Daniel Cardozo Pinto

Thrilled to share my PhD work showing dopamine and serotonin form a gas-brake system for reward has won Stanford's Sammy Kuo Paper of the Year Award!

I'm at #sfn25 presenting new work that uncovers a key circuit mechanism underlying this opponency. Stop by poster AA3 Monday morning to learn more!

🚨Our preprint is online!🚨

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

How do #dopamine neurons perform the key calculations in reinforcement #learning?

Read on to find out more! 🧵

Congrats James!

If anyone here is using Doric's new FluoPulse system for fluorescence lifetime photometry, can you please get in touch? Would love to hear about your experience with the product. Thanks!

Daniel Cardozo Pinto: Decoding the Neural Circuitry of Reward Learning - Harvard University - Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology Daniel Cardozo Pinto, soon to be appointed a Harvard Junior Fellow, represents a compelling new voice in systems neuroscience. His research, grounded in a profound curiosity about the […]

Daniel Cardozo Pinto: Decoding the Neural Circuitry of Reward Learning 🧠🧪 #AcademicSky #higherEd
www.mcb.harvard.edu/department/n... @dcardozopinto.bsky.social @dulaclab.bsky.social @rachellegaudet.bsky.social @harvardbrainsci.bsky.social @naoshigeuchida.bsky.social @neurovenki.bsky.social

MCB’s Daniel Cardozo Pinto and Wendy Valencia Montoya Named 2025 Harvard Junior Fellows - Harvard University - Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology Harvard has named Daniel Cardozo Pinto and Wendy Valencia Montoya as two of its newest Junior Fellows, joining the prestigious Society of Fellows this year. They will begin […]

www.mcb.harvard.edu/department/n...
@dcardozopinto.bsky.social (postdoc, @naoshigeuchida.bsky.social) and Wendy Valencia Montoya (graduate student, labs of Nick Bellono and Naomi Pierce) named as Harvard Junior Fellows.

@mcherrygarcia.bsky.social
@michaelaguo.bsky.social

Opponent regulation of striatal output pathways by dopamine and serotonin https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.17.649431v1

Special thanks Michaela Guo who co-led this project as an undergrad/RA and is now MD-PhD bound! I was lucky to work with her and can't wait to see what she does next.

And thank you to the rest of the team: Wade Morishita, Matt Pomrenze, Neir Eshel, and Rob Malenka

8/n

We think this provides one putative mechanism to explain longstanding observations of serotonin counteracting dopamine's rewarding effects.

Our work also provides a characterization of the mesolimbic serotonin system that we hope will be resource for the field.

7/n

Finally we tested whether this also happens in vivo. We used DAT (bup) and SERT (esc) blockers to upregulate dopamine or serotonin and labeled cfos as a proxy for neural activity.

‼️ Enhancing dopamine activity preferentially activated D1-MSNs while enhancing serotonin activated D2-MSNs

6/n

This suggested that serotonin may differentially modulate D1 and D2 MSN activity in a manner opposite to their regulation by dopamine. To test this, we recorded from genetically identified D1 and D2-MSNs.

⬆️⬇️ Dopamine selectively excited D1-MSNs while serotonin selectively activated D2-MSNs

5/n

Next we used RNAscope to map the their distribution.

📊 expression varied across subregions and cell-types for every gene examined

❗️ Overall though, D1-MSNs expressed a mix of Gi, Gs, and Gq coupled serotonin receptors while D2-MSNs were enriched for receptors in the Gq coupled 5HT2 family

4/n

To answer this question, we first determined which serotonin receptors are expressed on striatal MSNs.

🎯 Mining a scRNA-Seq dataset revealed that >90% of MSNs express serotonin receptors, and that this is primarily limited to a subset of ~8 receptor genes

3/n

📚 It's known that dopamine drives reinforcement via differential modulation of D1 and D2 MSNs, and last year we showed serotonin counteracts dopamine's reinforcing effects.

This inspired us to ask:

❓How does serotonin affect striatal neuron activity?

2/n

New preprint! 🧠

"Opponent regulation of striatal output pathways by dopamine and serotonin"

Here, we mapped serotonin receptor expression in the striatum and showed serotonin modulates MSNs in a manner ~opposite to their canonical regulation by dopamine.

Co-led with Michaela Guo. 1/n

🧵 ⬇️

Thank so much! Hope you're doing well!!

Thank you!!

Thrilled to share that I've been elected to the Harvard Society of Fellows!

I will collaborate with Nao Uchida on a new direction investigating neural mechanisms of addiction. It's such a privilege to pursue curiosity driven science in this environment - very excited and so, so grateful.

Changes in neurotensin signalling drive hedonic devaluation in obesity - Nature In mice, prolonged consumption of a high-fat diet decreases interest in calorie-rich foods as a result of reduced neurotensin expression and signalling, which uncouples hedonic feeding behaviour linke...

The latest work from the Lammel lab is out today!

Discover how changes in neurotensin signaling from the NAc Lat to the VTA lead to food devaluation in a mouse model of obesity 🧀🐭

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

Thank you!

Thanks to @avaskham.bsky.social at @thetransmitter.bsky.social for this coverage of our recent work!

Thank you!

Grateful for this spotlight from @PsyPost News, check out their coverage of our recent @Nature paper below! 🧠

The study demonstrates for the first time exactly how dopamine and serotonin work together -- or more precisely, in opposition -- to shape our learning behavior. #Nature

Read more
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thank you!

Thanks Iskra!

Thank you!!!

Thanks to Nick Weiler @ Stanford Wu Tsai Institute for the very nice write up of our work!

neuroscience.stanford.edu/news/dopamin...

Thank you!