Springer Nature

As our environment becomes ever increasingly complex, understanding how sex differences impact disease risk and resilience will only become more critical. The 2019 Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews, "Sex Matters," edited by Dr. Tracy L. Bale, highlights the causal and mechanistic value in cases where significant sex differences are found, as well as when they're not; where sex differences may arise at one period of life and disappear in another. Additionally, this podcast, as well as the special issue, reinforces the message that males are not the control, and females are not more variable. The value is in appreciating the difference. Sex matters.

Special issue link: https://www.nature.com/npp/volumes/44/issues/1

In this episode, we meet Kristin Keunen from The University Medical Centre Utrecht. She and her team used postnatal neuroimaging to map early developmental trajectories of structural brain wiring in preterm and full-term neonates.

The study provides valuable insights into the early stages of structural connectome development.

Related article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-018-0138-1

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Genome sequencing identifies multiple deleterious variants in autism patients with more severe phenotypes

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41436-018-0380-2

With their delicate, trumpet shaped flowers that open to greet the rising sun, the morning glory has long been a horticultural favourite. Unfortunately, the quick growth and hardy nature of these plants has made them a noxious invasive weed in many parts of the world, with particularly damaging impacts on crop agriculture. Here, Dr Diego Alvarado Serrano, from the University of Michigan, discusses his recently published research on the genetic connectivity of the tall morning glory in the Eastern United States, which he and his collaborators hope will help to curtail the spread of both the plant itself and herbicide resistant genes.

Related article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-018-0106-x

Southern right whales have had a rough few centuries, being brought to the brink of oblivion more than once by the whaling industry. Before that, climatic shifts likely played havoc with their coastal breeding grounds. What impact did these events have on their population genetics and connectivity? These are the questions being tackled by Dr Emma Carroll and Prof. Oscar Gaggiotti. Join them as they discuss their recent attempt to unravel the demographic history of this enigmatic migratory species.

(Dr Carroll is currently in the South Atlantic Ocean collecting more data on southern right whales; why not check out their field blog at whalednalab.auckland.ac.nz

Related article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-018-0077-y

What makes a beetle red? Or metallic? Or striped? And why display such a diversity of colour patterns within one species? These are the questions being asked by Lynette Strickland, a PhD candidate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Pre-doctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Join us as we discuss her recent research on the genetic and ecological basis of colour polymorphisms in the tortoise beetle, Chelymorpha alternans.

Related article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-018-0149-z

Europe's 102 million domestic cats were spread across the continent by the Roman Empire. At least, that was the consensus. However, new genetic, archaeological, and archaeozoological evidence suggests that our feline friends were present in Central Europe thousands of years earlier than previously thought. How did they get there? And what does this mean for our understanding of cat domestication? Join us as we talk to three of the authors behind this new fascinating research.

Related article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-018-0071-4

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Improved diagnostics by exome sequencing following raw data reevaluation by clinical geneticists involved in the medical care of the individuals tested

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41436-018-0343-7

Aggression is an evolutionary behavior seen throughout the animal world. When it comes to humans, however, some forms of aggression can be seen as pathological, dangerous, and quite costly to society. And yet there's a dearth of approved, effective treatments for aggression. Meghan Flanigan is a graduate student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and one of the authors of a new article in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, titled "Recent advances in the study of aggression," in which she argues that there isn't much data about the causes of abnormal aggression in humans, and part of the problem has been that it hasn't been modeled well in animals.

Related article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-018-0226-2

In this episode we explore a hybrid approach for genotyping one of the most variable parts of the vertebrate genome: the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). Join Dr Silvia Fuselli (University of Ferrara) and Dr Rodrigo Baptista (University of Georgia) as they explain their work combining the best aspects of both next and third generation sequencing platforms—an approach that is bringing us ever closer to solving the genome puzzle.

Related article:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-018-0070-5