welcome Emma to the lab!

October 05, 2020

Emma Denholtz has officially joined the lab and is fully immersed in our work on circuits that encode safety signaling in the brain. In this period of uncertainty (and associated anxiety), we’re very interested in figuring out how the brain extracts information about cues that organisms rely on for safety, as a means to relieve anxiety. Emma is working on using behavior, electrophysiology, neuroanatomy, and calcium signaling to delve into this question. Happy to have you on board!

July 13th - FENS virtual seminar session (13:00 - 14:30 British Summer Time!)

July 13, 2020

If you are attending FENS, virtually stop in to say hello at our session, where we on focus on how to develop new therapeutic approaches to battle fearful and addictive memories.

S32 - The eternal sunshine of the spotless mind: recent advances to reduce fear and addictive memories

Bianca Silva (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne): A thalamo-amygdalar circuit underlying the extinction of remote fear memories

Kerry Ressler (Harvard Medical School): Biomarkers of Trauma Response and Recovery: Intermediate Phenotypes as Targets for Interfering with Trauma Memories?

Ekaterina Likhtik (Hunter College, CUNY): Safety training as a therapeutic tool to improve fear discrimination: translational implications.

Amy Milton (University of Cambridge): Preventing Drug Relapse by Modifying Memories: Challenges and Opportunities in Exploiting Reconsolidation to Treat Addiction.

New pre-print out on BioRxiv

June 25, 2020

Salient Safety Conditioning Improves Novel Discrimination Learning.

Overgeneralized fear is a prevalent symptom in disorders of anxiety, and we are interested in finding therapeutic approaches to increase discrimination of non-threat in high-anxiety populations. We show that high anxiety mice (that also typically have high overgeneralized fear, like humans), improve in learning outcomes and discriminate non-threatening stimuli better after we train them on salient safety cues. It’s possible that our salient safety paradigm, trains the same networks as will later be active during non-threatening stimuli.

Great teamwork by Itzik and Jenny in the lab!

Does Wikipedia do a good job covering the work that women do in STEM?

June 22, 2020

In their blog piece, Rebecca Zhang from the lab and Mackenzie Lemieux from Kay Tye’s lab (Salk Institute) highlight how building Wikipedia pages for women in STEM is a game changer for disseminating the scientific accomplishments of women working in science. The recognition has a myriad benefits, including helping prospective graduate students, like Rebecca, find out about potential mentors and pinpoint suitable graduate programs that might never be discovered otherwise.

Take a read!

Congratulations to Jenny on winning the Jonas E. Salk Scholarship!

June 08, 2020

Jenny will be heading off to University of Rochester Medical School with a Jonas E. Salk Scholarship for her excellent work in the lab on how safety learning positively impacts other behaviors, and the brain. This work has clinical applications and we look forward to checking in on her progress as she learns about other ways to keep everyone healthy.

Talk at the Advanced Science Research Center

June 01, 2020

Looking forward to sharing our work at the ASRC Lunch & Learn online seminar series on Thursday, June 4th from 12:00 - 1:30.

I will be discussing “Novel pathways of fear suppression learning”.

email el1417 at hunter dot cuny dot edu if you are interesting in attending.

Congratulations to Rebecca on winning the Fulbright Scholarship!

May 19, 2020

In the fall, Rebecca will be heading off to Germany to work with Nadine Gogolla at the Max Plank Institute of Neurobiology to study the insular cortex. In the lab Rebecca has been working on the pathways linking the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and the basal forebrain in emotion regulation, which is a perfect segue for this next stage in her research career. Awesome job!

Lab keychains that Rebecca designed and 3D printed for the lab.

Congratulations to our senior undergrads!

May 01, 2020

Great talks by Jenny, Rebecca, and Destinee at the Hunter Undergraduate Student Research Conference this week!

Special thanks to Michael Steiper for organizing the college-wide conference.

Fri, April 17: Problems in neural and cognitive computation

April 16, 2020

Virtual Symposium held by The Graduate Center Initiative for Theoretical Sciences.

Join here: https://princeton.zoom.us/j/3025052077

email el1417@hunter.cuny.edu for pw to attend.

Response to COVID19

April 13, 2020

Our lab PPE went out to medical staff in NYC, and we are 3D printing face shields that are going out to hospitals in NY, NJ, and PA. Special thanks to Rebecca for optimizing the design for our printer, to allow for scaling up our face shield production! We are printing a modified version of the original design by Carbon, which works with our Form2 Formlabs printer (Draft or Tough resin).

There are a variety of online communities focused on 3D printing PPE, including NYC Makes PPE, and FormLabs.

Corona Virus Genome Tracker

March 16, 2020

Our Biology Dept. colleague, Weigang Qiu, and his research group, are working on an interactive Genome tracker for COVID-19. It’s a work in progress that visualizes how the viral genome geographically evolves, and how it compares to other viruses.

Congratulations to Carolina and Becky!

March 12, 2020

Congratulations to Carolina on winning the Provost’s Pre-Dissertation Research Fellowship for the Sciences and to Becky on winning the NIH Outstanding Scholars in Neuroscience Award Program - OSNAP!

Fantastic to see students get recognition for their hard work!

Friday 3/6 Neuroscience Seminar: Mihaela Iordanova

March 05, 2020

Behavioral and neural mechanisms of secondary fear cues.

Mihaela Iordanova (Concordia University)

Friday, March 6, 10-11:30am

The Graduate Center

365 Fifth Avenue @34th Street, Room 6496