Recent Publications

• Stress reactivity is modulated by cannabinoid type-1 receptors in norepinephrine and epinephrine neurons in a context-dependent manner August 30, 2025
  Disruptions in the endocannabinoid system (ECS) and norepinephrine/epinephrine (NE/E) system are individually linked to stress-related neuropsychiatric disorders, but their interaction in shaping stress responses remains unclear. We investigated the role of the ECS's primary receptor, cannabinoid type-1 receptor (CB1R), in NE/E-producing neurons using anatomical, behavioral, and physiological analyses in a conditional knockout mouse model (Cnr1^(cKO-Dbh)), […]
  Christopher B Engborg, Manaswini Pujar, Rahul N Kanadia, Natale R Sciolino
• A New Method to Visualize Retinal Deep Vascular Layers Using Whole-Mount Tissue Preparations August 26, 2025
  The mouse retina is a widely used model to study sprouting angiogenesis. Most blood vessel staining protocols focus on the superficial vascular layer. Here, we describe a method to obtain thick sections of retina whole-mounts that allow for detailed visualization of diving vascular sprouts, and deep and intermediate-layer angiogenesis. This protocol does not require extra […]
  Julia Migliorati, Georgia Zarkada
• Retrotrapezoid nucleus chemoreception: mechanisms of function and contributions to disordered breathing in disease August 15, 2025
  The brain regulates breathing in response to changes in CO(2)/H^(+) by a process referred to as respiratory chemoreception. The retrotrapezoid nucleus (RTN) is essential for this function. RTN neurons are intrinsically activated by CO(2)/H^(+). Astrocytes contribute as well, by providing a CO(2)/H^(+)-dependent purinergic drive to augment neural activity directly and indirectly by causing vasoconstriction. Here, […]
  Daniel K Mulkey, Thiago S Moreira, Ana C Takakura, Sarvin Jahanbani, Michelle L Olsen
• Pharmacological Targeting of Hyperpolarization-Activated Cyclic Nucleotide-Gated Cation Channels on Bladder Afferent Sensory Transmission August 5, 2025
  CONCLUSION: Our targeted pharmacological studies with single-fiber recordings and immunohistological staining collectively suggest that HCN channels do not play a significant role in bladder afferent sensory transmission.
  Eric Woon, Jorge Villalobos Santeli, Jia Liu, Longtu Chen, George Kuchel, Bin Feng
• Ketone body supplementation into a standard high-carbohydrate diet reduces fecundity, delays larval development, and may induce autophagy in Drosophila melanogaster August 3, 2025
  Fasting (typically intermittent; IF), caloric restriction (CR), and the increasingly-popular high-fat, low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet (KD) count among many starvation-mimicking dietary regimens known to exert diverse effects on cellular and whole-organism behavioral, developmental, and physiological parameters. These effects include lowering neuronal excitability, inducing the cellular-component-recycling process of autophagy, altering reproductive outcomes (especially in pathological cases),...
  Meredith L Becher, Fangyi Coco Zhai, Matthew L Gilbert, Dariana I Mota, Leroy A Griffiths, Mirsha Pierre, Ashwath R Athreya, Fiona S Boyd, Aliya M Cameron, Meaghan R Cameron, Stephan E Desir, Yumeng Han, Jacqueline Kaba, Ondrea J G Kerr, Hayden G Kowalski, Siddhi M Patel, Dulce G Pineda, Rhythm Pravasi, Maya D Ravi, Xinyue Shang, Faith Thomas, Ty J Zaccagnini, Priya Aggarwal, Natalie R Aloisio, Kate M Gavilanes, Katelyn E Mooney, Tina Fortier, Jeffrey N Divino, Craig T Woodard, Geoffrey R Tanner
• Inhibition of the minor spliceosome restricts the growth of a broad spectrum of cancers July 7, 2025
  Minor splicing is an under-appreciated splicing system required for the correct expression of ~700 genes in the human genome. This small subset of genes (0.35%) harbours introns containing non-canonical splicing sequences that are recognised uniquely by the minor spliceosome and cannot be processed by the major spliceosome. Using in vivo zebrafish and mouse cancer models, […]
  Karen Doggett, Kimberly J Morgan, Anouk M Olthof, Stephen Mieruszynski, Benjamin B Williams, Alexandra L Garnham, Michael J G Milevskiy, Lachlan Whitehead, Janine Coates, Michael Buchert, Robert J J O'Donoghue, Thomas E Hall, Tracy L Putoczki, Matthias Ernst, Kate D Sutherland, Rahul N Kanadia, Joan K Heath
• H- and m-channel overexpression promotes seizure-like events by impairing the ability of inhibitory neurons to process correlated inputs June 30, 2025
  Channelopathies affecting the hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide gated (HCN or h-) channel and the Kv7 voltage gated m-type potassium (m-) channel present a paradox in epilepsy research: despite experimental evidence that both over- and underexpression of these channels can be epileptogenic, channel overexpression does not appear to increase the excitatory-inhibitory (E-I) balance as caused by channel […]
  Scott Rich, Taufik A Valiante, Jérémie Lefebvre
• Morphology of Oligodendroglial Cells June 11, 2025
  Oligodendrocytes are cells in the central nervous system that are specialised to form myelin sheaths around axons. They are generated from oligodendrocyte precursor cells that persist in the adult brain and are responsible for myelin plasticity that is essential for learning and repair in pathology. Oligodendrocytes exhibit morphological and molecular heterogeneity, and, besides their role […]
  Arthur Butt, Adam Willis, Rachel Stevens, Ian Hunter, Akiko Nishiyama
• Response to: Anesthetic Effect on the Subthalamic Nucleus in Microelectrode Recording and Local Field Potential of Parkinson's Disease June 4, 2025
  No abstract
  Cinira Diogo, Christopher R Conner
• An integrated anatomical, functional and evolutionary view of the Drosophila olfactory system May 19, 2025
  The Drosophila melanogaster olfactory system is one of the most intensively studied parts of the nervous system in any animal. Composed of ~50 independent olfactory neuron classes, with several associated hygrosensory and thermosensory pathways, it has been subject to diverse types of experimental analyses. However, synthesizing the available information is limited by the incomplete data […]
  Richard Benton, Jérôme Mermet, Andre Jang, Keita Endo, Steeve Cruchet, Karen Menuz
• Parvalbumin-expressing neurons in the ventral medulla are active during wakefulness and promote NREM sleep April 30, 2025
  A longstanding hypothesis contends that sleep is promoted by sleep-active inhibitory neurons that suppress arousal centers. Sleep may also be facilitated by mechanisms active during wakefulness; however, evidence for wake-active sleep-promoting neurons is scarce. Here, we use chemogenetics, fiber photometry, and circuit mapping to identify subset(s) of inhibitory neurons that promote NREM sleep. We targeted […]
  Colin M Cleary, George M P R Souza, Stephen B G Abbott, Daniel K Mulkey
• Exploring the evolution of evidence synthesis: a bibliometric analysis of umbrella reviews in medicine April 11, 2025
  CONCLUSION: This bibliometric analysis confirms the expanding influence and utility of umbrella reviews in medical research and decision-making. By charting the evolution and current trends in this field, our study not only showcases the geographical and institutional distribution of research but also guides future scholarly efforts to advance evidence synthesis methodologies.
  Sandeep Samethadka Nayak, Ehsan Amini-Salehi, Michael T Ulrich, Yasmin Sahli, Micah Fleischman, Masum Patel, Mahdi Naeiji, Hasan Maghsoodifar, Seyed Amir Hossein Sadeghi Douki, Abdolhadi Alotaibi, Niloofar Faraji, Soheil Hassanipour, Mohammad Hashemi, Mohammad-Hossein Keivanlou
• GATA factor Serpent promotes phagocytosis in non-professional phagocytes during Drosophila oogenesis March 26, 2025
  Clearance of dying cells is essential for tissue homeostasis and requires both professional and non-professional phagocytes; however, it is unclear what promotes phagocytosis by non-professional phagocytes. Follicle cells of Drosophila egg chambers function as non-professional phagocytes to clear large germ cell debris in mid and late oogenesis, providing an excellent model for the study of […]
  Baosheng Zeng, Haley Grayson, Jianjun Sun
• An integrated anatomical, functional and evolutionary view of the <em>Drosophila</em> olfactory system January 27, 2025
  The Drosophila melanogaster olfactory system is one of the most intensively studied parts of the nervous system in any animal. Composed of ~60 independent olfactory neuron classes, with several associated hygrosensory and thermosensory pathways, it has been subject to diverse types of experimental analyses. However, synthesizing the available data is limited by the incompleteness and […]
  Richard Benton, Jérôme Mermet, Andre Jang, Keita Endo, Steeve Cruchet, Karen Menuz
• Multilayer regulation underlies the functional precision and evolvability of the olfactory system January 27, 2025
  Sensory neurons must be reproducibly specified to permit accurate neural representation of external signals but also able to change during evolution. We studied this paradox in the Drosophila olfactory system by establishing a single-cell transcriptomic atlas of all developing antennal sensory lineages, including latent neural populations that normally undergo programmed cell death (PCD). This atlas […]
  Jérôme Mermet, Steeve Cruchet, Asfa Sabrin Borbora, Daehan Lee, Phing Chian Chai, Andre Jang, Karen Menuz, Richard Benton