Alex Kwan 關進晞
@kwanalexc
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Associate Professor at @CornellBME. Studying the neurobiology of psychiatric #drugs including #ketamine and #psychedelics.
Ithaca, NY
Joined November 2013
There are many nuances regarding the structural neural plasticity associated with antidepressant drugs. 💊🧠. We share our thoughts here in a @NatRevNeurosci article, led by @ItsClaraLiao and included co-authors from Conor Liston’s lab at @WCMPsychiatry.
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A pyramidal tract neuron in frontal cortex. That apical dendritic tuft 🔥. from Lingxiao Shao in the lab. Happy #FluorescenceFriday !
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Ensemble of mouse premotor cortical neurons. 2p calcium imaging data. Red line is when the mouse makes a choice in a discrimination task. cc @PhilCorlett1 @neuroecology
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A team effort to measure effects of #psilocybin on frontal cortical neurons in mice, now in press at @NeuroCellPress. Led by Lingxiao Shao with @ItsClaraLiao @PashaDavoudian @NeilSavalia and others. 1/11.
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A primer article about #psychedelics. We wanted a concise and accurate piece to share with undergraduates, journalists, and others who want to know more. Free link via @CurrentBiology: @YalePsych @YaleMed 1/n
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What do we currently know in terms of the basic neurobiology of #psychedelics? It was illuminating for me to try answering this question with @DEOlsonLab @KatrinPreller and @zenbrainest in a new review article @NatureNeuro: 1/n
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Living the pandemic life… homewall climbing while attending my own seminar (pre-recorded) 🤫
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Yale School of Medicine is going to provide some supplemental $$ for junior faculty for delays due to the pandemic. 👏👏👏
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Our latest study - psilocybin evokes structural neural plasticity, and we wanted to know how this maps onto pyramidal cell type-specific circuits to produce behavioral effects. 🍄🔬🧠. Link to @biorxivpreprint: Led by Ling-Xiao Shao and @ItsClaraLiao.
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Just out - @PashaDavoudian and Lingxiao Shao mapped the expression of immediate early gene cFos in the mouse brain after #ketamine or #psilocybin – at @ACSChemNeurosci
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Judy and I are excited to return to our alma mater @CornellEng! The lab will move next summer. More to come.
Thrilled to welcome back two @CornellAlumni as key faculty in @CornellEng initiatives! @kwanalexc joins @CornellBME and Judy Cha to @CornellMSE bringing with them expertise in neuroscience and nanoscale materials!
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In a new study led by @PashaDavoudian, we asked: across the whole mouse brain, what cortical and subcortical regions are impacted by #psilocybin and #ketamine? Link to @biorxivpreprint: 1/8
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Psyched that we got the green light for a new Gordon conference on #psychedelics in 2025! #GRCPsychedelics 🔥. Save the date: 7/13-7/18/2025 at Bryant University in Rhode Island. Look forward to organizing with @VVyazovskiy @ViditaVaidya @MelissaHerman4
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A focused study from our lab to answer one question – what is the extent and time scale of effects of #psilocybin on dendritic architectures in vivo? Led by Lingxiao Shao with help from @ItsClaraLiao @NeilSavalia and others. @YalePsych @YaleNeuro 1/7
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Want to connect with other psychedelic researchers in academia? 🍄💊🧠. @MikaelPalner and I started a #slack community now with ~200 members. Very low key but we have discussed papers, organized symposium proposals, and planned meetups at conferences. Reply here or DM to join.
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Can whole-brain imaging of cellular c-Fos signals be used for #psychedelics drug discovery?. This was a project led by @aboharbf and @PashaDavoudian, where they tested a panel of drugs and developed a machine learning pipeline to classify.
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Honored to be one of the awardees, and 🙏 @OneMindOrg for supporting research into mechanisms of #psychedelics for #mentalhealth.
Congratulations to the 2022 One Mind - @COMPASSPathway Rising Star Awardees: . ✨ @MaryamShanechi.✨ @kwanalexc .✨ @xinjin . Welcome to the One Mind community. We look forward to supporting your science and discoveries!
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It can feel like nothing is moving when starting a lab. E.g., I was the only one in my lab for 6 mo and had no useful data until 9 mo. 進階頓晞 (make the small steps and you will discover) - to the several I talked with recently and other new PIs
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Cool movie by Farhan Ali in the lab: jRGECO1 in the frontal cortical neurons and GCaMP6s in the long-range axons. In an awake mouse no less.
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Excited to share the lab's latest study of #ketamine action on cortical dendritic spines in the mouse. Study was led by Farhan Ali, and supported by @NIMHgov @BBRFoundation @YalePsych (thread follows)
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Congrats @PashaDavoudian for receiving a @NIDAnews F30 NRSA fellowship 🎉, to use #neuropixels to study effects of psilocybin on neural dynamics @YaleMSTP @Yale_INP
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The lab's first 2p image of GRAB-5HT in the frontal cortex (ripe for shadow-patch 🤔), from rotation student Josh Wilson. #FluorescenceFriday
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Our new opinion article @TrendsNeuro, proposing that a key shared action of #ketamine and serotonergic #psychedelics is their ability to modify dendritic excitability in pyramidal neurons. 1/8.
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We need robust behavioral assays for #psychedelic drug development. In this new study, @Sam_C_Woodburn systematically determined psilocybin’s effect on fear extinction as a function of dose, timing of administration, and serotonin receptors 🍄🐁.
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Unfortunately Sarah has to leave early, but I am excited to substitute and present a poster! . W129: come learn about 5-MeO-DMT or chat about psychedelics #ACNP2023
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5-MeO-DMT is a short-acting #psychedelic found in toad venom 🐸. We looked at how it modifies innate behaviors and induces structural neural plasticity in mice 🐭🧠. Thread by first author @SJeffersonMDPhD @YalePsych 👇.
In a new study with @kwanalexc we showed that the short-acting #psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT produces long-lasting increases in structural plasticity in mice similar to #psilocybin. Link to @biorxivpreprint:
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Farewell to the Molecular Psychiatry Division and Ribicoff Labs – been our scientific home for 9 years. I will miss @MarinaP63 @DrChrisPitt @DrNiiAddy @GeorgeDragoi2 @akaye @AliciaYChe @MattGirgenti and others, the amazing people and great science!
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Gorgeous corticospinal axons in the cleared brain of a Fezf2-CreER mouse #fluorescencefriday.h/t Quan Jiang in the lab + @LifeCanvasTech
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Now in press at @ACSChemNeurosci – our study about psilocybin’s effect on fear extinction. 🍄🐭⚡. Proud of the systematic work by @Sam_C_Woodburn, where we tested how the behavioral effects depend on dose, timing, serotonin receptors.
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New work from my lab led by Hongli Wang and @heatherkortega. We studied ACh and NE signaling in the mouse medial frontal cortex, while the animal 🐭 plays a competitive game with a computer 🖥️.
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We have a new study, characterizing the dysfunction of #dendrites in a mouse with #Shank3 mutation. Primary support for the project came from a @SFARIorg pilot award. (1/8) @YalePsych @YaleNeuro @MolPsychiatry.
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The program is shaping up for #GRCPsychedelics - An exciting lineup of basic and clinical researchers. 🧠🍄 . Save the date 7/13-7/18/2025 🗓️. @VVyazovskiy @ViditaVaidya @MelissaHerman4
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Not happy with forced swim or tail suspension? @ItsClaraLiao and I wrote a commentary on why reward-based learning tasks may be a useful approach to quantify behavioral deficits in rodent chronic stress models. @Chronic_Stress @YalePsych @Yale_INP
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Gul Dolen’s team has an exciting study showing how #psilocybin #LSD #MDMA #ketamine #ibogaine share an ability to enhance social learning in mice. Intriguingly, durability differs across drugs. @Sam_C_Woodburn and I wrote in @NatureNV to provide context
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How much does head fixation induce stress, and therefore may confound stress studies? I lost count of how many times I received this critique in my papers and grant proposals. Thanks @KonradJuczewski and @LovingerDavid for getting some actual data on this question.
Check out our newest preprint from the @LovingerDavid lab to learn about the head-fixation-induced stress in mice. Exciting data on its scale, habituation dynamics, behavioral consequences and locomotion in the #MobileHomeCage!
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For #FluorescenceFriday - set of deep-lying pyramidal tract neurons in the frontal cortex of a Fezf2-CreER mouse 🧠🔬 (h/t LX Shao in the lab)
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Study led by @SJeffersonMDPhD on how the short-acting #psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT modifies innate behavior and induces structural plasticity in mice now out at @npp_journal. Link here:.
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PhD student Hongli Wang led this project to teach a head-fixed mouse to play 'matching pennies' against the computer, and recorded pupil dynamics. Most definitely inspired by the many conversations with @daeyeol_lee and Hyojung Seo.
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It was so cool to see this in the lab - the classic head-twitch response in mice that received a serotonergic hallucinogen, captured in slo-mo using a high-speed camera. Collected by @ItsClaraLiao w/ @HuriyeAtilgan and supported by Yale Center for Psychedelic Science @YalePsych
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A pleasure to talk with @NPRjonhamilton @NPRShortWave about the latest research into the neurobiology of #psilocybin and #psychedelics. Featuring also comments from @GitteKnudsen2 and @NIMHDirector at the @SfNtweets annual meeting.
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I’m delighted for @PashaDavoudian’s thesis defense today. He has been a force in the lab. And thank you for adding one last SST interneuron to the data set! (h/t @NeuroWoodworks)
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Thank you @sdpnayak for a wonderful visit to @JHPsychedelics. A highlight was to see the session rooms. Incredible to think about the experiences in here over the twenty years. 🍄🪄🧠
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Thank you for the support 🙏 - @YalePsych has been a great environment for research with excellent mentors.
In recognition of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Yale Psychiatry will spend the month of May highlighting the stories of Asian faculty, trainees, and staff in the Department. Today we feature Alex Kwan, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry. (1/
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Mikael and I put together a Slack community group to talk about #psychedelics research - if you are an academic researcher and want to connect, let us know and we will send an invite!.
@kwanalexc How about a community psychedelic science channel? We have a discord going.
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Treated myself to a @GDunnArt print. Love the apical dendritic trees in a red and gold theme which are the classic Chinese colors.
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Our latest in medial frontal cortex and decision-making, a study of how mice perform the two-armed bandit task, is on @biorxivpreprint - led by @HuriyeAtilgan with help from @heatherkortega @cemurphs @lucasmpinto 1/n.
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Thank you Jeffrey DiBerto and @zenbrainest for this preview of our #psilocybin paper @NeuroCellPress. “The cranial windows of perception” 😂 – love the title!
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Interested in tenure-track faculty positions at Cornell? Join the @CornellFirst Symposium in October! @CornellBME is one of the participating departments. DM me for more details.
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Animals 🐒🐁🐦 can be taught to play a variety of competitive and cooperative games. How may games be used to uncover the neural basis of social and strategic decisions? Hongli Wang and I wrote in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews: 1/n.
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@schoppik I would tell my younger self that rejections do not mean much. Keep applying to those fellowships and travel awards.
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We added a climbing wall in the home office, and it’s the best thing ever.
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1/ A new study from my lab, in which we characterized the effect of sub-anesthetic ketamine on the frontal cortical microcircuit - led by postdoc Farhan Ali w/ @dmgerhard @DrChrisPitt and others.
Ketamine disinhibits dendrites and enhances calcium signals in prefrontal dendritic spines #biorxiv_neursci.
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Just finished 'Ketamine' by @bita137 - an enjoyable and accessible read. Several highlights for me:
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When I was a starting faculty, benefited so much from talking with @daeyeol_lee - great to see you again today after many years
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Perk of being an academic - an extra day after the #EBPS2024 workshop to appreciate the golden larch in Banff. 🍂🥾. Thank you @MayoOnTheBrain for the invite, as well as @canna_brain @drstephieb and Harriet de Wit for putting together this exceptional meeting!
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Congrats to Dr. Clara Liao! @ItsClaraLiao 🎉👏🍾👩🎓. Clara was the first PhD student in the lab to start a thesis project on psilocybin. She was there from day one, and her defense talk reminded how far she and the lab have come. @Yale_INP @YalePsych
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It is with great sadness to hear the news that Watt Webb has passed away. He left a legacy of incredible discoveries and a long list of trainees who have gone on to successful careers.
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Psilocin work from the 70's. a 5-barrel micropipette was used to record from raphe neurons in a rat while infusing various substances 😮 (Aghajanian and Haigler, 1975). We are merely doing the same thing now with better probes.
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The place where it all (re)started for #psychedelics! It was fun to share our research with Johns Hopkins BPRU, @JHPsychedelics today
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A fan of the neuroscience lecture videos from @bingbrunton. In the latest she explains drug actions including #psychedelics on synapses. I see these will be great for 'flipping' the classroom.
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My lab's first foray into the social defeat stress paradigm, led by postdoc Florent Barthas. #biorxiv_neursci
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h/t @ItsClaraLiao for showing the lab this amazing 🍄🧠 public art - “Myco to Macro” by Kaitlyn Cronin as part of #Ithaca Murals
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Impressed with the range of psychedelic emojis used in our lab’s Slack channels
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📣Future faculty candidates. Delighted to announce the 4th annual Rising Stars in Engineering in Health Workshop hosted jointly by @CornellBME @JHUBME @ColumbiaBME. The workshop will recognize and showcase 20 rising stars who work at the interface of engineering and biomedicine.
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Congrats to @NeilSavalia for receiving an NRSA fellowship from @NIMHgov to study rapid-acting antidepressants! @Yale_INP @YaleMSTP @YalePsych
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The paper is now out in Cereb. Cortex. We have put all the data and code on Github.
New study led by PhD student Michael Siniscalchi, in which we characterized neural activity related to chosen actions and outcomes in the mouse medial frontal cortex. @biorxiv_neursci preprint:
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An in vivo 2p-targeted whole-cell patch session from 12 years ago. Made this video for myself and was reminded by @Labrigger's thread. Beautiful when it all works. #FluorescenceFriday
Who is doing in vivo whole cell patch clamp these days? It seems like a dying art. There's still a lot to explore and I hope people are still training in it. @Ian_Duguid @ranczlab @IkukoSmith @Schlab4 @ChrisWilms23 @NeuroBill @kazkitamura @TaroVersion1 @trabranco.
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Summer student Mark Dibbs built an ear-tag system to measure head-twitch responses, based on the excellent methods paper by @jgmaeso. Works really well! We posted on @GitHub a manual with lots of photos. #psychedelic #psilocybin
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Worth hiking in the cold to see this frozen beauty in Connecticut
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Farewell 👋 to @aboharbf who had pushed psychedelic c-Fos imaging to a new level in the lab (preprint coming soon!), as he leaves for residency @PennPsychRes @PennMedicine. Thank you for the parting gift of these incredible mugs from @Jackie_Gio 😍🥲
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A loaf of 🇺🇦 poppy seed bread to support Ukraine. My @YalePsych @YaleMed colleague Irina Esterlis was born in Kiev and is raising funds to send directly to providers on the ground - please contribute if you can!
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All the microscopes and rigs are loaded and ready to go 👋 @TobinScientific (h/t @BiedererLab)
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Made our own #GPCR #gingerbread cookies. Few with some serious mutations 😂. h/t @cllantz for the fun cookie cutters
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Taking full advantage of perk for working at @CornellBME: 2-min walk to the climbing wall, which opens during lunch hours and school breaks like today. 🧗♂️🦎
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A great day visiting @UCI_NeurCircuit - nerding out looking at rigs and matching outfits with @gyorgy_lur 😀
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New study led by PhD student Michael Siniscalchi, in which we characterized neural activity related to chosen actions and outcomes in the mouse medial frontal cortex. @biorxiv_neursci preprint:
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Fun to share our research with the Cornell Fantastic Fungi Fanatics club 🍄 (best name for student club!) @CornellFungi
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End of a two week vacation in 🇯🇵. The food was consistently amazing. Ready for the start of a new semester 💪
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Congrats to Dr. @heatherkortega - who had an excellent thesis defense yesterday 🥳🎓 and many in the lab joined to celebrate @luqunshen Josh Hao Emma @ItsClaraLiao @PashaDavoudian @NeilSavalia
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Well worth listening to this wide-ranging @tferris chat with @YalePsych’s John Krystal - from talking about his father, depression subtypes, to a detailed account of ketamine and current state of psychiatry
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Congrats Dr. Hongli Wang, who pioneered the matching pennies game with mice in our lab! @Yale_INP @YalePsych 🎓🍾🎉
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Foundational work from @DR_WANG_SIBCB - comparing crystal structures of 2A receptor bound to LSD, psilocin, and 5-HT to gain insight into the receptor signaling. Important implications for #psychedelics drug discovery.
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Thank you @SFARIorg ! We are excited to study how autism risk genes affect dendritic calcium signaling in the frontal cortex in vivo.
SFARI intends to fund 15 grants in response to the Winter 2019 Pilot Award RFA. $4 million in funding is intended to be awarded to 17 investigators as part of this program: #autism #research #grants
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Some ultrasonic vocalizations from mice courtesy of Ian Gregg in the lab is a good way to start today 🎼
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If you at @pennphiladelic this weekend, check out new work from @aboharbf - classifying 8 psychedelic and non-psychedelic drugs via whole-brain c-Fos maps. Spoiler: high accuracy and reveal key regions driving prediction. w/ @PashaDavoudian and @akaye
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Public repository for code and data - for our preprint "Classification of psychedelics and psychoactive drugs based on brain-wide imaging of cellular c-Fos expression" . PS: much issues with CodeOcean for peer review. Now it is on @github too. 👨💻👩💻.
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It was a pleasure to write this review with Jen-Hau Yang on the secondary motor cortex. Congrats to @laubach_mark @L_Amarante @MattRoesch_UMD @adam_brockett for editing an exciting series of articles on functions of the medial frontal cortex.
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