Catherine Dulac

Poem for a snowy Boston. Winter Psalm by Richard Hoffman. #poetry

Can tell how bad it is from 1st sentence: “While peer review is an essential part of funding meritorious scientific research, it is also important to consider other factors…”

Today, I would like to honor the memory of Roger Y. Tsien, born on February 1, 1952. His legacy lives with all who use his technologies, including calcium sensors, fluorescent proteins, the acetoxymethyl (AM) ester, & many more! #FluorescenceFriday
www.nature.com/articles/nme...

New preprint from our group (collaboration with @sueyeonchung.bsky.social) showing that discriminating odor components within a complex mixture is constrained by neural sensitivity rather than background interference - likely due to sparse representations at the front end.

Vagal blood volume receptors compensate for haemorrhage and posture change - Nature A vagal reflex to blood volume changes in the heart involves PIEZO2 and helps to stabilize blood pressure in an upright posture and after blood loss.

www.nature.com/articles/s41... beautiful work from Stephen Liberles’ lab on neural mechanisms of sensing blood volume.

Two MCB-Affiliated Postdoctoral Fellows Awarded Harvard Brain Initiative Fellowships - Harvard University - Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology Two postdoctoral researchers affiliated with MCB have been awarded highly competitive Postdoctoral Pioneer Fellowships from the Harvard Brain Initiative (HBI), recognizing innovative projects that spa...

Two MCB-Affiliated Postdoctoral Fellows Awarded Harvard Brain Initiative Fellowships 🧠 🧪🧬 #AcademicSky #higherEd
www.mcb.harvard.edu/department/n... @sanket-walujkar.bsky.social @rachellegaudet.bsky.social @nbellono.bsky.social @harvardbrainsci.bsky.social @harvard.edu

The hippocampal map has its own attentional control signal!
Our new study reveals that theta #sweeps can be instantly biased towards behaviourally relevant locations. See 📹 in post 4/6 and preprint here 👉
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🧵(1/6)

Kids, learn Biology this Summer: an amazing opportunity for middle schoolers!...
🧪🧬🧠🦠🌱🐁🪰🪱🧫

MCB Postdoc Surabhi Sreenivas Awarded ADA Fellowship for Type 2 Diabetes Research - Harvard University - Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology Surabhi Sreenivas, an MCB postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Maxim Prigozhin has been awarded a three-year American Diabetes Association Postdoctoral Fellowship to study how the liver regulates […]

MCB Postdoc Surabhi Sreenivas Awarded ADA Fellowship for Type 2 Diabetes Research 🧠 🧪🧬 🔬 #AcademicSky #higherEd
www.mcb.harvard.edu/department/n... @rachellegaudet.bsky.social @amdiabetesassn.bsky.social @hekstralab.bsky.social @dulaclab.bsky.social @rivaselenarivas.bsky.social

It is an incredible honour to receive this prize. I thank all members of my lab over the years, and my wonderful colleagues and collaborators, who have joined, inspired and supported me on this exciting journey. ❤️ Biozentrum is a fantastic place to do science!

Congratulations @doetschlab.bsky.social !!!.... so well deserved 👏🥂🎉

Ontogeny of the spinal cord dorsal horn The dorsal horn of the mammalian spinal cord is organized into laminae where each layer is populated by different neuron types, has distinctive circuit connections, and plays specialized roles in beha...

Excited to share @rbrianroome.bsky.social ‘s beautiful paper on development of the dorsal horn of the mouse spinal cord @science.org

This is how the anatomical organization and cell types that process pain, touch, body position and more are laid down.

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

Thrilled to start my lab at the @whiteheadinstitute.bsky.social @mit.edu and to join such a special community of creative and inspiring colleagues. The Sullivan Lab asks (1) how and (2) why infections make us sick, bridging immunology and neuroscience to understand host defense at the organism scale

Ascona meetings on neural circuits are amazing conferences in a beautiful setting in Switzerland spanning all scales from genetics and micro-circuit cracking to high level cognition. Check asconacircuits.org for the 2026 program and register soon, as it typically reaches capacity very quickly 🧠🧪

Just finished my first book of the year: a sober, courageous, yet emotional, eye-opening and haunting narrative by an Ukrainian writer, father and staunch pacifist who enlisted the day his country was invaded. A must read for anyone concerned by current world affairs...

I need one too!...

Way back in 1999, Kenji Doya sketched a big picture theory of the brain:

1️⃣The cerebellum is specialized for supervised learning
2️⃣The basal ganglia are for reinforcement learning
3️⃣The cerebral cortex is for unsupervised learning

How does this hold up in 2026? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Smarter Microscopes, Faster Maps: Lichtman Lab’s “SmartEM” Brings AI to Connectomics - Harvard University - Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology A new paper in Nature Methods (PDF) from the labs of MCB’s Jeff Lichtman and Aravinthan Samuel, of the department of physics and Center for Brain Science, introduces […]

Smarter Microscopes, Faster Maps: Lichtman Lab’s “SmartEM” Brings AI to Connectomics 🧠 🧪🧬 #AcademicSky #higherEd
www.mcb.harvard.edu/department/n... @yaronmr.bsky.social @harvard.edu @harvardbrainsci.bsky.social @natmethods.nature.com @rachellegaudet.bsky.social @thermofishersci.bsky.social

Harvard College Senior Fajr Khan Named 2025 Pakistan Rhodes Scholar - Harvard University - Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology Harvard College senior Fajr Khan, a neuroscience concentrator whose work spans maternal mental health, child psychology, and the biological foundations of psychiatric illness, has been selected as a [...

Harvard College Senior Fajr Khan Named 2025 Pakistan Rhodes Scholar #AcademicSky #higherEd
www.mcb.harvard.edu/department/n... @naoshigeuchida.bsky.social @rachellegaudet.bsky.social @harvard.edu @ox.ac.uk

I would say, depends: if you are only marginally expert in that field, decline, as other, more available and equally/more expert reviewers can take over. If you are a close expert, let the editor know of your time constraints and do it if they allow extra time. Holiday season is hell for reviews....

Want to track the dynamics of estrogen in the brain across long periods of time? New paper as part of very fun collab with team UCLA Ed Van Veen and Steph Correa! We use a specialized optical reporter and show that this is possible and actually very easy! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Nancy Kleckner Recognized for Pioneering Work in Chromosome Dynamics - Harvard University - Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology Nancy Kleckner, the Herchel Smith Professor of Molecular Biology, has been awarded the 2025 Charles E. Helmstetter Prize Lifetime Achievement Award (PDF) in recognition of her groundbreaking research ...

Nancy Kleckner Recognized for Pioneering Work in Chromosome Dynamics 🧪🧬 #AcademicSky #higherEd
www.mcb.harvard.edu/department/n... @rachellegaudet.bsky.social

Finally, in the MPOA Gal+ Calcr+ hub of parenting, androgens shift the balance: increasing AR activity suppresses retrieval, while removing AR reduces aggression to pups and boosts care. Together: a hormone-to-cell type-to enhancer-to-behavior blueprint for state- and sex-specific parenting 🧠🧬 6/6

This maternal trigger doesn’t act alone—it recruits the core parenting hub (MPOA Gal+ Calcr+ neurons). Activating AvPe Brs3+ Vglut2+ neurons drives Fos expression in this hub, showing how a mother-tuned input can power a shared parenting circuit. 5/6

And we show this is how it works: oxytocin strongly excites these neurons in maternal brains, and deleting Oxtr or prolactin receptor in AvPe Vglut2+ neurons delays pup retrieval. Hormones aren’t just “on/off”—they change what the circuit responds to. 4/6

What makes these neurons “maternal”? Single-nucleus RNA-seq + ATAC-seq reveal a Prolactin → STAT5b program that remodels regulatory DNA and switches on oxytocin receptor (Oxtr) expression specifically in mothers. 3/6

First, we characterize a trigger node that is specific to mothers: excitatory AvPe neurons expressing Brs3 light up when moms first meet pups. Artificially activating them in virgin females boosts key maternal behaviors—like pushing the circuit over the threshold into care. 2/6

Cell Type-Specific Hormonal Signaling Configures Hypothalamic Circuits for Parenting Parenting behavior emerges from hormonally sensitive circuits, but how distinct circuit components are affected by, and contribute to, sex and state dependent changes in infant caregiving remains uncl...

New paper alert!!...🤩 Led by @blogeman.bsky.social, we identify how cell type-specific hormonal responses in the hypothalamus tunes parenting behavior in males and females 🐭🧠🍼. Highlights in thread 👇 1/6

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Amazing story and amazing cover too!

Congrats to @nbellono.bsky.social, Naomi and Wendy!.... such an amazing story 👏🎉🧪🧬