Koya Lab

At University of Bristol today to conduct a MSc and PhD viva (on the same day). It's been a nice week of academic tourism! 😄

At the University of Edinburgh today !

Happiness = haggis bonbons and whisky in Edinburgh 😋

Edinburgh at night

An afternoon stroll in Edinburgh !

We highlight how EE drives complex changes in both interneurons and pyramidal cells, shaping PL circuitry in ways that likely suppress cue-evoked sucrose seeking. These adaptations may underlie EE’s powerful ‘anti-craving’ effects. 😊 10/n

We show that EE taps into PL interneurons even prior to cue exposure and boosts their excitability. Such excitability increases may contribute to suppression of PL→PVT neurons and decrease the transfer of cue-related information across corticothalamic networks. 9/n

Finally, we used retrograde viral tracing to label PL→PVT and PL→NAc neurons and examined their recruitment after EE. We focused on these pathways because they process cue-related information and coordinate reward seeking. EE reduced recruitment of PL→PVT neurons, but not PL→NAc neurons. 8/n

Next, we used ex vivo electrophysiology and found that EE increased the general, ‘baseline’ (before cue exposure) excitability of PL inhibitory interneurons, but not pyramidal cells. This suggests that EE enhances the ability to inhibit local neuronal activity. 7/n

First, we found that environmental enrichment (EE) not only reduced cue-evoked sucrose seeking but also decreased sucrose solution consumption in the home cage. These findings suggest that EE lowers the motivational value of sucrose, thereby diminishing sucrose cue reactivity. 6/n

We investigated how EE in female mice suppresses cue-evoked sucrose seeking. We examined how EE generally alters excitability in prelimbic (PL) pyramidal cells and inhibitory interneurons, and how it recruits PL output pathways to the paraventricular thalamus (PVT) and nucleus accumbens (NAc). 5/n

We previously provided such stimulation via environmentally enriched (EE) housing (e.g. large cage, tunnels, exercise wheels). EE reduced cue-evoked sucrose seeking and neuronal ensemble activity in prelimbic cortex (PL), a brain area that controls motivated actions like reward seeking. 4/n

Background: Cognitive (playing Tetris) and physical (exercise) stimulation reduces food cravings and cue reactivity. Not surprisingly, health agencies such as UK National Health Services (NHS) recommends such accessible, non-pharmacological interventions to control food cravings! 3/n

First, many thanks to all involved for their efforts! (on Bluesky: @katepeters3.bsky.social) Also, many thanks to reviewers/editors for their efforts and constructive feedback and funders for support (@ukri.org (MRC)! Of note, publishing with EJN was smooth with a fast turnaround time. 😊2/n

Our article “Environmental Enrichment Suppresses Food Seeking and Increases Inhibitory Interneuron Excitability While Decreasing Corticothalamic Neuronal Recruitment in the Prelimbic Cortex” is now out on @ejneuroscience.bsky.social Read it here: tinyurl.com/2dbnk5c2
Highlights below 👇 1/n

Distinct prelimbic cortex ensembles encode response execution and inhibition | PNAS Learning when to initiate or withhold actions is essential for survival, requiring the integration of past experiences with new information to adap...

Cool new study on how operant training and extinction learning recruit distinct prelimbic cortex ensembles to support opposing behavioural responses from Bruce Hope's lab! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Rest in peace, Pieter.
Thank you for everything and for helping me become the neuroscientist I am today.

Pieter had a profound influence on how I investigate the brain.
I’m grateful I stayed in touch during his retirement, where he enjoyed making guitars.

The microscope we used together (pictured below just before his retirement) was where many of these lessons were learned.

He patiently showed me stained brain sections with e.g. Fos, calbindin, mu-opioid receptors. Amazingly, he could even infer corticolimbic inputs from clusters of Fos expression in striatal sections.

I still remember when he asked me to sketch the borders of the nucleus accumbens and justify my choices. “Because it’s in the atlas” wasn’t good enough. He wanted my scientific rationale!

That question led to hours of Socratic dialogue about cell types, neurochemical markers, input-output relationships, and anatomical boundaries.

Pieter taught me how to use the cryostat and dissect brain regions with precision.
But more importantly, he taught me how to think about “What makes a brain area a brain area?”.

My obsession with histology, microscopy, and the medial prefrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens began with him.
It’s something I’ve carried through my postdoc, my time at NIDA, and now as a PI.

As a PhD student, I learned corticostriatal neuroanatomy, histology, and microscopy under his guidance, even though he wasn’t officially my supervisor.
He was just a generous scientist who wanted to help.

Many in behavioural neuroscience will remember Pieter from his influential 2004 Trends in Neurosciences review, which helped shape our understanding of prefrontal–striatal circuitry.

I recently learned that my PhD mentor, Pieter Voorn, passed away at the age of 70.
He was a superb, ‘classical’ neuroanatomist at VU Medical Center in Amsterdam, working alongside Gloria Meredith, Henk Groenewegen, Harry Uylings, and Chris Wright.

Flight back has been cancelled so must spend another day in Almeria! Not a bad place to get stranded ! 😁

Seen today in Brighton: Old-school, non-LLM, analogue spell checking! 😄