Raymundo D Hernandez, PhD

1/ We’re almost a week into the #governmentshutdown. Beyond the headlines, it's triggering a slow-moving breakdown in public health systems services —impacting food programs, disease tracking, and potentially your insurance bill. The longer it goes, the more it will impact public health and you.

#WorldWomenNeuro is excited to host a Professional Development Workshop, ' Leadership at Every Step of the Journey', at this year’s Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in San Diego!

See you at #SfN2025 on Nov 17, 3:00–5:00 PM EST

👉 Learn more: https://shorturl.at/cSJ7R

#WWNevents 

After months in limbo, four NIH institute directors fired Two leaders removed by Trump administration had hoped to stay at agency as in-house investigators

Diana Bianchi out at NICHHD. Hard to see a good reason for letting such a talented individual go www.science.org/content/arti...

Astroglial H1Rs influence neuromodulatory integration and arousal. How histamine modulates arousal via astrocytes was investigated in brain slices and mice with (left; green) and without (right; purple) histamine-1-receptor (H1R) expression in astrocytes of the primary visual cortex (V1). Panels below depict, from left to right, that H1R expression in V1 astrocytes: (1) attenuates astroglial calcium (Ca²⁺) responses to norepinephrine (NE) in brain slices; (2) suppresses astroglial Ca²⁺ events during wakefulness; (3) restricts the dynamic range of extracellular adenosine (Ado) around rapid eye movement (REM) sleep transitions (N, non-rapid eye movement sleep; W, wakefulness); and (4) reduces time spent in wakefulness.

Astrocytes help control #sleep & arousal. @ashleyingiosi.bsky.social explores a @plosbiology.org study showing that wake-promoting #histamine affects how #astrocytes respond to other signals, reducing awake time via astroglial histamine-1-receptors 🧪 Paper: plos.io/4gRj9Ap Primer: plos.io/47at1Sj

Happening tomorrow!

#neurosky #neuroskyence

Congratulations to Dr. Brunkow, to Princeton, and to her graduate adviser, who based on the published record appears to be Shirley Tilghman!

NIH staff are wrapping up their orderly shutdown tasks. Which were actually quite chaotic.

Most staff are not allowed to deal with any work-related issues unless excepted/exempt due to patient safety issues.

Review meetings and PI communications with staff are not allowed. Travel is canceled.

Polygenic and developmental profiles of autism differ by age at diagnosis - Nature A study of several longitudinal birth cohorts and cross-sectional cohorts finds only moderate overlap in genetic variants between autism that is diagnosed earlier and that diagnosed later, so they may represent aetiologically different conditions.

Open access link to new study in Nature:

Polygenic and developmental profiles of autism differ by age at diagnosis.

🧪🧠 #medsky #neuroskyence
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

📣 Calling 2nd-year grad students and their mentors:

You just abruptly lost the ability to apply for the NSF grad research fellowship.

Join ~900 others (and growing!) in signing @omfishient.bsky.social's petition to reverse that.

[Or reshare this petition if you're not directly impacted]

My department at Emory is a hiring a tenure-track neuroscientist!

Anyone who's talked to me in the last 4 years knows I cannot say enough good things about my dept and the neuroscience community here. My colleagues are so wonderfully supportive. Postdocs, please apply!

apply.interfolio.com/174371

U.S. scientists gird for yet another government shutdown Political impasse to hobble research agencies—and perhaps enable layoffs

For the third time in a dozen years, the U.S. scientific community is digging in for a potentially lengthy partial federal government shutdown that promises to disrupt research and funding programs. https://scim.ag/4pQ9y0K

Needed to take a bit of a social media break for personal reasons, but hopping back on say:

At awe of the civil servants at NSF, NIH, etc.

While Vought uses their jobs/livelihood as a political pawn re: shutdown, their first instinct has remained: how do I support the communities of scientists?

Flyer on "Graduate Student Panel on Admissions" on Tuesday, October 7th at 9am ET. The three panelists pictures are shown, their names, and their affiliations. Our sponsors logo are shown.

🎓 Graduate Student Panel on Admissions⁠

Hear from current grad students about:⁠
💡 What admissions committees look for⁠
📝 Tips for writing a strong application⁠
🙋🏽‍♀️ Their experiences applying

📅 Date: Tuesday, 10/7 at 9am ET⁠
🌐 Register: www.eventbrite.com/e/graduate-s...

A person's genetics has a role in susceptibility to many diseases (Figure), but has little correlation with how the disease may progress or lead to a fatal outcome.
nature.com/articles/s4158

🧪🧬🌎❄️🌨️💔

What if NIH had been 40% smaller? Replaying history with less NIH funding shows widespread impacts on drug-linked research

This is interesting — in a paper out today, researchers created an alternate history to estimate what Trump's desired cuts to NIH would look like. Of 557 drugs approved 2000-2023, *more than half* are at least partially linked to NIH research that would have not happened under a 40% reduction.

Designer homes for mini-placentas: A bioprinted solution Mini placentas can be grown in the lab to study pregnancy and complications like preeclampsia. Using 3D printing technology, we have bioprinted the first placental organoids and studied the impact of their environment on cell behaviour.

Why do we still know so little about pregnancy? Claire Richards and Lana McClements write about their Nature Communications paper, explaining why sampling early placental tissue is risky, and how the world’s first bioprinted placenta organoids can help. #Academicsky 🧪

At its best, science operates to understand truth.

When groups seek to control what is allowed and considered truth, science has lost its inherent value and meaning.

This is a dangerous, slippery slope for us all.

#science #research #epidemiology #censorship

A reminder that #biotech is still down since this US administration took office.

Targeting lipid droplets in FUS-linked amyotrophic lateral sclerosis mitigates neuronal and astrocytic lipotoxicity ALS leads to loss of motor neurons, muscle atrophy and systemic energy imbalance. Marcadet and Pelaez et al. report lipid droplet accumulation and peroxida

I am delighted to share our new publication! Huge thanks to my team and all of our outstanding co-authors for their contributions to this work: Targeting lipid droplets in FUS-linked amyotrophic lateral sclerosis mitigates neuronal and astrocytic lipotoxicity: academic.oup.com/brain/articl...

Comprehensive biologic characterization of a 117-year old supercentenarian, the world's oldest living person
www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Live 65-hour recording of rat hippocampal neuron growth | 2025 Small World in Motion Competition Louis Romette - Live 65-hour recording of rat hippocampal neuron growth (day 3 to day 6)

Congrats to our PhD student Louis Romette, among the winners in this year's @healthcare.nikon.com Nikon Small World competition! His hard work optimizing long-term live-cell imaging of developing neurons makes for mesmerizing movies (and lots of insights)
www.nikonsmallworld.com/galleries/20...

Eight-part meme format from Spongebob Squarepants with Spongebob gesturing to larger and larger piles of yellow rubber ducks

Eight-part meme format from Spongebob Squarepants with Spongebob gesturing to larger and larger piles of yellow rubber ducks

2 things are true: Tylenol doesn't cause autism, and RFK Jr. needs to GO!

We've delivered 1k+ ducks to Congressmembers on behalf of their constituents with the message: #ImpeachtheQuack!
There's still time for you to recreate this meme on Capitol Hill and send some ducks of your own: zurl.co/LrVbo

Aging Brains Show Stripes of Cell Death Purkinje cells, the neurons of the cerebellum, appear to die in an organized pattern, overturning previous beliefs that neurodegeneration occurs homogenously.

“Wait a minute, there’s patterns on the other side of life as well.”

Such a cool write-up about Sarah's work on normal aging in the cerebellum!

www.the-scientist.com/aging-brains...

How does Huntington's gene therapy work? Huntington's mutation leads to toxic proteins in brain cells huntingtin DNA Cell Mutant huntingtin protein Neuron Messenger RNA Gene therapy infused into the brain - Catheter Brain cells become their own drug factory N Genetic material produces therapy Lowers levels of toxic protein in the brain

A new gene therapy trial slowed Huntington’s Disease by an average of 75% in patients.

It involves delivery of a modified but safe virus that produces microRNA in the brain to counteract mutations in the huntingtin gene.

We can achieve amazing things when we fund science!

Join our action hour tomorrow and #StandUpForScience! ✊

If you want to meet other folks who care & take an easy advocacy action, this is great (no long-term commitment necessary). ☑️

If you're looking to get more involved, this is can be your first step, and we'd love to meet you! 😀

New findings from my lab in Nature Communications suggest that racial stereotypes can lead the brain's perceptual system to temporarily "see" weapons where they don't exist.

Led by: @dongwonoh.bsky.social

Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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