Angie Voyles Askham

Sex hormone boosts female rats’ sensitivity to unexpected rewards During the high-estradiol stages of their estrus cycle, female rats learn faster than they do during other stages—and than male rats overall—thanks to a boost in their dopaminergic response to reward…

“It’s giving mechanistic insight into how estrogen modulates reinforcement learning—all the way down to the molecular mechanism,” says Ilana Witten.

By @avaskham.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/sex-hormones...

A change at the top of SfN as neuroscientists gather in San Diego Kevin B. Marvel, longtime head of the American Astronomical Society, will lead SfN after a year of uncertainty in the neuroscience field.

Given the issues facing neuroscience around government policy and funding, the naming of an outsider to SfN’s top position caught some neuroscientists by surprise.

By Natalia Mesa

#neuroskyence #SfN2025 #SfN25

www.thetransmitter.org/teaching/kev...

While I was out on maternity leave, the Transmitter team produced this incredibly rich and informative special report on the state of neuroscience as a field. It's out now — go explore it here!!

#neuroskyence

Neuroscience Cell Types Webinars Neuroscience webinars from the Allen Institute to hear about latest cell types researchers from various scientists.

Join us on Dec. 2 for a webinar on the major advances in basal ganglia mapping, including cross-species cellular mapping and open-access visualization tools.

📅 Dec. 2, 9-10:30am PT
📍 Online
🔗 Register: https://alleninstitute.org/events/neuroscience-cell-types-webinars/

#studyBRAIN #neuroskyence

Timing tweak turns trashed fMRI scans into treasure Leveraging start-up “dummy scans,” which are typically discarded in imaging analyses, can shorten an experiment’s length and make data collection more efficient, a new study reveals.

This article in The Transmitter covering our paper may be one of the best scientific content headlines of all time. www.thetransmitter.org/fmri/timing-...

Stimulus-modulated approach to steady state (SASS): a flexible paradigm for event-related fMRI Nature Methods - Stimulus-modulated approach to steady state (SASS) is an acquisition scheme for event-related fMRI that generates data with high temporal signal-to-noise ratios interspaced with...

14 months after submission, our article “Stimulus-modulated approach to steady state (SASS): a flexible paradigm for event-related fMRI" is now out in @natmethods.nature.com . You can read it here rdcu.be/ePJo6
It is the first first author paper from my student @renilmathew.bsky.social 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 …1/N

U.K. releases plan to phase out animal testing in research The U.K. has released its plan to phase out animal testing in research, as a number of countries move toward reducing the use of animals.

The U.K. has released its plan to phase out animal testing in research, as a number of countries move toward reducing the use of animals.
www.statnews.com/2025/11/11/u...

Adult human cortex does not reorganize after amputation The results from a new longitudinal study contradict classic findings in monkeys but may not warrant a rewriting of the textbooks just yet.

“This neural configuration before amputation remains after the amputation. And it’s not ‘use it or lose it,’” says John W. Krakauer.

By @avaskham.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/plasticity/a...

Trump administration violated impoundment law by canceling NIH grants, slowing new awards, GAO finds The Government Accountability Office found that the Trump administration, by abruptly canceling NIH grants, had violated a 1974 federal law

The Trump administration violated impoundment law by canceling NIH grants, slowing new awards, a scathing report by GAO finds. Story via @mmolteni.bsky.social and @aniloza.bsky.social for @statnews.com www.statnews.com/2025/08/05/g...

Escaping groupthink: What animals’ behavioral quirks reveal about the brain Neuroscientists have long ignored the variability in animals’ behavioral responses in favor of studying differences across groups. But work on the brain differences that underlie that variability is…

Thanks @avaskham.bsky.social & @thetransmitter.bsky.social for including me in this discussion of why individual differences matter. My work & others show that tracking individual behavior can reveal circuits & mechanisms that group averages miss #neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/animal-behav...

Our award-winning news team is looking for an enthusiastic trade journalist to join our fast-paced newsroom in NYC. This is an excellent opportunity for a science journalist to develop a beat in the field of neuroscience. For more info, please visit: bit.ly/4nvAy4k

#neuroskyence

Columbia Got Some NIH Funding Back. Then It Didn’t. In a confusing turn of events, the National Institutes of Health told staff that it would free up some frozen funding to the Ivy League campus — then quickly backtracked.

In a head-spinning pair of announcements on Wednesday, the National Institutes of Health told staff that it would lift its monthslong freeze on all research funding to Columbia University — then reversed its reversal, emails show.

New from me: www.chronicle.com/article/colu...

I'd like to make a list of PhD programs that (1) are in Europe (which does include the UK); (2) offer opportunities in systems neuroscience; and obviously (3) pay a stipend. Please share and/or respond to add your suggestions?

Great reporting from @claudia-lopez.bsky.social:

Gazing from afar activates place cells in chickadees The results help explain how the hippocampus can recall information about a place without an animal physically revisiting it.

For black-capped chickadees, looking out at a location activates the same place cells as actually being there, a study from Columbia University shows.

By @martajhill.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/hippocampus/...

Exclusive: Layoffs revoked at U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke After more than a month of uncertainty, 30 previously purged employees at the institute no longer face termination.

Yes — the layoffs were revoked! www.thetransmitter.org/science-and-...

In this excerpt, I fast forward to the end of Elusive Cures to explain why I am so unequivocally optimistic about the next steps for brain research.

For those of you who (like me) like to listen, I've narrated this clip (~10 min). The text is there too.

Thank you @thetransmitter.bsky.social team.

Early-Career Neuroscientists Resource Center News, perspectives and resources to help navigate the early stages of your neuroscience career

For news, perspectives and more to help you navigate the early stages of your neuroscience career, visit our Early-Career Neuroscientists Resource Center: www.thetransmitter.org/early-career...

In the background over the past few weeks, I wrote an obituary of Peter Lax for Nature. He was one of my dad's best friends and one of my favorite people in the world. He was also an incredibly influential mathematician.

[Gift Link thanks to Nature]

rdcu.be/eqmiR

Airtable | Everyone's app platform Airtable is a low-code platform for building collaborative apps. Customize your workflow, collaborate, and achieve ambitious outcomes. Get started for free.

Democrat Jeff Merkley says "it's my understanding no existing [Alzheimer's grants] have been cancelled."

That's not true. Tens of millions of dollars in Alzheimer's grants — many of them for training — have been cut.

See @scott-delaney.bsky.social & @noamross.net's Grant Watch database here.

🚨 NIH director Jayanta Bhattacharya is testifying before the US Senate Appropriations Committee today.

The hearing is bound to be spicy, after more than 300 agency staff wrote him a letter decrying his leadership and actions as director. 🔥

I'll be live-posting the hearing, so follow along here.

25 papers by neural tube researcher come under scrutiny One of the studies received an editorial expression of concern in May, after the journal learned of an institutional review of the alleged problems.

Multiple studies by a prominent neural tube researcher at the University of Maryland show potential image manipulation and reuse; an institutional investigation is underway.

By @claudia-lopez.bsky.social

www.thetransmitter.org/academia/mor...

More complete analysis of NIH outlays (or lack thereof) from grant-watch.us

grant-watch.us/posts/trends...

NIH details how Trump budget would cut support for grants, training, and research centers President Trump's 2026 budget proposes cutting NIH grants to universities, academic medical centers, and other institutions by 43%

President Trump’s 2026 budget proposes slashing NIH's central function, awarding grants to universities, academic medical centers, and other institutions, by 43% compared to 2025 levels. Story via me & @danielpayne.bsky.social for @statnews.com
www.statnews.com/2025/06/06/n...

#neuroskyence 🧪

FlyBase funding squashed amid Harvard grant terminations The team behind the Drosophila genetics database is now requesting donations from labs to keep the resource afloat.

The Drosophila genetic database FlyBase has lost its nearly $2 million grant. It’s part of the more than $3 billion in federal funding that has been terminated at Harvard University this year.

By @callimcflurry.bsky.social

www.thetransmitter.org/community/fl...

The U.S. Lit a Beacon for Science. Under Trump, Scientists Fear It’s Dimming

Talked to @KateZernike at @nytimes about my journey and the current moment for scientists in the U.S.

“Ardem Patapoutian’s story is not just the American dream, it is the dream of American science.”

Read the article here. No subscription required:

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/u...

Learning in living mice defies classic synaptic plasticity rule Donald Hebb’s theory—memorably summarized as “cells that fire together, wire together”—does not explain the shifting hippocampal connections in mice learning to navigate a virtual environment…

In a recent study, @antoinemadar.bsky.social & Mark Sheffield looked at place cells of the mouse hippocampus in vivo to understand what plasticity rules support learning—spoiler alert, it wasn’t Hebbian plasticity! Go check out my story for @thetransmitter.bsky.social

#neuroskyence 🧪

Didn't get into grad school, what now? Stories of Women in Neuroscience · Episode

This academic cycle was really challenging for those students that applied for PhD programs. Please help me share this special episode discussing what to do if you didn't get accepted into a PhD program. open.spotify.com/episode/5tsj...

To put these top-line budget numbers in context, cuts of this magnitude would effectively mean no new grants in FY2026. The entire extramural budget would go to existing, continuing grants.

An abject failure of American ambition. And a betrayal of our global leadership in health science innovation.