Talia Lerner

Burnt out, took the time she needed, came back with confidence, grace, and joy. An inspiration ✨🤩

Watching the systematic dismantling of the world's largest funder of biomedical research is heartbreaking and infuriating

Get in, dorks. We're ready for round two.

RALLY TO TAKE BACK SCIENCE! 🔬🧪✊
March 7th, 2026 in Washington, DC

Learn more at www.standupforscience.net/ma... (link in our bio.)

Congrats to the new #GRCBasalGanglia vice-chairs! See you in Ventura, California 2028!

Dopamine’s secret agent: serotonin Dopamine suppresses GABA release from striatal terminals in the substantia nigra pars reticulata. Molinari et al. recently demonstrated that this suppression is frequency-dependent—instituting a high-...

Happy to share this Spotlight article, drawing attention to recent work by @borgkvistlab.bsky.social on the mechanisms of dopamine action in the SNr.

Read our summary and then read their paper! Many cool implications!
@cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social

www.cell.com/trends/neuro...

Talia Lerner and Jun Ding, backdrop of mountains in Italy at the GRC site

#GRCBasalGanglia co-chairs 4 life 🫶🏼

Well - task different from model...

BG GRC Oath: I acknowledge that the go/no-go model of the BG was useful but it is outdated and incorrect, or at least incomplete. I pledge not to use the go/no-go model as a strawman to motivate my work.

Taking the #GRCBasalGanglia Oath ✋🏼

I acknowledge that the go/no-go model of the BG was useful but it is outdated and incorrect, or at least incomplete. I pledge not to use the go/no-go model as a strawman to motivate my work.

Congratulations to the new 2028 Basal Ganglia GRS chairs, Amy Gottschalk and Rodrigo Paz! #GRCBasalGanglia

I am really angry about all of the scientists who cozied up to Epstein even after it was known who he was.

I am nearly as angry at how many people are justifying this as "they had to, it's how academia works"

NO IT FUCKING WELL ISN'T

Waking up in beautiful Tuscany - not to be underestimated! #GRCBasalGanglia 😍

We cannot do science while our people are being shot down in the streets. We cannot fund DHS/ICE.

Call your representatives.

Exclusive: key NIH review panels due to lose all members by the end of 2026 Thirteen of the agency’s advisory councils, which must review grant applications before funding is awarded, are on track to have no voting members.

🚨 New from me: Grant review at more than half of NIH's institutes could be frozen by the end of the year.

That's because crucial NIH grant-review panels are slated to be empty at those institutes by Jan 2027.

A wonky bureaucratic problem with big implications.

A short 🧵

Incredibly emotional to hear my poem has been turned into a song of resistance and is being sung in Minneapolis right now. Please do not give up.

Thank you!

Many thanks @davidweinshenker.bsky.social for the opportunity and to the labs contributing papers: @daylab.bsky.social, Tom Hnasko, Raj Awatramani, and @mtorregrossa1.bsky.social

I edited a special issue of Addiction Neuroscience on dopamine circuitry & heterogeneity in addiction - now complete!🧠🧪

Check out the full issue & my editorial (all open access) here: www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

Now back! Good, confusing, but good

Every day, a new atrocity. This one hits close to home.

This is the sort of statement that was expected from every university president and law firm partner over the last year. That those statements weren’t made played a huge part in where we are now and people will remember.

Defending PhD student, looking over their thesis: “If I knew then what I know now, I could’ve done all of this in like 9 months.”

A thread about my favorite pioneering cave explorers and why I don’t think AI will ever “solve” biology.

Dinosaur costume, no ICE age

#iceoutforgood

An attack on public health. A repudiation of science.

Not the central point, but scientists should also say what Trump and Vought are doing to US science is illegal — illegal grant terminations, illegal mass firings, illegal remaking of science agencies without Congressional approval … Vought’s entire approach to science and universities is corrupt.

This was thought provoking 🧠

Doesn't invalidate computational approaches but a clear-eyed view of the limits/assumptions, and an eloquent description of why neurobiology is endlessly fascinating

What were the best fictions you read in 2025?

My top 3:

Orbital
Martyr!
Intermezzo

Heads up I will be hiring a postdoc and some techs in the new year! Lots of ephys and fiber photometry. If you've got soon to graduate PhD students or undergrads, send 'em my way!

Three days in June, by Anne Tyler

Actually I should also thank @tamargurmdphd.bsky.social bc now I'm remembering she shoved this book at me when she was visiting Northwestern and got me going

I lapsed (a million excuses), but so glad to find my way back

Just finished "Flashlight" by Susan Choi and liked it!

"All the light we cannot see" was beautiful