Vinny Costa

Thanksgiving / early Black Friday flash sale on action potentials at www.brainedglass.com! Also last chance to order custom brains in time for holidays. I’m very grateful to all who supported my side gig during the recent govt shutdown: Thx for helping me not lose my mind during a very hard time 💕🧠

A network of basolateral amygdala projection neurons contributes to stress-induced activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis A network of basolateral amygdala neurons, but not singular projections, contributes to the neuroendocrine response to stress.

New lab paper drop, this one has been a long time coming! Driven by Rob Aukema (now a postdoc with Kerry Ressler) this paper in Science Advances answered the lingering question of what role the amygdala plays in stress-induced neuroendocrine responses.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

How about this banger out of the Holmes lab?

This is amazing.

Hopefully in a few weeks.

Good collaborators don’t let you submit bad cover image art.

“LOL that just looks like the acid trip of a neuroscientist.”

“What if I add monkeys?”

Is there #Soupskyence? @jbarkerlab.bsky.social? bsky.app/profile/artw...

In which I fruitlessly beg NIH grant-seeking folks to focus on what is actually important. A new webpage on the NIH site called “Implementing a Unified NIH Funding Strategy to Guide Consistent and Clearer Award Decisions” is causing a small kerfuffle on the socials. As per us…

In which I fruitlessly beg NIH grant-seeking folks to focus on what is actually important. drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2025/11/21/i...

Comparing performance of within-payline and "select pay" pickup NIH grants at NIAID Well, well, well. How timely. We were just discussing the situation in which some ICs of the NIH fund some subset of their grant applications out of the order of initial peer review. And what shoul…

Posting for no particular reason….

From the Archive: Comparing performance of within-payline and "select pay" pickup NIH grants at NIAID drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/c...

Extreme tortitude

Very excited to hear about this! We find Bayesian multi-level modeling at the ROI level super helpful (e.g. www.cell.com/neuron/fullt... ), will be nice to not have to artificially carve the data into parcels a priori!

Delicious straight out of the oven. Loved that it was not overly sweet and the chocolate was subtle. I also ate an everything bagel croissant.

Olive Chocolate croissant from Izolda bakery in San Diego.

Perfect way to end #sfn25. Thanks @neuroamyo.bsky.social!

We are thrilled to announce that the preliminary program for the 2026 GRC on the Frontal Cortex is now live!
www.grc.org/frontal-cort...
Registration is now open for both the GRC and our GRS, chaired by @albitc.bsky.social and @jorge-miranda.bsky.social!

Introducing the 𝐏𝐈-𝐚𝐭-𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐒𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞! 🤯

When activated, it will auto-reply to your PI's frantic ideas for new experiments, analyses, and projects with "Great suggestion! Saving this for later" (aka: let's talk when you’re back and got some sleep)

#sfn2025 #sfn25

Apropos of... well...

I'm reviewing applications for a variety of things right now and can tell when letters are written by AI. There aren't many of them but they do exist. They are... not good.

If you're an academic trainee, choose your mentors wisely.

@urochestersmd.bsky.social graduate student Daulton Meyers isn’t a modulator.

Daulton Meyers is a DRIVER.

Does anyone else in this ACC minisymposium hearing Whitesnake? #sfn25 #sfn2025

Amygdala milkshake is either a great band name or an apt description of the current vibe

Happening now! #sfn25 #sfn2025

How our foray into acute neural recordings from the frontopolar cortex started. Check out Kati Rothenhoefer’s LBP028 poster this afternoon (11/16) to learn about how it’s going. #sfn25 #sfn2025

Want more neuroscience of explore-exploit? Come to LBP028 right now! bsky.app/profile/vinc...

“No neuroscience talk is complete until someone says manifold.”

If a scientific lecture can spark joy, this hit the mark. A tour de force!

BCIs for emotion! And a reminder that NHP neuroscience is the safest bet in the business. Scooping is very rare.

Studying the amygdala is very post-punk. Especially in NHPs.

The importance of the amygdala in explore-exploit cannot be overemphasized! #sfn25 #sfn2025

Rony reminding folks to read the literature #sfn25

#Amygdala and @ronypaz.bsky.social brings all the neuroscientists to yard #sfn25 #sfn2025

Woah where is that?

How our foray into acute neural recordings from the frontopolar cortex started. Check out Kati Rothenhoefer’s LBP028 poster this afternoon (11/16) to learn about how it’s going. #sfn25 #sfn2025