Jill Becker

Top left: Schematic of extracellular single-unit recordings in the lemniscal (green) and non-lemniscal (purple) regions of the inferior colliculus in response to pure-tone auditory stimulation (red and blue). Top right: Diagram of experimental group generation. Pregnant rats received an intraperitoneal injection of saline (control) or 400 mg/kg VPA on gestational day 12. An additional control group consisted of untreated rats acquired prior to the experiment. The study examined the effects of sex, age, and prenatal VPA exposure by recording from female and male rats at prepubertal (P30–45) and adult (P65–120) stages. Bottom: Population-level comparisons of sex, age, and exposure effects within the lemniscal (left) and non-lemniscal (right) divisions of the inferior colliculus.

Factors like sex & age can affect sensory processing in #AutismSpectrumDisorder. This study shows that prenatal valproic acid in rats (an autism model) alters predictive auditory processing, revealing sex- & age-specific differences akin to those in autistic traits @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4fjpjZ8

HOT TOPICS
Field experimentation enhances translation for behavioral
neuroscience
Jacinta C. Beehner 1 and Shelly B. Flagel 2,3 ✉
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to American College of Neuropsychopharmacology 2025
Neuropsychopharmacology; doi.org/10.1038/s413...

GPER1! Sex differences! authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

NIH halts grant terminations ‘effective immediately,’ email says The National Institutes of Health is halting further terminations of research grants, an internal email shows

NIH halts grant terminations ‘effective immediately,’ email says www.statnews.com/2025/06/25/n... via @statnews.com

Shanie Landen, BSc, PhD, will receive the 2025 BoSD-OSSD Early Career Award for research in “Sex differences in muscle protein expression and DNA methylation in response to exercise training” at #OSSD2025 @OSSDtweets!

Ece Bayram, MD, PhD, will present in BoSD Hot Topics Symposium for research on “Sex differences for clinical correlates of substantia nigra neuron loss in people with Lewy body pathology” at #OSSD2025 @OSSDtweets!

Alex R. DeCasien, PhD will receive the BoSD-OSSD 2024 Early Career Award for research in “Sex differences in the human brain: a roadmap for more careful analysis and interpretation of a biological reality” at #OSSD2025 @OSSDtweets!

Vaccine may treat cocaine addiction by blocking drug's entry to brain A vaccine that helps people overcome cocaine addiction has shown signs of being safe and effective in a small trial

A vaccine that generates antibodies that bind to cocaine and prevent it entering the brain has shown promise in an initial trial in ten addicts 🧪 #ASGCT2025

www.newscientist.com/article/2480...

À pile of micro flyers printed out, with “go UMass” and “proud of you grads!” written on them, and a heart around the phrase “call your reps”

Ok science and academic sky— we’re microflyering graduation. www.standupforscience.net/microflyering 🧪🦠

Can NIH-funded research on racism and health survive Trump’s cuts? The US administration has cancelled ‘DEI grants’ without defining DEI, leaving health-equity researchers in the dark.

Thank you, @neurosexdiff.bsky.social , for lending your voice to this @nature.com story: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

As Congress Debates Cutting Medicaid, a Major Study Shows It Saves Lives

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/h...

Could this be the biggest climate story of the year?

For the first time on record, China's emissions are falling due to clean energy growth, not slow power demand

Full analysis + outlook by Lauri Myllyvirta:

www.carbonbrief.org/...
1/7

DOGE went looking for phone fraud at SSA — and found almost none Since SSA installed new anti-fraud checks on claims made over the phone, only two claims out of over 110,000 were found to likely be fraudulent, according to internal documents obtained by Nextgov/FCW...

This is a HUGE scandal.

Elon Musk, JD Vance, and Trump are lying about Social Security fraud.

Internal documents show DOGE found "no significant fraud"—but did slow retirement claim processing by 25%.

Nothing efficient about making it harder for people to get their benefits.

The NIH called my health equity research ‘antithetical to scientific inquiry’ The NIH canceled Logan Beyer’s health equity research, saying it was “antithetical to scientific research.” That’s completely wrong, she writes.

The NIH called my health equity research ‘antithetical to scientific inquiry’ www.statnews.com/2025/04/15/n... via @statnews.com

Trump has blown a massive hole in global health funding—and no one can fill it Other countries, foundations, international groups are unable to replace billions lost in U.S. cuts

Trump has blown a massive hole in global health funding—and no one can fill it | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti... 🧪

Achieving gender justice for global health equity: the Lancet Commission on gender and global health Achieving gender justice in global health—which we define as encompassing the realisation of universal rights in relation to health equity and gender equality, while also addressing the drivers of gen...

Achieving gender justice for global health equity: the Lancet Commission on gender and global health - The Lancet www.thelancet.com/journals/lan... 🧪

Dear Colleagues, The status quo is forcing—not fixing—the public’s growing disengagement with science. Yes, we have watched helplessly as programs, grant panels, and the basic functioning of the US research apparatus have been upended in a matter of days. Yet these events are, in large part, a catastrophic symptom of a much more pervasive problem – a profound lack of public understanding about how federal research dollars improve, enrich, and save American lives. This disconnect far predates the current mass layoffs and disassembly of US scientific institutions, and represents a glaring failure of our current ability to mobilize the knowledge we generate to engage, inform, and influence our fellow Americans.

Dear Colleagues: Now is the time to scale up public engagement with science

I address this letter to scientists, but it is an invitation for fans & defenders of science everywhere to unite & take action!
Let's focus a lot more on K-12 ed 🧪 #SciComm #EduSky
👉 civicsciencemedia.org/dear-colleag...

Opinion | Colleges Have to Be Much More Honest With Themselves To rebuild trust and resist interference, universities must look within.

Now is exactly THE WRONG TIME, NYT, to run the "Well, actually, maybe colleges were too woke" op-ed. What the hell is wrong with you?🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

This is an all-hands-on-deck moment to defend free speech -- anything else is Quisling capitulation www.nytimes.com/2025/03/29/o...

Early voting today in Wisconsin

For a presentation I am giving, I made a wordcloud of the titles of the NIH grants that were canceled. It is clear about the unscientific goals of this administration

See national impact of federal health research cuts scienceimpacts.org

Just in NIH grants, It looks like beautiful Iowa City, home of the U of Iowa, will lose $71m in funding. That's almost $1k per resident. And that's before all the other cuts to SSA, FDA, etc.

Anyone in Iowa City that can offer more insight?
scienceimpacts.org
H/T to Prathima !

Concerned mentors wishing we could speak with our senators about attacks on science and students @sarahross1.bsky.social & Michael Gold 🤔

@chrismurphyct.bsky.social and I walking into a PACKED house at UAW Region 1 here in Warren, MI! Republican Rep. John James refuses to hold a Townhall, so we did it for him!

Analysis of Terminated NIH Grants with Word Clouds

First, using the titles of grants not to Columbia...

Gender and DEI predominate

Biology of Sex Differences Unlike any other scientific journal, Biology of Sex Differences focuses on sex differences in physiology, behavior, and disease, from molecules to phenotypes, ...

Publish your sex differences research in Biology of Sex Differences! Win awards! bsd.biomedcentral.com #OSSD #BoSD

Last day for early registration for #OSSD2025

Sex differences research is important! - Biology of Sex Differences

Why is "the study of #sexdifferences fundamental for #science in order to improve the #health of all humans, male and female"?

New BoSD Editorial by #OSSD President, Prof Sofia Ahmed, and Editor-in-Chief, Prof Jill Becker:

bsd.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

#sabv #supportscience

📢 Early Bird Registration Fees for our 2025 Conference = postponed until March 30th!

👉 Not registered yet?
This is your chance.

👉 Already registered at Full Fees?
An email from OSSD Central Office will reach you shortly to start processing your partial refund.

www.ossdweb.org/ossd-annual-...

Something for 🧪 🗃 folks and more - please share with your subject hashtags so that more folks learn about this! #academicsky