Matt Wanat

Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success. Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302

The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted.

What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards.

Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

UAB is recruiting neuroscience faculty at two different levels - come join our vibrant neuroscience community!

A neuromodulatory circuit-to-molecular pathway for reformatting aversive memories during recall Tan et al. identify a neuromodulatory circuit-to-molecular pathway in rats that updates aversive memories when they are recalled. Noradrenaline from the locus coeruleus triggers synapse-to-nuclear tra...

Excited to share our new paper:
We uncover a locus coeruleus→amygdala circuit linking β-adrenergic signaling to transcription regulation in defined amygdala cells during memory reconsolidation—+ stress or elevated noradrenergic signaling at recall can strengthen memory.
www.cell.com/neuron/abstr...

When someone says „Scientists do not want you to know“ you can dismiss everything from there on. Scientists want you to know. They are desperate that you know. They can’t shut up about what they found out and want you to know.

For extra reading about this issue, I recommend checking out the @centeronbudget.bsky.social report, "Trump Administration Abused Spending Safeguards to Advance Its Agenda — and Illegally Hid Its Actions"

You know it's bad when the whole case study about weaponizing apportionment is about NIH

Um this is not normal. Haven’t ever seen this in 10+ years in San Antonio

Preach. That’s why you then turn into a systems / behavior neuroscientist

$300 Million in jet planes lost to a fuckup.

That’s 83 five year NIH R01 grants burned in minutes due to error, aka poor execution of this unnecessary war which serves only to make the world more dangerous.

White House stalls release of approved US science budgets The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

NIMH is not much better. Only 2 new grants in FY26

Line graph of the number new and competitive renewal grants funded by NIH in fiscal year 2026 through February 20, compared to fiscal years 2020-2025. The fiscal year 2026 is well below the other curves.

New and Competitive Renewals

Only 803 grants have been made compared to ~2650 in fiscal years 2023 and 2024 through February 20.

All institutes and centers (include OD now) have made awards except NIAAA, NLM, NCCIH, and FIC.

3/4

Dopamine Supports Reward Prediction to Shape Reward-Pursuit Strategy Reward predictions not only promote reward pursuit, they also shape how reward is pursed. Such predictions are supported by environmental cues that signal reward availability and probability. Such cue...

🚨📃New Wassum Lab Paper 📃🚨

Out today, Melissa Malvaez, Nick Griffin, Andrea Suarez & team discovered that dopamine can enable reward predictions to shape how we pursue reward.

Surprisingly, we find that dopamine can constrain instrumental reward seeking.

www.jneurosci.org/content/46/8...

🧵👇🏻

I am so proud to share @forrestdrogers.bsky.social’s postdoctoral magnum opus, now out in @nature.com! Forrest discovered a novel role for Agouti in the MPOA of the hypothalamus to integrate socio-environmental information to flexibly tune paternal behavior
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Thread! 👇🏻

DOG AT THE OLYMPICS
FULL COMPETITION HIGHLIGHTS

Disinhibition of ventral tegmental area during initial punishment learning causes enduring punishment insensitivity - Neuropsychopharmacology Neuropsychopharmacology - Disinhibition of ventral tegmental area during initial punishment learning causes enduring punishment insensitivity

New paper from lab on how VTA dopamine neurons + GABA inhibition contribute to punishment learning.

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

Duration between rewards controls the rate of behavioral and dopaminergic learning - Nature Neuroscience Cue–reward learning rate scales proportionally with the time between rewards. Consequently, learning over a fixed duration is independent of the number of trials. This challenges trial-based dopamine ...

Very excited to post our paper led by @daburke.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... where we uncover a simple mathematical rule underlying how brains learn that a cue predicts a reward. 1/26

a rainbow and a star with the words " i know you know " ALT: a rainbow and a star with the words " i know you know "

PSA on PMC compliance with accepted manuscripts at journals with a publishing embargo. Apparently you need to upload a version of the manuscript yourself and the paper will get a PMC number. This original PMC will the get overwritten by another PMC number when the embargo is lifted

4,049 and counting.
Attrition is real and ongoing.
Schedule career / policy, the new pmap rationing, deranging the MSPB, ...

Don’t get me started on the hypocrisy of this organization aligning with the current NIH/HHS “leaders”: kill all the animals you want to eat more and more animal flesh and fat but it is unethical to use animals for life saving medical research

$1.65M per day in DC alone. That’s approximately two NIH R01 Grant *years* burned per day. Ninety *five year* R01s projects burned in the last seven months with no end in sight.

Instead of lasting scientific advance we get….what?
Civil rights violations and authoritarian replacement of democracy.

No matter who you are cheering for this Super Bowl I hope at this we all can agree that Chris Collinsworth should not be announcing this game

👇New biosketch requirement update.

“After evaluating the number and types of recent technical inquiries we received to both the SciENcv and eRA Service Desks, we recognize the difficulties these issues have had on the community’s ability to comply with the original timeline of January 25, 2026.”
👇

We could all use some extra stress #resilience rn. But how does it work in the brain? On the surface, resilience looks like ignoring stress. Does the brain fail to respond? Or are active adaptations required? Or are resilience and susceptibility divergent paths? doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2025.116867

a man singing into a microphone in front of a sign that says karaoke time ! Alt: a man singing into a microphone in front of a sign that says karaoke time !

Okay #WCBR2026...this time I'm not messing around, bringing my own karaoke machine to this meeting. Get ready to rock!

SEC. 240. (a) Not to exceed the amount of funds made available under the heading ‘‘National Institutes of Health’’ in fiscal year 2025 that were obligated during fiscal year 2025 for more than one year of a multiyear award may be obligated in fiscal year 2026 from amounts made available under such heading in this Act for more than one year of a multiyear award.

The language in the bill restricts the amount of multiyear funding to the level is fiscal year 2025. The Senate bill limited it to that level in fiscal year 2024.

This is not good news...better than nothing, but thousands of lost projects.

3/5

Just spoke to The Hill about how the dismantling of the NIH is impacting science in America. We still face a cliff of unfathomable heights, w easily 1000+ labs poised to close in the next year due to funding ending. A generation of young scientists lost because there is nowhere for them to train.

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...

A line grant showing new and competitive renewal awards made by NIH is fiscal year 2026 compared to 2021-2025. The line for fiscal year 2026 is very close to zero.

My (now) weekly update on 2026 NIH funding.

New and competitive renewal awards.

3 new awards (compared to ~100 expected based on recent years).

No new ICs... still just NIA, NINDS, NIDCD, and NIDCR.

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Reminder for those applying for #NIH grants using the #ScienCV templates. You can format the text sections using html codes:
<p> paragraph
<br> break line
<b>bold</b>
<i>italics</i>

Had to delete the cache on Chrome a few weeks ago and that fixed it for me