Dave Root

A weird snaggle toothed muppet with yellow eyes and a shock of white hair

How your email finds me

Day 58 of showing the internet that (jumping) spiders aren't scary 😧 and today, Cosmo is running his own meditation class. So...

...take a moment to breathe, with Cosmo 💙

While he gently cleans his face, let yourself slow down too 🥰 #jumpingspider #arachnid #cutespider #petspider

Miami is hiring a neurobiologist! I am excited to welcome a new colleague to our Neuroscience community! Please share!

miamioh.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/miamio...

Flexible updating of reward and punishment contingencies by VTA GABA neurons In dynamic environments where stimuli predicting reward or punishment unexpectedly change, it is critical to flexibly update behavior while preserving…

New lab paper by @merridee.bsky.social identifying a novel role for VTA GABA neurons in behavioral flexibility

GABA, but not dopamine, neuron activation correlates with behavior when cues unexpectedly shift from predicting punishment to predicting reward www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A sensitive orange fluorescent calcium ion indicator for imaging neural activity Genetically encoded calcium indicators (GECIs) are vital tools for fluorescence-based visualization of neuronal activity with high spatial and temporal resolution. However, current highest-performance...

#OCaMP is now on bioRxiv and reagents are available on #Addgene! 🧪

A sensitive orange fluorescent calcium ion indicator for imaging neural activity

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Also (minus the one obviously dated bit) this exchange lives rent free in my head:

youtu.be/uqyDP_6yFFM?...

Call for 20 Assistant Professor positions Karolinska Institutet is a world-leading medical university with a long and proud history of ground-breaking research. We are now recruiting outstanding early-career researchers with particularly exce...

Wow

Karolinska Institutet is recruiting 20 outstanding early-career researchers for assistant professor positions

ki.se/en/about-ki/...

📣 Heads-up that our amazing dept (Berkeley Psych) is anticipating hiring *two* TT Asst Profs this Fall, under the themes of (1) Social & Personality Psychology, and (2) Biological Basis of Behavior.

Official job ads coming soon...

Send qs for (1) to Iris Mauss/Serena Chen, (2) to Linda Wilbrecht

As chair of the @acnporg.bsky.social Global Outreach Committee, I am happy to answer any questions about the Global Scholarship! Please share with your networks! Excellent opportunity to attend what might be the best science meeting in this space!

A nociceptive amygdala-striatal pathway modulating affective-motivational pain A nociceptive basolateral amygdala–to–nucleus accumbens shell circuit contributes to pain unpleasantness in chronic pain.

excited to see current Kash Lab postdoc Jess Wojick's paper out from her PhD in @flybottleescape.bsky.social lab !!! congrats Jess and Greg!!!

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Ozzy Osbourne Farewell Show Was The Highest-Grossing Charity Concert Of All Time On July 5, Ozzy Osbourne put on a farewell concert, performing as a solo artist and with Black Sabbath for the last time in the band’s hometown of Birmingham, UK. Billed as the “Back To The Beginning”...

Ozzy going out after raising $190 million for sick kids and a Parkinson’s cure is metal AF.

Associate or Senior Editor, Nature Neuroscience Title: Associate or Senior Editor, Nature Neuroscience Location(s): New York or Shanghai – Hybrid working model Application Deadline: August 18th About Springer Nature Springer Nature is one of the le...

We're hiring! Nature Neuroscience is hiring an Associate or Senior Editor with experience in cellular and molecular neuroscience, glia, and genomics to work in our New York or Shanghai office. Applications are due August 19.

springernature.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Spring...

Looking for a postdoc or staff scientist with brain slice electrophysiology experience. If you or someone you know is interested in, message me.

ln(😅) = 💧ln(😄)

#BookSky

Congratulations to Dr @anniely.bsky.social who defended her dissertation today!

Untangling the multifaceted VTA responses to stress Stress has profound impacts on the ventral tegmental area (VTA). However, the complex and opposing effects of stress on the VTA have limited our abili…

New from @dralexharris.bsky.social, Ula Skupio, and myself in @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social: a long in the works review trying to untangle what stress is doing in the VTA, and what the piles of confusing data might teach us about what the VTA is doing at all.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New Discovery Reveals Dopamine Operates with Surgical Precision, Not as a Broad Signal New Discovery Reveals Dopamine Operates with Surgical Precision, Not as a Broad Signal

A new study from #CUAnschutz has revealed that dopamine communicates in the brain with extraordinary precision, not broad diffusion as previously believed. This groundbreaking research offers hope for millions of people with dopamine-related disorders such as Parkinson's disease. 🧠

She's incredible

Happy 107th Birthday, Brenda Milner! Her contributions to neuropsychology shaped the way we understand the human brain. From surviving two world wars and two pandemics, to paving the way for future generations of researchers, Milner’s legacy continues. @mcgill.ca @cusm-muhc.bsky.social

Graffiti at the end of an underpass in Heidelberg saying 'LAB!'.

Some PIs will stop at nothing to motivate their lab members. 🧪

Mineralocorticoid receptor knockout alters hippocampal CA2 neurons to become like those in CA1 Communications Biology - Spatial transcriptomics reveals that the molecular phenotype of hippocampal area CA2, which is critical for many social behaviors, is profoundly altered upon knock-out of...

Now officially out! What do CA2 neurons become in an Nr3c2 KO? We used spatial transcriptomics to find out.
With @neuroerin.bsky.social and @jmw86069.bsky.social
Lots in the suppl data rdcu.be/evGGh

The University of Sydney is recruiting senior and mid-career academics "within the top 5–10% of academics in their field, with a strong track record and availability to relocate to Australia within 6-months".
If you're a psychologist/neuroscientist and are interested, get in touch with me soon.

Dr. Sarah Heilbronner — Stories of WiN uses cutting-edge neuroanatomical and neuroimaging techniques to decipher the wiring diagram of the primate brain

New profile! Dr. Sarah Heilbronner (@srheilbronner.bsky.social‬) uses cutting-edge neuroanatomical and neuroimaging techniques to decipher the wiring diagram of the primate brain. Follow the link below to learn more!

www.storiesofwin.org/profiles/202...

#StoriesOfWiN #WomenInNeuroscience

Thalamic CGRP neurons define a spinothalamic pathway for affective pain | PNAS Pain is both a sensory and emotional experience caused by various harmful stimuli. While numerous studies have explored peripheral and central pain...

New paper out in @pnas.org Thalamic CGRP neurons form a spinothalamic pain pathway relaying pain signal to the amygdala & insular, but not sensory cortex to encode the affective dimension of pain. Huge congrats to first author Sukjae Kang & coauthors. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🧠 Join the JNeuro Early Career Advisory Board! 🧪

A great way to learn about the world of publishing and support other early career researchers by sharing your perspectives!

Apps due July 18

www.jneurosci.org/content/ecr-...

departmental seminar

The academic’s mid-summer crisis is a mid-life crisis in miniature:

You realize summer is half gone, & not only that: you see that the longest & least burdened days came early, & they are well past. You compare all you thought you’d do against the days remaining & grieve for what never will be

Synaptic systems works well for us