Ron Keiflin

Superior colliculus projections drive dopamine neuron activity and movement but not value To navigate dynamic environments, animals must rapidly integrate sensory information and respond appropriately to gather rewards and avoid threats. It is well established that dopamine (DA) neurons in...

Check out our latest, online now at @sfnjournals.bsky.social www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...

Really excited to have this paper accepted for publication now in @natcomms.nature.com - stay tuned for the final version and huge congrats to @margestelzner.bsky.social!!!!

More info about Neuroscience PhD programs at UCSB:
neuroscience.ucsb.edu/graduate-pro...

🧠 Curious about grad school in Psych & Brain Sciences?
Join UC Santa Barbara’s PBS Department for a virtual open house on Oct 14 — meet faculty, connect with grad students, and learn more about the program!

Congrats!!!

Neural coding of choice and outcome are modulated by uncertainty in orbitofrontal but not secondary motor cortex - Nature Communications Neural mechanisms underlying flexible learning and decision-making are not fully understood. Using single-cell calcium imaging, authors here found that neurons in orbitofrontal and secondary motor cortex exhibit complementary roles in reward learning, with neurons in the former exerting a sustained role in conditions of uncertainty.

🎇 Excited to finally share JL Romero Sosa’s publication! Results are from single-cell imaging in different subregions of rat frontal cortex during ✨de novo learning. Spoiler: everything is not everywhere all at once www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Drug‐Related Engrams and Their Role in the Persistence and Recurrence of Drug‐Related Behaviors Memory is a cornerstone of human behavior, and addiction offers a compelling model of its persistence and plasticity. The scope of engram research has rapidly expanded to include addiction-related ph....

First lab paper out today! Student authors: Mikayla Cutler and Abhi Thati 🎉🤩

Hippocampus | Neuroscience Journal | Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

I'm recruiting a PhD student to study how enkephalins affect cognitive processing in the rodent frontal cortex. The project uses pharmacology, multi-electrode recordings, and fiber photometry, and is funded by NIDA. Please share with trainees applying this cycle. Thanks!

Postdoctoral Scholars - Ostlund Laboratory - Anesthesiology & Perioperative Care University of California, Irvine is hiring. Apply now!

We have an open NIH-funded postdoc position in the lab to study circuit and neurochemical mechanisms of cognitive and motivational deficits in opioid withdrawal. Apply here: recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09885 or message/email for more information.

Honored to be elected to serve as the next vice co-chair, along with the amazing @sciolinolab.bsky.social, for the Catecholamines Gordon Research Conference. I first came to this meeting in 2011 as a grad student and it was transformative for my career. Excited to help cultivate that for others.

K.M. Costa Lab

If you are a highly motivated grad student (@uabneuro.bsky.social) or a prospective postdoc with experience in behavior, neural recordings, or programming, and would like to contribute to this project, just contact me. Details on kmcostalab.com

My hero!!!!

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...

New Dispatch in @currentbiology.bsky.social w/ @RobinPiquet & @dryacinetensaouti.bsky.social highlighting elegant work from the @iordanova.bsky.social lab that formally disentangles whether dopamine signals reward prediction errors or value.

authors.elsevier.com/a/1ldGk3QW8S...

Very excited to share this major update to our paper delineating VTA GABA neuron encoding of valence and decision conflict. Studies led by the amazing @margestelzner.bsky.social. We leaned in here, taking the opportunity to add a lot of cool new data. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Parting gift from @sophiepeterson.bsky.social.
I feel so seen!

Catching up on announcements — huge congrats to @sophiepeterson.bsky.social on a successful defense! Proud PI moment!

just DMed you

We also use a long cable (~3m). The part exposed to the rat is protected by a flexible metal jacket, which can rotate.
The fiber itself runs straight to the cube (no rotary joint). It works well for 1 fiber; I imagine it could be adapted for 2 fibers. Let me know if you want details of our system

Hippocampal ensembles regulate circuit-induced relapse of extinguished fear Molecular Psychiatry - Hippocampal ensembles regulate circuit-induced relapse of extinguished fear

🚨New paper alert! 🚨 Inactivation of the nucleus reuniens causes relapse of extinguished fear. Here we show this “circuit-induced relapse” depends on hippocampal fear memories and is mediated by hippocampal engrams. Congrats to the team!

Check out our latest! Studies led by the amazing Megan Brickner - she finds really interesting patterns of dopamine signaling in the basolateral amygdala that report the emotional salience of sensory state transitions. These are largely non-associative, value-free signals, in contrast to classic DA.

Opioid-driven disruption of the septum reveals a role for neurotensin-expressing neurons in withdrawal Opioid withdrawal produces a dysphoric state that can lead to relapse. Simon et al. reveal that lateral septal neurotensin-expressing neurons are selectively activated by naloxone and drive changes in...

Thrilled to announce that our paper is now finally out! 🎉We combine scRNAseq, 2p imaging, ephys, and behavior to understand the role of lateral septal Nts neurons in opioid withdrawal. Curious about the septum and addiction? Give it a read👇

www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

Very surprised (but very excited) to announce that I’ll be officially starting as an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and as part of the new Data Science and AI Institute in July 2026!

Prefrontal encoding of an internal model for emotional inference Nature - Neurons in the rodent dorsomedial prefrontal cortex encode a flexible internal model of emotion by linking directly experienced and inferred associations with aversive experiences.

I’m excited to share a new paper from the lab. The study led by Xiaowei Gu reveals how the mPFC encodes complex emotional memories, using an internal model to infer emotional associations and memories via projections to the amygdala. a🧵(1/8)

rdcu.be/el19t

Systems consolidation reorganizes hippocampal engram circuitry Nature - A study shows that loss of memory precision associated with systems consolidation can be explained by neurogenesis-dependent reorganization of engram circuitry within the hippocampus over...

Sharing a new paper from the lab. This paper, led by Sangyoon Ko, represents a merging of two longstanding research themes in the lab-- adult neurogenesis and systems consolidation.

rdcu.be/el18q

A short thread follows for those interested.

1/n

The estrous cycle modulates hippocampal spine dynamics, dendritic processing, and spatial coding Histological evidence suggests that the estrous cycle exerts a powerful influence on CA1 neurons in the mammalian hippocampus. Decades have passed sin…

🚨Very excited to share a new paper from our lab in Neuron (@cp-neuron.bsky.social) on the influence of the estrous cycle on structural and functional plasticity in the hippocampus: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Thread below 🧠🧪🧵:

Join us in beautiful Santa Barbara! We're hiring a full-time junior specialist/research technician to play a central role in data collection & analysis of brain imaging studies of pregnancy & menopause.

Learn more & apply at: recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/JPF02974

Or help us spread the word 💫

👏👏👏 Congrats Ben, so well-deserved!!

Striatal dopamine represents valence on dynamic regional scales Adaptive decision making relies on dynamic updating of learned associations where environmental cues come to predict valenced stimuli, such as food or threat. Cue-guided behavior depends on a network ...

Our latest! We measure dopamine signals as rats disambiguate cues that predict reward or threat. We find that dopamine flexibly tracks the changing salience and value of cues, but according to region-specific scales, rapid within-trial dopamine fluctuations prioritize different stimulus features.

Thanks @danacobblewis.bsky.social and @asapresearch.bsky.social for supporting and showcasing our work!