News
Dr. Michael Drew elected president-elect of Pavlovian Society
Dr. Michael Drew was elected president-elect of the Pavlovian Society. He will serve as president in 2023 and host the Pavlovian Annual Meeting in Austin in Sept 2023Dr. Dayne Mayfield receives R01 from NIAAA
Dr. Dayne Mayfield received an R01 award from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism for his proposal entitled "Gene Expression in the Human Alcoholic Brain". This project will use cell-type-specific RNA sequencing to define the brain transcriptome from human alcoholics and alcohol-dependent mice in unprecedented detail to investigate the hypothesis is that...Drs. Dunsmoor and Lewis-Peacock receive R01 from NIH
Dr. Joey Dunsmoor and Dr. Jarrod Lewis-Peacock received and R01 from the National Institutes of Helath for their proposal entitled "Isolating competing memories of fear and safety in the human brain". In psychiatric disorders characterized by severe stress and anxiety, memories of safety are more difficult to learn and remember...Bob Messing awarded Distinguished Research Award from the Research Society on Alcoholism
Dr. Messing was awarded the 2021 Distinguished Research Award from the Research Society on Alcoholism. This award recognizes a senior researcher who has made outstanding scientific contributions to the alcohol field. This award recognizes a sustained long-term commitment to conducting alcohol research and a substantial record of publication in the field. As part...Congratulations to Laura Enneian and Susan Rozmiarek - Recipients of CNS Staff Excellence Awards!
Congratulations to Laura Enneian, Assistant Director of Department of Neuroscience and Susan Rozmiarek, Lab Manager of the Pierce Lab in Department of Neuroscience for winning the 2020 College of Natural Sciences Staff Excellence Awards!! For decades, these awards have recognized excellent work performance by staff who have made a lasting impact in their...Dr. Laura Colgin recognised with Suffrage Science award
The Suffrage Science scheme (https://www.suffragescience.org) was founded in 2011 by the Medical Research Council’s London Institute of Medical Sciences (then Clinical Sciences Centre) on the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day. It celebrates and inspires women in science, creating a self-perpetuating cohort of talent that will encourage others to enter science and reach senior...Drs. Laura Colgin and Kristen Harris publish Veiwpoint articles in Journal of Neuroscience issue celebrating 50 years of neuroscience
Dr. Laura Colgin and Dr. Kristen Harris contributed Viewpoint articles in the the January 2020 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience highlighting 50 years of Neuroscience. Dr. Colgin authored an article entitiled "Five Decades of Hippocampal Place Cells and EEG Rhythms in Behaving Rats" in which she reviewed research that has...Dr. Nigel Atkinson uses Wiki Education to teach science communication skills
A recent blog from the Genetics Society of America highlighted the use of Wikipedia writing assignments to create new articles for underrepresented topics previously as a mechanism to teach science communication skills in university classes. The article featured Dr. Nigel Atkinson use of this teaching technique in his Epegentics classes in which his students...Drew Lab publishes in Nature Neuroscience
The Drew lab published a paper in Nature Neuroscience entitled "Distinct hippocampal engrams control extinction and relapse of fear memory". This work demonstrates that the hippocampus, a part of the brain essential for memory, generates memory traces of both fear and extinction, and competition between these hippocampal traces determines whether fear is expressed...Jason Samonds and Sarah Lieberman in Priebe Lab publish in eNeuro
Priebe Lab members Jason Samonds, a postdoctoral fellow, and Sarah Lieberman, an undergraduate summer intern that was supported by the Department of Neuroscience summer intern program, publishes a research article in eNeuro entitled "Motion Discrimination and the Motion Aftereffect in Mouse Vision." This research on the motion aftereffect, a well-known illusion...Dr. Micky Marinelli receives RO1 and RO3 grants from NIDA
Dr. Micky Marinelli received 2 grants from the National Institutes on Drug Abuse. She received an RO1 for her research project entitled “The lateral preoptic area: A novel regulator of VTA activity and cocaine seeking”. The research will investigate the potential role of the lateral preoptic area in drug seeking and...Dr. Alex Huk and colleague are recipients of a The National Science Foundation Neural and Cognitive Systems (NCS) award
The National Science Foundation (NSF) made 19 awards to cross-disciplinary teams across the country to conduct innovative research focused on neuronal and cognitive systems. These awards are supported through the NSF Integrative Strategies for Understanding Neural and Cognitive Systems (NCS) program that supports innovating, boundary crossing efforts to push the frontiers of brain...Ellen Zippi in Preston lab recognized as Dean's Honored Graduate and receives NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Ellen Zippi, an undergraduate researcher in the Preston lab graduated with Dean's Honored Graduate recognition. Dean’s Honored Graduate is the highest honor awarded to graduating seniors in the College of Natural Sciences. It is restricted to fewer than one percent of the graduating class of the college during an academic year. Ellen...Dr. Laura Colgin publishes in Hippocampus
The Colgin Lab recently published a research article in the journal Hippocampus entitled "Impairments in spatial representations and rhythmic coordination of place cells in the 3xTg mouse model of Alzheimer's Disease". Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an irreversible and highly progressive neurodegenerative disease, and is the leading form of dementia. Clinically,...How a World-class Center for Learning and Memory Got Its Start
Nearly a decade ago, when the U.S. was going through one of the worst recessions in decades, the Center for Learning and Memory (CLM) at the University of Texas at Austin was one of the few places hiring new neuroscience faculty. Most other universities canceled their recruitment efforts. "It was...Dr. Michael Drew receives NIH BRAIN Initiative R03 Award
Dr. Michael Drew received a R03 award through the NIH BRIAN Initiative for his research project entitled “Imaging adult-born neurons in action using head-mounted minimicroscopes”. There is a vast amount of correlational and experimental data identifying adult neurogenesis—the generation of nerve cells in the adult hippocampus— as a clinically important form...Drs. Seidemann and Zemelman publish in eLife and featured on Human Frontiers website
Dr. Eyal Seidemann and Dr. Boris Zemelman recently published a paper in eLife entitled “Calcium imaging with genetically encoded indicators in behaving primates.” This project describes a new technique for long-term (over a period of months) imaging of neural activity in the visual cortex of the behaving primate by measuring activity-dependent...Dr. Nigel Atkinson receives NIH grant to investigate genes involved in alcoholism
Dr. Nigel Atkinson receives NIH grant for his research project entitled “Epigenetic dissection of functional ethanol tolerance and dependence”. This project seeks to identify a simple and effective way to pan for genomic changes that occur in the alcoholism phenotype. This will be accomplished by investigating genes that show common changes...Graduate Students Receive Next Generation Award for Podcast
Neuroscience graduate students Anthony Lacagnina (Drew Lab), Lauren Kreeger (Golding Lab) and Matthew Davis (Zemelman Lab) won the 2016 Next Generation Award from the Society for Neuroscience for creating, producing and hosting "Brain Matters," a podcast about neuroscience and the scientists behind the bench. Listen to all the Brain Matters...
