The first Kutlu Lab paper is published
@SciReports
!!!
We found that both observing and experiencing aversive footshock events cause NAc single-cell ensemble response with a sub-population responding bi-directionally to these events.
Check it out here 👇
I get asked a lot why I don't have a K99. 3rd year into my post-doc I had a 2 year old and a spouse in school. My PI at the time offered me a research faculty position so I can get a better salary. I took it knowing that would make me ineligible for a K99. I was poor that's why.
Excited to share this!
@TheCalipariLab
we show that dopamine release in the NAc is not a reward prediction error signal, rather, dopamine signals perceived saliency. We provide a new computational model to explain our data and previous work (A THREAD 👇):
I have some exciting news: Kutlu Lab is opening its doors
@RowanSOM
next Spring!!! We are moving back to Philly! We are hiring at all levels. Check out our lab website for more info:
This has been a journey. Here is my 2 cents on the process a 🧵:
I am absolutely delighted to share our latest paper I co-authored with
@jennifer_zachry
and Patrick Melugin published in
@NatureNeuro
.
We showed that nucleus accumbens core dopamine evoked by novel, neutral stimuli mediates latent inhibition. A thread 👇
It's me, hi 👋 Welcome to
#ACNP2023
If you'll be attending
@ACNPorg
, drop an introduction to help yourself & others connect 🔄
Share your name, your science, tell us if you're a first timer or regular, promote your poster/talk - whatever you'd like! 🧠
See you all soon! 😁
Today after 14 years of bureaucratic marathon, I became a US citizen. This is a bitterwseet moment of reflection. I, like all other immigrant scientists, have been excluded from federal and private funding opportunities. This needs to change!
Thank you
@BBRFoundation
for choosing our work
@TheCalipariLab
on dopamine signaling in learning and memory as one of “the 2021 BBRF leading research discoveries”!
I am absolutely delighted to share my latest paper from
@TheCalipariLab
published
@CellReports
!
We showed that NAc core dopamine response to predicted but omitted aversive outcomes causally controls the trajectory of safety discrimination. A thread 👇
New dopamine story from our lab!
@TheCalipariLab
. We showed that accumbal dopamine's role in fear and safety learning cannot be explained by Reward Prediction Error (RPE) hypothesis and it is in line with a "Perceived Saliency" signal. 🧵👇
What a year was 2023 for my career! Opened my lab, got it funded, hired awesome people for my lab, published some nice studies and got rejected a ton 😁 hope this job continues to be this thrilling emotional roller coaster in 2024!
Hey neuroscientist friends! After a knee injury and a gallbladder surgery, I ran a half marathon under 2 hours and I am pretty proud of it. Thank you for your attention.
Super happy to announce that I received the NIH/NCATS' K award (KL2 - Clinical and Translational Science Award)!!! This grant will support my studies on the role of mesocortical pathway in avoidance behavior. I am very grateful to my mentor
@TheCalipariLab
for her support.
… and it’s my official goodbye to
@TheCalipariLab
It was an amazing experience, which let me re-invent myself as a researcher. It was and will always be so much fun to do research with this group.
Excited to announce that I am selected for the VUMC Research Scholar Award. I will be funded to study the dopaminergic pathways underlying negative reinforcement learning for the next 3 years. Thanks for everyone helped me with this Especially
@TheCalipariLab
and
@TheErinCalipari
It is time to unveil our brand new lab logo designed by our talented graduate student
@KristineHYoon
!
Also, a great time to share again we are looking for post-docs, graduate students, and techs. Check out our website for more info (link👇). Please RT!
#NewPI
#SciTwitter
#SfN22
Congrats to
@TheCalipariLab
graduate student but more importantly my partner-in-science
@jennifer_zachry
getting her PhD today! She will do amazing things in life.
After years of going from one disappointment to another and loss of thousands of dollars in potential income I am happy to announce that I decided to stay in academia… let me explain why 🧵
The lab’s first pre-print is online! We found that accumbal single cells respond not only to experienced aversive stimuli but also respond when mice observe their conspecifics experiencing the same aversive stimuli. Check it out! 👇
First paper of the Kutlu lab is submitted!
This is a special day for me 🥲. I feel extremely lucky to have all the support from my past/current mentors, colleagues, and trainees. 🙏
First
#SfN2023
as a PI. I am presenting our lab’s work on the effects experiencing vs observing aversive events on NAc single cell ensemble activity. Sunday pm poster session. Come say 👋
Interested in accumbal information encoding and/or D1-D2 medium spiny neurons? Come tell me what you think about our data today at
#ACNP2021
Poster Session II - Poster 32.
Hey
#ACNP2021
I am a senior post-doc on the job market. I study neurobiology of learning memory in the context of substance use and stress disorders.
@npp_journal
@ACNPorg
.
ACNP/NPP gift card giveaway swag will be back this year! If you're an early career investigator attending
#ACNP2021
- QT to introduce yourself and your research, tag in
@npp_journal
and
@ACNPorg
and we'll include you in a drawing for a gift card on Sunday evening.
Our co-furst author paper with
@jennifer_zachry
describing the work we did together
@TheCalipariLab
is published
@NeuroCellPress
. We tried to figure out what D1 and D2 medium spiny neurons do during associative learning. Check it out 👇
Super excited to welcome the first member of Kutlu lab, Dr. Oyku Dinckol
@oykutheanxious
. She will be joining our lab as a postdoctoral fellow in the fall. 🎉
Grant application got the dreaded ND, but the summary statement was a goldmine of helpful feedback. Turning setbacks into stepping stones! 💪
#GrantWriting
#FeedbackIsKey
"
It looks like this resonated with a lot of people. I know many of us in academia coming from developing countries and underprivileged backgrounds have stories like this one. It is time to share those stories.
I get asked a lot why I don't have a K99. 3rd year into my post-doc I had a 2 year old and a spouse in school. My PI at the time offered me a research faculty position so I can get a better salary. I took it knowing that would make me ineligible for a K99. I was poor that's why.
So happy to share our new paper
@NPP_Journal
co-first with our lab's rising star
@jennifer_zachry
! Check it out if you are interested in novel behavioral models of reinforcement learning and/or NAc D1 MSNs!
THREAD: Here is the lab's first preprint by
@MunirGunesKutlu
and
@jennifer_zachry
! We developed a new behavioral task (the MCOAT) for dissociating action, stimulus value, and outcomes and then used the task to show sex-specific behavioral strategies
Super proud of
@oykutheanxious
for presenting our lab’s first poster at Rowan-Virtua STBES retreat today! Also shout out to
@ManvichLab
and colleagues for putting together a great event today! Nicely done!
Hey everyone
@ACNPorg
! My name is Güneş and this is my 2nd meeting. I will be talking about dopaminergic information encoding at the Hot Topics session tomorrow. Also starting my lab soon and looking to connect with new PIs. Come say 👋
Hey
@ACNPorg
members/mtg regulars - getting back into the swing of conferencing is challenging, so we'd like to extend a warm welcome to
#ACNP2022
for early career folks and people new to ACNP. Would love if you could introduce yourselves to kick off the mtg and welcome everyone!
Thank you Winter Conference on Brain Research for accepting the panel I co-chair with
@NoOtherAmy
(and for the travel awards to both of us!) featuring talks by me, Dan Covey,
@berke_lab
, and
@drstephieb
on dopamine's role in reward and cognition. See you in Montana!
You are at
#ACNP2020
and interested in all things information encoding, nucleus accumbens, medium spiny neurons? Check out my poster with
@jennifer_zachry
@AtagunUlas
@TheCalipariLab
at "M190 Dissecting the Role of Accumbal D1 and D2 Medium Spiny Neurons in Information Encoding".
I moved from Tennessee to New Jersey last week and I genuinely don't understand the traffic rules here. You get honked at no matter how you drive. What the hell!?
📢Join me and
@Jer0nimoLukin
in welcoming
@MunirGunesKutlu
, our FIRST speaker for the 2022-2023
#MSNseminars
at
@SinaiBrain
‼️
He will talk about Information Encoding in D1/D2 neurons.
🗓️Mark Your Calendar for Sept. 29th at 11am.
The zoom option is also available.
👇👇
A special shout-out to our own
@TheErinCalipari
. This would not possible without the support and guidance from her. We work for this story together for years and she was involved in every step of the way 100%.
I am absolutely delighted to share our latest paper I co-authored with
@jennifer_zachry
and Patrick Melugin published in
@NatureNeuro
.
We showed that nucleus accumbens core dopamine evoked by novel, neutral stimuli mediates latent inhibition. A thread 👇
Non-science stuff: today I finished my 30x5k in 30 days with my personal best time. Taking time from work to actually take care of my body has been the best decision during the pandemic.
#WCBR2020
Interested in dopamine, cognition and reward processing come to our session I am co-chairing with
@NoOtherAmy
featuring talks from
@dp_covey
@drstephieb
@berke_lab
and myself. Talus room at Summit Building (L2 level across Peaks Restaurant).
Second paper within the same week! Our work describing the role of GABAergic function in the effects of nicotine on fear extinction is online. Feel lucky for having worked with
@DavidAConnor
and
@TGouldPennState
on this one.
We are thrilled to announce that
@TheErinCalipari
is our new Associate Director! We are eager to see our research program grow and community thrive under your leadership! 🥂🍾
Rodent behavior people, what is your favorite camera brand/model for recording mouse behavior (in MEDPC boxes preferably) that will work for post-analysis with DeepLabCut and still be cheap?
Here is a perspective from an international student:
PhD rejections:
Cambridge
PhD Acceptance:
Duke
UCL
It was so expensive to apply from a third world country (application fee, GRE/TOEFL, mailing etc.) I could only afford 3 applications.
I love seeing people more open about struggles along the journey
PhD rejections:
UC San Diego
Vanderbilt University
Washington University in St. Louis
PhD Acceptance:
UC Irvine
I used to be embarrassed about this but it really only takes ONE 🙌🏾 and I am thriving ✨
The Vanderbilt Center for Addiction Research has joined the cadre of research centers supported by the
#DiscoveryVanderbilt
initiative.
Led by
@TheErinCalipari
, VCAR aims to tackle the complexities of addiction while developing groundbreaking treatments.
Lab website is live, check it out:
We are hiring at all levels! If you're interested in decision-making, addiction, behavioral model development, deep-brain 2p imaging, pharmacology, synaptic function shoot me an email.
Please RT!
Folks doing optogenetics in vivo (in mice), you prefer lasers or LEDs? I have been using lasers for years but they are expensive and they get misaligned a lot. Anyone can recommend lasers or LEDs they are happy with?
#optogenetics
#newlab
Want a simple rule? Does the lab judge its success by where it publishes? Does it consider a Science, Cell or Nature paper to be the highest accomplishment? If so, it's not serious about doing science right. You should join a lab that's fighting the system, not playing in it.
It took a bit of disruptive science (and a lot of push back on our part) to convince people but glad to see that “dopamine ≠ reward prediction error” is becoming an accepted part our knowledge.
Really nice summary of the implications of our recent work in The Economist. I also want to highlight this paper by
@fluketc
and
@jtdudman
which provides strong evidence inconsistent with DA=RPE (some also potentially inconsistent with our framework).
3) Academic careers (especially if you are from another country and you are on a visa) are hard on your families and significant others. Half of your success belongs to the people who support you.
Munir Gunes Kutlu (
@MunirGunesKutlu
) is a postdoc at
@TheCalipariLab
at Vanderbilt University where he studies how dopaminergic pathways modulate learning. The main focus of Munir’s research is the behavioral and neurobiological underpinnings of adaptive learning and memory.
I feel privileged for sharing my research with such a great group of scientists. I will miss you
#GRCcatecholamines2019
and can’t wait to see everybody in 2021!
Our lab tech/manager position is online! We are looking for a motivated young scientist to join our growing group
@RowanVirtuaSOM
We are interested in understanding the brain circuitry underlying learning and memory
DM me for more info. Please RT!
see👇 for the application link
This is outrages! I cannot believe that scientists trained to be critical thinkers just cannot comprehend people can be anti-hamas, stand with Israelis against terrorism and still support the Palestinian civilians right to exist. Stop this nonsense.
I have been informed that I am being replaced as the Editor in Chief of
@eLife
for retweeting a
@TheOnion
piece that calls out indifference to the lives of Palestinian civilians.
Pioneering research led by professor
@TheErinCalipari
has found that dopamine levels increase in response to both pleasurable and stressful stimuli, potentially rewriting facts about the “feel-good” hormone.
Learn more:
#MSNseminars
APPLICATIONS now open! Senior postdocs in all fields of
#neuroscience
, especially from URM backgrounds, are encouraged to apply for an INCREDIBLE OPPORTUNITY to share your research, visit Mount Sinai & meet w/ faculty/trainees! APPLY NOW👉
I am saddened by the news of Bob Rescorla's passing. He was probably the single most influential Psychology figure for my scientific career. I always appreciated how he was not afraid of going against his own theories (e.g., Zimmer-Hart & Rescorla, 1974).
Behavior Matters! Our latest special issue is all about behavior: from rodents to humans, circuits to psychophysics, exploring learning, attention, decision-making & more through Q&As, reviews, perspectives & primers. Happy reading!
Thank you
@BBRFoundation
for bringing this great cohort together. I am honored to be listed among these great researchers in the field of mental health:
Excited to share this!
@TheCalipariLab
we show that dopamine release in the NAc is not a reward prediction error signal, rather, dopamine signals perceived saliency. We provide a new computational model to explain our data and previous work (A THREAD 👇):
2) Coming from another country is a big challenge but it is not insurmountable. Early on I was told having an academic career in the US is impossible for people coming from smaller countries/institutions like mine. It was not.