Kristen Maynard

Role of molecularly defined lateral septum cell types and circuits in social behaviors - Neuropsychopharmacology Neuropsychopharmacology - Role of molecularly defined lateral septum cell types and circuits in social behaviors

New Hot Topics piece from @rphillips3.bsky.social and Stephanie Page in @npp-journal.bsky.social describing emerging insights on roles of molecularly-defined cell types in the lateral septum, which serves as a hub for coordinating diverse social behaviors.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Here’s my Fluorescence Friday highlight: just got this beautiful shot from the locus coeruleus in our latest tissue section! You can see astrocytes (in green) glowing and wrapping around tiny blood vessels (in red), with pTau staining (in magenta) lighting up the scene. It’s wild how much is going on in just one microscopic field—so cool to see these markers all together and think about what they mean for brain health and Alzheimer’s research. Loving the chance to peek into these cellular hangouts each week! #FluorescenceFriday #PhDLife #Neuroscience

For #FluorescenceFriday✨ Exploring the beauty of the locus Coeruleus using IF staining: neurons🔵 surrounded by glowing astrocytes🟢 embracing delicate blood vessels🔴, alongside striking pTau signals💗. A vivid reminder of the cellular complexity shaping brain health and disease. #LC #Neuroscience

Excited to share this new work from the lab, in collaboration with @jtuscher.bsky.social & Rob Sorge! Here, we used single cell transcriptional profiling to define molecular adaptations induced by chronic pain and opioid experience, which often occur in conjunction.

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

Transcriptomic diversity of amygdalar subdivisions across humans and nonhuman primates Specialized cell types and links to psychiatric disorders are revealed by genetic mapping of primate amygdala neurons.

A spatially resolved transcriptomic atlas of the primate amygdala (human, macaque, and baboon) now out in Science Advances (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...). The amygdala contains 32 types of neurons with many neuron types specific to particular subdivisions.

Lots of updates from the preprint!

Excited to be co-chairing this @acnporg.bsky.social panel with chair @kr-maynard.bsky.social on opioid-responsive subpopulations in brain reward circuits. Special thanks to @rphillips3.bsky.social for helping to assemble the panel!

Super excited to share this work & accompanying data resources in collab with @martinowk.bsky.social @stephaniehicks.bsky.social @alexisbattle.bsky.social! Congrats to all coauthors and big shout out to @svitlana-bach.bsky.social @prashanthi-ravi.bsky.social for leading this NIDA-funded project.

For #FluorescenceFriday - image from Research Associate Kelsey Montgomery in @kr-maynard.bsky.social lab @lieberinstitute.bsky.social - RNAscope at 3 levels of the habenula in human 🧠. 🟢 is MBP, 🟣 is GPR151 (lateral habenula), 🔴 is POU4F1 (general habenula), and 🟡 is TAC3 (medial habenula) 🔬🧪👩‍🔬

These understudied neuronal populations will be the topic of a panel at the upcoming @acnporg.bsky.social meeting, which I am co-chairing with @kr-maynard.bsky.social!

We are thrilled to announce that OneNeuro Co-Director Patricia Janak, Ph.D., has been elected as the 2026-2027 President of the Society for Neuroscience (SfN). @janaklab.bsky.social

View the official announcement: www.sfn.org/publications...

We are very excited to welcome @drjennkim.bsky.social as the newest addition to the Translational Neuroscience Division @lieberinstitute.bsky.social where she will be working as a postodoc with @kr-maynard.bsky.social group.

An integrated single-nucleus and spatial transcriptomics atlas reveals the molecular landscape of the human hippocampus - Nature Neuroscience The topographical organization of cells in the hippocampus reflects its ability to regulate mood and cognition. Here the authors generate a spatially resolved gene expression map in the human hippocam...

Excited to share this huge team effort collaboration supervised by Stephanie Page in Translational Neuroscience @lieberinstitute.bsky.social and @stephaniehicks.bsky.social @jhubiostat.bsky.social to generate a spatio-molecular resource of the hippocampus in human 🧠

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Massively parallel reporter assay investigates shared genetic variants of eight psychiatric disorders High-throughput experimental validation of genetic variants linked to eight psychiatric disorders reveals the regulatory mechanisms underlying variants with pleiotropic and disorder-specific effects.

1/ I am beyond thrilled to share our new paper in @CellCellPress! We explored the regulatory principles underlying pleiotropy in psychiatric disorders.
www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...

SpotSweeper: spatially aware quality control for spatial transcriptomics - Nature Methods SpotSweeper is a spatially aware method for quality control of spatially resolved transcriptomics data that corrects for spatial confounding missed by existing methods, including both local and region...

🚨 New paper published in @natmethods.nature.com!

We introduce SpotSweeper, the first spatially-aware QC methods for spatial transcriptomics.

📰 Paper : nature.com/articles/s41...
💻 Code: github.com/MicTott/Spot...
📈 Website: mictott.github.io/SpotSweeper/

🧵👇

Graphical abstract from the paper depicting the overall study design

Updated from the preprint, our paper, "Spatiotemporal analysis of gene expression in the human dentate gyrus reveals age-associated changes in cellular maturation and neuroinflammation" is now published.

www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Also, Bernie will be presenting this work on Wednesday night in the poster session #ACNP2024

W189 A Two-Resolution Spatial-Molecular Atlas of the Human Ventromedial and Arcuate Hypothalamus and Its Sex Differences