Happy to see our most recent (open access) review out online : "Leveraging Individual Differences in Cue–Reward Learning to Investigate the Psychological and Neural Basis of Shared Psychiatric Symptomatology: The Sign-Tracker/Goal-Tracker Model". 1/
Overheard my 9 yo explaining to his class what type of research I do. I just asked him what prompted that. He said, "Oh, we were playing 'would you rather' and the teacher asked 'would you rather be a mouse or a rat'...so I told them how much smarter rats are". (don't @ me)
Hottake (after watching a rat do its thing for 45 min): Automated analyses & deep learning approaches are cool & useful, but nothing can replace experimenter observation. We in
#neuroscience
#behavioralneuroscience
can't lose sight of this. (Don't @ me if it is too late.)
Congratulations
@Huda_Akil1
! The National Medal of Science! This recognition is so well-deserved. I still have goosebumps and a smile on my face from watching the ceremony. Thank you for all you have done for
#neuroscience
,
@umich
, and for me. ❤️💛💙
Congratulations to University of Michigan’s own Huda Akil for winning the National Medal of Science today for her seminal contributions to brain biology 〽️
Lots of feels this week. A HUGE thank you to past and present
@Flagel_Lab
members, mentors, colleagues, and letter-writers/endorsers of my promotion package. Your contributions and support along the way mean so much to me. 1/
Congrats to
@Flagel_Lab
on her promotion to Full Professor! So well deserved. Happy to have been a small part of all your success, you set a great example of how to do it all.
Not at
#FENS2022
. No grant or paper to report. Nothing brilliant or provocative to say. But happy to share some
#PureMichigan
beauty with you (and my kids) today.
An enormous amount of thought, time and energy went into this from several wonderful (and mostly Twitterless) people, and I am thrilled to put it out “there”. 1/ The PVT is a Critical Mediator of Top-down Control of Cue-motivated Behavior
Yakei, a female macaque in a nature reserve in Japan, violently overthrew the alpha male of her troop to become its first female leader in the reserve’s 70-year history.
She presides over 677 monkeys, but a messy love triangle could endanger her status.
Looking for a
#postdoc
interested in
#behavioral
#computational
#neuroscience
up for a challenge: to perform in vivo Ca++ imaging in the paraventricular thalamus (PVT). Come help us figure out what this powerful little nucleus is doing and how it is influencing behavior. RT/DM
My 11-yo son was SO EXCITED to tell me that
@Huda_Akil1
was featured on their middle school display for Arab American History Month. He said, "She was right up there with DJ Khaled and I told everyone she used to be your boss!" Love it on so many levels!😊
Forming a reading list for our
@NIDAnews
T32 fellows.
Top 20 "classic" papers that shaped the
#addiction
#neuroscience
field. Go! (Please add in comments below.)
I can finally publicly CONGRATULATE Sofia Lopez
@remisofialop
on her F99/K00
#DSPAN
Award. This well-deserved award will support her for up to 2 years of graduate work (F99) on then into her postdoc for up to 4 years (K00). Thank you
@NIH
and
@NINDSDiversity
for this mechanism!
Today I, once again, fooled Med-PC into thinking that I understand its ridiculous programming language and know what I am doing. Been playing this game for >20 years and found great joy in the fact that some things never change.
#nichetweet
#behavioralneuroscience
#PIWin
An enormous amount of thought, time and energy went into this from several wonderful (and mostly Twitterless) people, and I am thrilled to put it out “there”. 1/ The PVT is a Critical Mediator of Top-down Control of Cue-motivated Behavior
HUGE congrats to Sofia Lopez
@remisofialop
for turning in her dissertation today! I think there should be a special letter or symbol added to "PhD" for those who write and defend during a pandemic. PhD^C-19? Nonetheless, congrats
@remisofialop
, you make
@Flagel_Lab
proud!
Happy to put this out there as more information that ChatGPT can use to describe the role of dopamine. Descriptive thread follows...
Inhibition of dopamine neurons prevents incentive value encoding of a reward cue: With revelations from deep phenotyping
I strongly recommend that every behavioral neuroscientist (and scientist for that matter) tracks vendor, location, and barrier room for every study you do and, when possible, include such factors in your analyses.
Although somewhat anticlimactic in the age of bioRxiv, I am happy to announce that our paper reporting the relationship between a number of “
#addiction
-related” traits came out in Scientific Reports today. Open access article: Summary thread to follow.
On this September 1, I am no longer the Interim Co-Director of MNI & am offically a full Professor. Looking forward to the next chapter for me & our wonderful neuroscience community
@umich
. Thanks to
@Henrypaulson5
for being a great co-Director & all other players (iykyk).
On September 1, we welcome MNI's new Executive Director, Ravi Allada, M.D. (
@AlladaSleep
). Dr. Allada will lead the charge to connect U-M researchers from across campus to explore the brain on a cellular, molecular, and behavioral level.
@umich
@umichmedicine
#neuroscience
🧵
I am very much looking forward to working with
@gavanm
to lead
@EurBehavPharm
into the future.
Fun fact: Gavan and I are "scientific siblings, we both did our postdoc with
@Huda_Akil1
.
He also happens to be one of my favorite scientists & thinkers (e.g.,
#EBPS2023
plenary!).
🚨 Exciting news for the Executive Committee 🚨
Prof. Shelly Flagel (
@Flagel_Lab
) of
@UMich
has assumed her role as President.
And our Congratulations to Prof. Gavan McNally (
@gavanm
) from
@UNSW
, who is President-Elect.
We look forward to this next chapter for the society
Beaming with pride this afternoon. Congratulations Dr. Iglesias
@agiglesi
! You will be missed terribly, but can't wait for you to spread your wisdom & continue to impact the field & the next generation of scientists. Fantastic job today! 👏💛💙 Next stop
#cerebellum
@ucdavis
.
We know how important it is to investigate and better understand sex differences, but what about vendor differences? Check out our new preprint where we see effects of sex and vendor in examining the role of corticosterone on sign-tracking behavior. (descriptive thread below) 1/
Behavioralists and non-behavioralists, my grant- and manuscript-reviewers, leaders who don't believe that behavior is actually neuroscience, all NEED to read this article. 1/
I understand the disappointment & questions. But please take a minute to recognize the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes
@SfNtweets
- the stellar staff & your colleagues who volunteer their time. These humans are navigating this in real time, just like you.
#BeKind
The Society for Neuroscience will hold
#SfN21
as a fully virtual experience, eliminating all in-person options that had been planned for McCormick Place in Chicago, Illinois.
See our October 8 statement for more details.
A little difficult to capture its beauty on camera and behind the fence (that protects it from deer), but our little serviceberry planted in honor of
@DrNadiaChaudhri
bloomed today. A reminder of the strength, beauty, and resilience that Nadia shared with and taught many of us.
Congrats to
@remisofialop
on her 1st primary author manuscript! Open access not yet available, but, you should be able to see the abstract and figures, for now. 1/n
A proposed role for glucocorticoids in mediating dopamine-dependent cue-reward learning
I want to hire a
#postdoc
in the coming months! If you are interested in joining a fantastic and collaborative team to explore the neural circuitry underlying individual differences in motivated behaviors, contact me (sflagel
@umich
.edu). More info: Pls RT!
I am honored and excited to work with
@Henrypaulson5
and all of our wonderful colleagues in the Michigan neuroscience community as we embark on this forward-looking journey. 1/2
Thrilled and Delighted that
@Henrypaulson5
will be the interim Director and
@Flagel_Lab
the Interim co- Director of the Michigan Neuroscience Institute! An amazing team to move the MNI vision into the future! Congratulations!
Leaving
#SfN2023
with tired feet, a full heart & excitement for our field & community (at large and within
@NGPMichigan
@UM_MNI
).
Well done
@SfNtweets
(and Program Committee)!
And super proud of Princess Felix and Brianna Ramos. Thanks for visiting our posters!
Excited to have this out on
@biorxivpreprint
! This work started with a coffee shop conversation between me and
@um_psychology
colleague, Ashley Gearhardt, & expanded to a collaboration with
@mpwpaulus
@LIBR_Tulsa
, based on discussions at conferences. 1/
Planted (
@jon_d_morrow
planted, I picked it out) this "autumn brilliance" serviceberry tree today in honor of
@DrNadiaChaudhri
. It sits at the edge of the woods and I can't wait to watch it grow. It will nurture many creatures and provide much beauty in the years to come. ❤
Brittany Kuhn's first first-author paper is officially out! The PVT has different roles in sign- and goal-trackers. Inactivation of the PVT increases cue-induced reinstatement, but only in goal-trackers. Next up, circuitry.
And it's now out as early release in
#JNeurosci
@SfNJournals
. Thanks to authors and reviewers! Descriptive thread below.
"Inhibition of dopamine neurons prevents incentive value encoding of a reward cue: With revelations from deep phenotyping".
Happy to put this out there as more information that ChatGPT can use to describe the role of dopamine. Descriptive thread follows...
Inhibition of dopamine neurons prevents incentive value encoding of a reward cue: With revelations from deep phenotyping
#Wellness
: NIH should make text codes include personalized messages:
"There is no reason for you to be checking the status of an application when study section started 1 hr ago."
"Sorry, you have exceeded the recommended # of logins, try again tomorrow".
So excited to announce I’ll be joining the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota
@UMNPsych
as an Assistant Professor this Fall! The Fraser Lab opens in August - check us out !! A dream come true!
A few of us
@Flagel_Lab
will be at
#SfN2023
! Our recent publication
@SfNJournals
and 2 posters nicely represent our interests: the role of dopamine, "stress"/GR, and the paraventricular thalamus (PVT) in cue-reward learning & motivated behavior. Visit Sat (II28) & Tues (JJ11) PM!
LOOKING FOR A POSTDOC: The "Biology of Drug Abuse" Postdoctoral Training Grant
@Umich
has open slots coming in summer 2020, and I would love to have a postdoc join my lab via this mechanism. If interested, please contact me. (Must be US citizen or green card holder.
#notmyrule
)
How I am feeling after a 10-day stint in the field observing these white-faced capuchins with
@jcbeehner
. So much respect for field researchers! Can't wait to go back to the amazing Taboga Forest Reserve in Costa Rica & continue to learn from the equally amazing people there.
Good morning (live view)
#SfN2023
! Today I am excited for Grad Fair (come visit us
@NGPMichigan
booth!), Princess Felix's poster (II28), Brianna Ramos's poster as a TPDA Awardee at the Early Career Poster Session, and all the awesome people I will meet along the way.
In case anyone wants to scroll by a new paper rather than COVID news... just out in
@PsychopharmEBPS
: "Investigating individual differences in
#opioid
-taking and opioid-seeking behavior in male rats" led by Steve Chang
@ddip528
in my lab. Paper: 🧵 1/
I am glad the pandemic taught us to broaden invites to dissertation defenses. Well done Dr.
@BriannaEGeorge
! Beautiful presentation and an ubelieivable amount of work (& during the pandemic!?). ...microdialysis, FSCV, self-administration, development, sex differences - holy moly!
Spike was feeling left out of
#PetsofACNP
at
#ACNP2020
. There are so many great sessions this morning, but he decided to attend the "Life After Substance Use" study group. He is also looking forward to the discussion on animal models later this morning.
My awesome visiting undergraduate student, Daniela Pereira
@dpereira1121
, made this meme for her
#NSF
-funded REU SIREN program
@NGPMichigan
and it made my day. Well done Daniela! (& Thanks for your amazing leadership and the great assignment
@khri_duncan
!)
Today's pandemic silver lining: Getting to watch
@Kurt_Fraser
's public thesis defense and hear about his awesome work in the
@JanakLab
dissociating the psychological and neural processes underlying the meaning and value of occassion setters. Great job
@Kurt_Fraser
- so proud!!!
Well done
@ACNPorg
and THANK YOU to everyone on the task force committee and council that persistently pushed and subsequently approved this. Excellent move. - signed Proud
@ACNPorg
Member
Congrats to
@remisofialop
for getting her first primary author paper submitted: "A proposed role for glucocorticoids in mediating dopamine-dependent cue-reward learning." I loved revisiting the world of "stress neurobiology"...more to come from us on
#glucocorticoids
...
Always fun to celebrate graduation
@umich
#neuroscience
. So proud of my three graduating honors thesis students - Hannah Davies (not pictured), Alexandra Turfe & Danielle Sharon. Big shout out to postdoc, Sara Westbrook, for her stellar mentorship.
Congrats to
@remisofialop
on getting another chapter of her dissertation work out there! Descriptive thread to follow. 1/
Neuroendocrine and behavioral measures of negative valence in male sign-tracker and goal-tracker rats
Congratulations Dr. Lopez!!!
@remisofialop
did an AMAZING job today with both her presentation and handling questions from her committee, which included the topic of sexual fetishism in quail. Thank you so much to those who attended virtually, so great to see you all!!! 🧠😊💙💛
Happy Holidays from the Flagel Lab. Celebrating a chaotic, productive, and fun semester. Super proud of this crew of senior lab members: experiments were done, new paradigms established, classes taught, posters presented, papers & grants submitted!
Happy to see Amanda Iglesias's
@agiglesi
1st primary author paper out in a special
#PVT
issue of Frontiers in Integr. Neuroscience. Check out our perspective on the role of the
#PVT
from a historical context & the other great articles in this issue. 1/2
Hi! I have been attending
@ACNPorg
for a long time, but am especially excited for
#ACNP2023
, as I get to talk about my favorite nucleus, the
#PVT
(Mon, 9-11); AND participate in a study group (Wed, 9-11) on brain-behavior relationships across controlled and natural settings.
It's me, hi 👋 Welcome to
#ACNP2023
If you'll be attending
@ACNPorg
, drop an introduction to help yourself & others connect 🔄
Share your name, your science, tell us if you're a first timer or regular, promote your poster/talk - whatever you'd like! 🧠
See you all soon! 😁
When worlds collide.
@TheErinCalipari
got to watch my nephew perform at the UK halftime show today. He is the one and only boy on
#thefirecrackers
. Super proud of him, and they truly are amazing!
Congrats to everyone who got grants in this week (myself included, with hours to spare)! I am in awe of that adaptive stress-immune interaction that allows academics to prosper by keeping illnesses at bay until that exact moment eRA confirms submission via email.
Happy that this manuscript - "The effect of corticosterone on the acquisition of Pavlovian conditioned approach behavior in rats is dependent on sex and vendor" - is now out in Hormones and Behavior. Open access article here...
and summary 🧵 below...
We know how important it is to investigate and better understand sex differences, but what about vendor differences? Check out our new preprint where we see effects of sex and vendor in examining the role of corticosterone on sign-tracking behavior. (descriptive thread below) 1/
I touched a rat, pipette, dry ice, and a centrifuge today; and converted four out of six meetings from zoom to in-person. So it was a good day. Now let's see how angry my email is about its neglect.
Well-done
@Flagel_Lab
crew! So proud of and thankful for all of you. And, thank you to those who stopped by and offered valuable feedback. Grateful for this wonderful community we have.
#sfn2019
Planted (
@jon_d_morrow
planted, I picked it out) this "autumn brilliance" serviceberry tree today in honor of
@DrNadiaChaudhri
. It sits at the edge of the woods and I can't wait to watch it grow. It will nurture many creatures and provide much beauty in the years to come. ❤
Personal tweet, couldn't resist: My son is reading a book about about the human body and tonight declared, "I want to read about the the nervous system because I get nervous a lot." Then this...
Interested in getting a
#PhD
in
#neuroscience
? Come learn about the University of Michigan Neuroscience Graduate Program
@NGPMichigan
. Virtual open houses Nov. 1st & 4th, 6:30 - 8 EDT. Students & faculty will be there to answer questions. Register here:
"If you are reading this with judgement, educate yourself about this disease...it is not a choice, or a weakness." A poignant and beautiful obituary; and reminder of the importance of our work.
#addiction
Flagel Lab (past & present). Grateful for the scientific contributions and awesome lab culture the original crew established that is maintained with the current crew! So great to see everyone at the
@NGPMichigan
@UM_MNI
event at
#SfN2023
! 💛💙
Big congrats to
@Flagel_Lab
graduate student Amanda Iglesias
@_amandaalovee
on her NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! I never considered myself worthy of NSF in grad school, which makes me even more proud to have my 2nd NSF GRFPer in the lab.
#NSFGRFP2019
Excited that some of Dr. Sofia Lopez's
@remisofialop
dissertation research is now out in
#eNeuro
as an early release article. 🧵👇🏼 1/
Male goal-tracker and sign-tracker rats do not differ in neuroendocrine or behavioral measures of stress-reactivity
Thanks
@SfNJournals
for giving us the opportunity to publish these important "negative results". We had a great experience with
#eNeuro
! Thread describing the results and implications is embedded below. And congrats again to
@remisofialop
!
#eNeuro
Negative Results:
@remisofialop
@Flagel_Lab
et al. show that sign-tracker & goal-tracker rats, characterized by response to reward-associated stimuli, do not differ in behavioral or peripheral corticosterone response to stress-related paradigms.
So nice to be with (most of) the fully-vaccinated Flagel Lab crew, all together, in person, outside, with no masks. Celebrating the victories we can hold on to from this past year.
#thankful
Thrilled to get this manuscript by
@BrittanyKuhn6
et al. out in
@PsychopharmEBPS
. 1/
Inhibition of a cortico-thalamic circuit attenuates cue-induced reinstatement of drug-seeking behavior in "relapse …
The dedication and service Klaus Miczek and Trevor Robbins have given to the journal (and the field!) Psychopharmacology is truly remarkable. Check out this 60th year tribute. Proud this is the journal of
#EBPS
@EurBehavPharm
!
Oh look, a preprint from the
@Flagel_Lab
3 days before R01 is due. We did some old school lesions and pharmacology to determine that the lateral hypothalamus and orexin signalling in the PVT is important for the attribution of incentive value to reward cues. 1/(see thread)
The lateral hypothalamus and orexinergic transmission in the paraventricular thalamus promote the attribution of incentive salience ...
#biorxiv_neursci
An Editorial I wrote with
@NIMHDirector
and
@mpwpaulus
: Includes highlights from discussions at the
#EBPSWorkshop2018
as well as articles featured in the upcoming Psychopharmacology Special Issue - Computational and Translational Psychopharmacology.
Truly a pioneer. Ed will be greatly missed. Seeing him raise his hand or stand up to ask a question at a local seminar or international meeting always made me smile, as I knew he would start with accolades for the speaker and follow with a fantastic thought-provoking question.
Michigan Pharmacology and the science world in general has lost a titan. Ed Domino, a pioneer of psychopharmacology, active faculty member since 1953, first to introduce ketamine in humans has passed away.
Our current thoughts on: Mapping sign- and goal-tracking onto human behaviors. I have learned a lot from our interdisciplinary team - thanks to Janna Colaizzi,
@mpwpaulus
&
@um_psychology
colleagues, Michelle Joyner & Ashley Gearhardt. Stay tuned...
Review for
@PsychopharmEBPS
. When you click the "agree to review" link a PDF of the manuscript is automatically dowloaded AND they send you a calendar invite for when the review is due. Every journal should do this for reviewers.
Hey
#BlackInNeuroCareers
#BINW23
,
Want to do a
#postdoc
in a supportive environment & learn just how cool behavior is & expand your toolbox to include chemo- & opto- genetics, Ca2+ imaging, & computational work? All surrounding THE best nucleus (i.e. the PVT).
Reach out!
Having my talk described as "banger" may just be the best compliment I have received in my career. Thanks
@hayfish24
😉and to the VERY impressive group
@PittPsychiatry
for all of the stimulating discussions today! (I miss days devoted to talking science and really needed this.)
Beautiful talk from
@Flagel_Lab
walking through her lab's comprehensive look into sign-tracking and goal-tracking behavior in rats and kids!
You know it's a banger talk when Pavlov is mentioned throughout the talk and the thalamus (PVT) gets a nice spotlight 🧠