Abby Polter

Individual differences in decision-making shape how mesolimbic dopamine regulates choice confidence and change-of-mind - Nature Neuroscience Differences in neuroeconomic decision-making influence nucleus accumbens dopamine dynamics and reflect choice confidence during evaluation, as well as past and future value during re-evaluation, which...

Dopamine dynamics in the nucleus accumbens core reflected decision confidence during evaluation of decisions in an economic foraging task in mice, as well as both past and future value during re-evaluation and change-of-mind

@perothwell.bsky.social

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

Prepping It's the end of summer, and maybe the end of other things

This is from a different corner of academia than mine, but I still found it very relevant and moving: musgrave.substack.com/p/prepping?r...

Also holy shit TEN years since I went on the job market?! Big yikes!

The dudes were still pulling out the "you'll have a super easy time on the job market because everyone wants to have more women in their dept" ten years ago...maybe they've stopped since but somehow I doubt it

It's funny to think that my preference for urban living in areas with dense, mixed-used, walkable neighborhoods, multi-family housing, small businesses, and diversity probably stems from Sesame Street. Like an early education in Jane Jacob's urbanist theories.

I voted no on the RFK deal.
Not because I don’t love football.
But because I love D.C. more.
We just cut programs for kids & housing, now we’re spending $1B+ on a stadium?
That’s not an investment.
It’s a loss.
And our people deserve better.

I passed a fast casual lunch place with an ad on their door looking for kitchen prep help with a QR code where applicants could *upload their resume* and complete an application

This is a good use of figs: simplyrecipes.rf.gd/recipes/spic...

Huh, I thought "Benefits of a varied diet: it's fine to eat what you find in the trash" was a sure winner

I hope the goat council chooses my grant for funding

Federal agencies hiding out in a bunker

Yeah dopamine encodes reward but what about when contingencies shift and behavior needs to be flexible? Turns out VTA GABA neuron activity plays a role, check it out in my first postdoctoral research article here!👇

Wow. A group of top scholars at Harvard just sent a letter to its president, Alan Garber, warning against surrendering to Trump.

Signatories include Steven Levitsky, Dani Rodrik, Ryan Enos, Theda Skocpol, and Steven Walt.

Someone forwarded it to me. Read it here:

I have reached an agreement with the Trump administration in which I will agree to become a fossil fuel and identify as a Hulk Hogan action figure. Importantly, I admit no wrongdoing.

A hypothalamic circuit that modulates feeding and parenting behaviours - Nature Single-cell transcriptomic analysis of mouse hypothalamus and behavioural experiments show that specific hypothalamic networks regulate conflicting feeding versus parenting behaviours of female mice.

How do animals decide if they should forage for food or stay home to take care of newborn offspring? Whose needs come first? For my PhD work now out in Nature, we examined how hunger and parenting neurons interact and are reshaped postpartum in mice 🧵⬇️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I am currently...70% through his "Jerusalem" as my nonfiction of the summer and it is taking the whole summer

remember this: try

Merriam-Webster Thesaurus for 'shining.' The only words visible are 'shining,' 'shimmering,' 'splendid'

🎼 "We can show you the world..."🎼

'Untangling the multifaceted VTA responses to stress'

by Urszula Skupio, Alexander Harris & Abigail Polter
@ampolter.bsky.social @dralexharris.bsky.social

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

It's one of my favorite parts of being on study section!

Oh you are missing out! State fairs get all the buzz but the true joy is the *county* fair...small and kinda dinky and everyone is so proud of their cows and chickens and the tractor dealer has the new models out you can sit on and the ice cream is amazing

At some point, the Republican project shifted from attacking scientific consensus on particular subjects that ran counter to their political interests to trying to shut down all scientific inquiry wherever it might be headed.

I was in RI for six years and never went...my Midwestern could just never make the leap

I mean you've got the big E!

Enter that beast in the state fair!

Shot, chaser

I live a mile from RFK stadium grounds and there are not words that sufficiently express how little I (or my neighbors, best I can tell) want this

I have been VERY lucky with NIH funding, with continuous funding since ~2015. I have never scored anywhere below 10%. Paylines like this mean a lot of labs like mine never launch

"...cancer mortality rate declined by 34% from 1991 to 2022 in the United States, averting approximately 4.5 million deaths."
- ACS Cancer Statistics, 2025.

In 30 years, we've cut the death rate from cancer by a third. The current pipeline has *actual cures* for specific cancers in it.

I don’t know how to explain to people that if somebody is earnestly working towards ends you think are good for reasons you think are stupid, that person is your ally