This Week in Neuroscience

TWiN explains the identification of a brain circuit and periodic branch-specific neurotransmitter deployment that regulates organismal adaptation to photoperiod change.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, and Tim Cheung

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• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Brain circuit for photoperiod adaptation (Nature)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to [email protected]

TWiN explores how pregnancy leads to modifications in brain structure and function that may prepare the mother for parenting.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, and Vivianne Morrison

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• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Pregnancy transforms the brain (Nature)
• Hormone-mediated neural remodeling during pregnancy (Science)
• Effects of pregnancy on brain activity (Nature Comm)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to [email protected]

Joseph Paton and Felipe Rodrigues join TWiN to explain how they used temperature manipulation to alter the speed of neuronal dynamics in the dorsal striatum of rats, a manipulation that selectively slowed down or sped up time perception, illuminating the mechanisms of time-based decisions.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, Timothy Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

Guest: Joseph J. Paton and Felipe Rodrigues

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• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Using temperature to analyze the neural basis of a time-based decision (Nat Neurosci)
• Hot times for the dorsal striatum (Nat Neurosci)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to [email protected]

Mauro Costa-Mattioli returns to TWiN to discuss the results of a placebo controlled, double blind clinical trial of a probiotic which improved social behavior but not autism severity in children with ASD.

Hosts: Jason Shepherd, Timothy Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

Guest: Mauro Costa-Mattioli

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• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Probiotics for autism spectrum disorder (Cell Host Microbe)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to [email protected]

TWiN reviews altered somatosensory reactivity, which is frequently observed among individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and in mouse models the developmental timing of aberrant touch processing can predict the manifestation of ASD-associated behaviors in mouse models. 

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, Timothy Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Mouse models of autism spectrum disorder (Nature Neuroscience)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to [email protected]

TWiN reviews experiments which show that SARS-CoV-2 triggers the up-regulation of synaptic components and perturbs local electrical field potential in cerebral organoids, organotypic culture of human brain explants and post-mortem brain samples from individuals with COVID-19. 

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, Timothy Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• SARS-CoV-2 perturbs synaptic homeostasis (Nature Micro)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to [email protected]

TWiN welcomes mice to the elite club of ‘self-aware’ animals, with a study demonstrating a mirror-induced self-directed behavior in mice resembling visual self-recognition. 

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Timothy Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

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• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Mice are self-aware (Neuron)
• Mirror self-recognition in mice (Neuron)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to [email protected]

TWiN describes a study that reveals activation of endogenous retroviruses in oligodenroglia from patients with traumatic brain injury. 

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, and Timothy Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Activation of endogenous retroviruses in TBI oligodendroglia (Cell Rep)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to [email protected]

TWiN explains an amazing study of a man who was paralyzed after a spinal cord injury and regained the ability to walk after implantation of a brain-spinal cord interface. 

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, and Timothy Cheung

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• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Walking naturally after spinal cord injury (Nature)
• The paralyzed rat that walked (YouTube)
• Mike the headless chicken (Wikipedia)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to [email protected]

TWiN explains research showing that interaction between glioma cells and neurons in the brain shares mechanistic features with synaptic plasticity that contributes to memory and learning in the healthy brain. 

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, and Timothy Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Glioma synapses recruit mechanisms of adaptive plasticity (Nature)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to [email protected]