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

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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

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

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

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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

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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

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

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

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TWiN discusses research showing that sciatic nerve activation with electroacupuncture at the sciatic nerve controls systemic inflammation and rescues mice from polymicrobial peritonitis, by inducing vagal activation of aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase, leading to the production of dopamine in the adrenal medulla. 

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, and Timothy Cheung

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• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Electroacupuncture modulates the immune system (Nat Med)
• Electroacupuncture drives the vagal–adrenal axis (Nature)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

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TWiN reviews a mouse model of ADHD to characterize hypersensitivity to pain, and that sensitization is further amplified in a pathological inflammatory state.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, and Timothy Cheung

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• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Pain hypersensitivity in ADHD model (PNAS)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

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TWiN discusses a study of on the pathways that control opioid analgesic tolerance, a root cause of opioid overdose and misuse, which can develop through an associative learning.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, and Timothy Cheung

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• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Associative opioid analgesic tolerance (Sci Adv)
• Pavlovian-conditioned opioid tolerance (Sci Adv)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

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TWiN explains how psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, and MDMA, which are being explored for treating a wide range of neuropsychiatric diseases, reopen the social reward period for critical learning.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, and Timothy Cheung

Click arrow to play Download TWiN 042 (34 MB .mp3, 57 min) Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Psychedelic drugs open critical period (Nature)
• Psychedelics reopen critical periods (News-Med)
• LSD microdosing doesn’t work (U Chicago Med)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to [email protected]

Vivianne explains how early in Alzheimer’s disease, the brain attempts to counteract the increased excitatory drive caused by amyloid deposition, and that melanin-concentrating hormone, produced during sleep, is involved in this protective response.

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

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• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Melanin-concentrating hormone and Alzheimer’s disease (Nat Neurosci)
• Alzforum
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to [email protected]

Tim takes TWiN through two studies on the role of dopamine: that syllables are natural units of spontaneous behavior used by the brain to structure action, and that mesolimbic dopamine release conveys causal associations but not reward prediction errors, thereby challenging the dominant theory of reward learning.

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

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• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Spontaneous behavior without explicit reward (Nature)
• Dopamine release conveys causal associations (Science)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to [email protected]