I am so excited to share that my lab has received an R01 to (FINALLY) study the circuit mechanisms and broader implications of fear-related darting behavior in female rats! We will be looking for a postdoc to join us soon - pls RT and feel free to DM me with questions!
Very excited to share a new Perspective I wrote for
@sciencemagazine
- “Are hormones a ‘female problem’ for animal research?” - in which I explore the historical basis for many scientists' inaccurate perception that data from female animals will be “messy"
First images from our last pre-covid AAV injections look AMAZING. These are dPAG-projecting infralimbic neurons, labeled using an intersectional AAV-cre approach. First step towards Aim 1 of the new grant!
Question for PIs in urban areas - how are you navigating return-to-lab plans for trainees and/or staff who would have to take public transportation? I am not comfortable asking anyone to ride the bus or T right now.
What will it take for
#SABV
initiatives to succeed in improving public health? In a new Perspective in
@NatureNeuro
,
@AnneZMurphy
and I argue that the incentive structures at the core of science culture will need to shift.
The premise that sexism in science is immutable and must be built into training and mentoring plans instead of rooted out and destroyed has got to be the hottest of hot garbage takes I’ve seen in a while.
...the authors earnestly suggest "women should stop mentoring women" as a solution for misogyny 🙃
"Our findings suggest that current diversity policies promoting female–female mentorships, as well-intended as they may be, could hinder careers of women who remain in academia..."
With increasing focus on long-range circuits in behaivoral neuroscience, I’m becoming more and more convinced that we have done a major disservice to our students in making this wildly out-of-proportion image the canonical neuron.
Devastated at the loss of my postdoc mentor, Bruce McEwen. He was, to put it plainly, a once-in-a-lifetime person—unwaveringly kind, creative, and brilliant. He was the kind of scientist who made you want to be a better one. At his Festschrift a few years ago (1/2)
🚨Calling all about-to-graduate neuroscience lovers—my lab is looking to hire a tech! Ideal for someone taking a year or two before applying to grad/med school. If you think you or someone you know would be a good fit, please get in touch! DMs are open. Please RT 😊 /more➡️
Introducing the two newest Full Professors in the
@Northeastern
Department of Psychology! Im feeling a o lucky and grateful to have had the brilliant
@BrenhouseLab
here through the last 10+ years!
This is a dangerous line to promote. There are decades of research showing that there are meaningful differences between the male and female brain, and it's important to understand those differences so we can better treat illness in both men and women.
We're hiring! Our Boston-based behavioral neuroscience lab is looking for a lab manager to start in April. Do you thrive on organization? Love creative problem solving and tinkering? Think neuroscience is the best science? YOU COULD BE THE ONE. Official ad coming soon, but... 1/2
🚨SAVE THE DATE!🚨 The next Stress Neurobiology Workshop will be Jun 4-7 2024 at the Colonnade Hotel in downtown Boston!
@JCBCneuro
and I are putting together an exciting program that highlights diversity in stress experiences, mechanisms, and outcomes. Website & details to come!
Not sure if anyone from
@NSF
is on here but my student's GRFP was "returned without review," claiming she had too much grad education. She applied at the beginning of her 2nd year (like many do) and has taken no additional grad-level courses. No response to our emails.
🎉 Love to end the semester with an NOA for a new R21, "Sex-dependent pain processing circuitry in classical Pavlovian fear conditioning." Our lab sees reliable sex diffs in the relationship between unconditioned and conditioned responses, and now we get to dive into why!
New paper from
@Datta_Lab
with a little help from yours truly, using MoSeq to show that female exploratory behavior in mice is in fact TWICE as stable as that in males, and that estrous cycle has only a negligible effect on behavioral variation.
Female mice are studied less than males in part because of a belief held by some that the estrous cycle makes all female mouse behavior more variable. But is this true? Check out our latest, led by
@danarubilevy
in collab with
@shanskylab
!
Bravo
@Northeastern
for requiring all students, faculty, and staff to be vaccinated in order to be on campus this fall! Love being somewhere that puts the health of its community first.
OMG check out these INCREDIBLE embroidered masks made for the lab by
@NeuroWorm
’s MIL (
@s_Trettel
’s Mom). They say “neuroscientist” and have a Cajal cortical neuron stitched on them!
(And yes that is an
@artologica
original in the background)
Job opening alert! The Dept of Psychology here at Northeastern will be holding an open rank search for a new Behavioral Neuro faculty position. We're looking for folks doing exciting research in the addiction sphere. Ad up soon, feel free to email me with any Qs in the meantime!
Best feeling in the world to head home on a Friday with the news that we’re receiving an NIMH supplement for
@NeuroWorm
to learn our cell filling & 3D reconstruction techniques. Part of our project to understand how circulating hormones modulate learning-related plasticity. 🎉
Feeling so lucky to watch one of my very first
@northeastern
undergrads
@kayteeflick
CRUSH her PhD defense at MIT. Beautiful work on DA modulation of fear extinction through discrete BLA cell populations.
🚨Coming Summer 2022 🚨 ….GRC Frontal Cortex!!! I am so excited to have been a part of developing what is going to be an awesome, multi-species meeting on the objectively best part of the brain. A true team effort with
@laubach_mark
@A_Izquierdo1
and
@DavidEMoorman
Last week my lab celebrated its 10th anniversary! I had a BBQ at my house that included both current and former lab members, which was awesome. The road has been far from smooth, but I am so proud of where we are, and what these awesome scientists have accomplished.
Beautiful images taken in the lab today by
@NeuroWorm
- retro-labeled layer V prelimbic neurons after a dorsal PAG injection. I love how you can see the axons on the left!
A nice way to end the week - my new perspective in Current Opinions in Neurobiology is out! “Sex differences in behavioral strategies: avoiding interpretational pitfalls”
The more I think about it the more 😡 I get. If the new unwritten rule is that GRFPs really are only for 1st years, that is nothing but gatekeeping the award from anyone who needs more than a month to adapt to grad school, which can be a major transition.
Not sure if anyone from
@NSF
is on here but my student's GRFP was "returned without review," claiming she had too much grad education. She applied at the beginning of her 2nd year (like many do) and has taken no additional grad-level courses. No response to our emails.
The lab’s first pre-print, “Parametric modulators of sex-biased conditioned fear responding” is up on
@biorxivpreprint
! We’ve been working hard the last 3 years on this, trying to understand what darting is all about.
Excited to share the latest paper from our lab: "Controllable stress elicits circuit‑specific patterns of prefrontal plasticity in males, but not females" This was a great collaboration with Mike Barratta and Steve Maier at U Colorado Boulder.
"Female mice behave well" Why didn't we think of this title? Thanks
@sharilwiseman
for giving our
@DanaRubiLevy
&
@Datta_Lab
collab on the (non) influence of the estrous cycle in spontaneous mouse behavior a feature in
@NatureNeuro
!
We have a new review out in Annual Reviews of Neuroscience, written by PhD student Patricia Rubio Arzola and yours truly - “Considering Organismal Physiology in Laboratory Studies of Rodent Behavior” - discussing the complicated literature on...
New paper out from the lab today! "Behavioral Diversity Across Classic Rodent Models is Sex-dependent." Congrats to
@CoseJolom
for leading this study, and to
@annajxli
and
@TatiPelegrina
for your hard work!
"So you studied a female mouse, now what? Reconciling sex differences in animals with the role of gender in mental health" - a Study Group chaired by
@NicolaGrissom
and yours truly -has been accepted for
@ACNPorg
!
My amazing colleagues in
@BrenhouseLab
are featured in NU News today for their new
@eLife
paper, in which they found sex-dependent effects of early life stress on amygdala-prefrontal circuitry & anxiety behavior. 👏👏👏
Some fun news - this Friday at 2:40 ET, I’ll be on
@scifri
to chat with
@iraflatow
and
@radiolab
’s Molly Webster about
#SABV
, hormones, and how to avoid letting gender stereotypes influence experimental design in animals.
Come join my 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 team! We have open positions for tech and posdoc-level behavioral neuroscientists who are excited to study sex-dependent circuitry in Pavlovian fear conditioning. Check out for more on our work and email me CV & LOI if interested!
Putting out early feelers for Lab Mgr/Tech & Postdoc positions that will be open soon in our lab! Ads to come, but if you know anyone who loves neuroanatomy & behavior, cares about SABV, and wants to live in a great city, send them our way! R.shansky [at]
Hey stress neurobiologists! When you get back from
#sfn23
make sure to get your travel award or postdoc speaker application in for the Stress Neurobiology Workshop, in Boston next June!
@JCBCneuro
and I are so excited to host you!
I am overjoyed to see this paper out - Way back before I started my faculty position at
@Northeastern
, I was lucky enough to spend 6 months at Columbia with Alex Dranovsky and Dave Leonardo, who were just launching their joint lab. Alex handed me a box of
Devastated at the loss of my grad school classmate
@Jendrite
, one of the most hilarious, brilliant, kind, and beautiful humans I've known (not to mention one HELL of an electron microscopist). 💔
The open technician position in my lab is now live! Apply here -> Perfect position for recent neuroscience graduates who want more lab experience before applying to Ph.D. programs. Please RT and share with your communities!
Thrilled to see what a positive response the Science piece has gotten!
#SABV
is here, and I hope what I wrote gives basic scientists a new perspective (pun intended) on how to study both sexes in a truly unbiased way. Thanks to all who read, shared, and commented!
Critiquing a mentored/training grant because the PI is "junior" is insane. Who better to help someone navigate the current transition-to-PI system than someone who just went through it successfully?
My Postdoc just got their K99 summary statement back and, of course, I am their greatest weakness. Yes, they have a senior co-mentor. Yes, they have a well-rounded mentoring team. Still, it is just a huge negative for these grants to have a junior PI. 😭
Never thought I’d see the day where not only were there more than one sex differences session at
@ACNPorg
, but so many that they’re going on at the same time! I’m getting zoom whiplash going in and out of panels but I love it
#ACNP2020
A new review from the lab is out in Neuropharmacology, written by former and current postdocs
@mikaelawave
and
@ElizaMackenzieG
- “Sex differences in the rodent medial prefrontal cortex—What do and don’t we know?” Thanks
@mejoffe
for the invite!
In addition, if you look at an actual image of, say, a layer 3 cortical pyramidal cell like this one, you might think that the apical dendrite is the axon, which it of course isn’t.
January has been “Lab Camp” for my grad students and Lab Manager, a time for them to get organized, train each other on new techniques, make sure all our equipment is working, and update protocols. Well it wouldn’t be camp without t-shirts! (The rats are camping)
Love love love Linnea Ostroff's framing of the estrous cycle - what if instead of a problem to avoid, it's an opportunity for scientists to understand how the brain self regulates?
#grcamygdala
Happy to see the first of two special issues on sex differences in Genes, Brain and Behavior is out! I wrote the editorial, giving an overview of all the juicy reviews and research inside!
A Nature paper outlines the differences in the immune response of male and female patients with COVID-19. The findings may help to guide a sex-based approach to the treatment and care for male and female patients.
Can't resist sharing the latest pretty pictures from our lab - immuno for CB1 in ventral hippocampus. Since it’s mostly presynaptic, you see “holes” where the cell bodies are. Thanks
@BrainsRus
for the Ab recommendation! Confocal micrographs by not-on-twitter Jordan Abettan.
Excited to share a new opinion piece I wrote for
@sciam
with
@AnneZMurphy
. It's essentially a brief breakdown of our
@NatureNeuro
Perspective, calling for true accountability when it comes to
#SABV
. Glad to see the issue getting mainstream attention!
Congrats to our undergrad Genevieve Hulshof, who just received a
@Northeastern
PEAK Summit award! She will get $3000 to support her Honors thesis, titled "Sex Differences in Circuit Mechanisms Mediating Pain Processing and Fear Responses” 🎉🎉🎉
New paper alert! 🎉Out today in
@npp_journal
is a collaboration with
@canna_brain
's team that started ages ago and I'm so excited about. First, we find contextual fear generalization effects of CB1R blockade that are specific to Non-darting females.
Learn how the use of male mice in biomedical research has created a public health problem and what scientists are doing to fix it, with
@NortheasternCOS
Professor
@ShanskyLab
live at noon.
Our lab collected its first tiny bit of fiber photometry data this week (using Amuza wireless), and I am pleased as punch! Major props to our lab manager Roberto for getting it all going, and thanks to members of the
@jomoronc
lab for all their advice & insight!
Hey
#ACNP2021
my panel, "So you studied a female mouse, now what? Reconciling sex differences in animal models with the role of gender in mental health" starts in less than 1hr! Come chat about translational considerations when designing and reporting SABV-compliant research
Re-upping this - we’re looking for new lab members! Our dream team would include people with*
- experience in rodent behavioral neuroscience labs
- an affinity for fluorescent microscopy
- serious Python chops
- a deep love of organizing
*not necessarily all in the same person
Putting out early feelers for Lab Mgr/Tech & Postdoc positions that will be open soon in our lab! Ads to come, but if you know anyone who loves neuroanatomy & behavior, cares about SABV, and wants to live in a great city, send them our way! R.shansky [at]
W00t! Congrats to our PhD student, Patricia Rubio-Arzola, who just submitted her NSF GRFP! Writing a grant in the first month of grad school is NOT easy. This is a huge accomplishment, no matter the outcome.
Be my colleague! Multiple open-rank faculty positions at
@Northeastern
for human subjects researchers in the area of cognitive and brain health Happy to answer any q’s about NU, Boston, etc!
@BlackInNeuro
@NeuroRumblr
UPDATE: Northeastern is joining Harvard and MIT in a lawsuit against the US Dept. of Homeland Security against recent rules that would bar international students from legally remaining in the US if they take classes entirely online this fall.
Mice are essential to scientific research, but what happens when you exclude the females? Rebecca Shansky dives into the data for our first Faculty Research Talk, next Tuesday at 11AM.
When two people from your lab are presenting their
#Pavlovian2020
posters at the same time, you have no choice but to double Zoom. Great job
@NeuroWorm
and
@julia_mitchh
!!
I’m thrilled at the mostly positive feedback I’m seeing about the SABV piece! FYI here is a non-paywalled link (read only): I’m grateful to
@sharilwiseman
for the opportunity & platform, and to
@AnneZMurphy
for being a dream co-author.
I'm excited to see that the new Handbook of Amygdala Structure and Function is now available for purchase! It should be a great resource for amygdala researchers. You may be unsurprised to learn that I wrote the sex differences chapter. :)
It always warms my heart when the iontophoretic cell filling torch is passed. Check out these gorgeous BLA cells our postdoc
@mikaelawave
filled today! Images taken @ 20x on our Keyence. Can’t wait to see them on the confocal!
Answers from
@women_neurosci
to the common question, do you have to house males and females separately? For rats, NO. In fact, females cycle more regularly when males are around & it doesn't stress the males. In mice, though, you may want to.
#SfN18
Saying goodbye to the lab for the last time in 2020. May 2021 bring paper acceptances, awesome data, amazing new lab members, and travel!!
(last one’s a stretch I know, but on Christmas we can be honest about our wishes)
Who's looking forward to
#StayConnectedNeuro
this week? I for one am super excited to hear
@houseofmind
speak about her work on the interactions between the dopamine system and stress during the postpartum period.
I can't help myself, when we get a nice image I have to tweet. The lab is dipping our toes in the FiPho world, recording in long range PFC projections using retrograde jGCaMP8s. Couldn't see any labeling at first slice, but a little IHC for GFP worked like gangbusters!
The speaker list for the GRC Frontal Cortex in August ’22 is now live and it…is…AMAZING
Kudos to chairs
@A_Izquierdo1
and
@laubach_mark
for this awesome inaugural lineup.
@DavidEMoorman
and I have our work cut out for ’24!
Thanks for the great write-up,
@storiesofwin
! I think a big message of my story is, you don’t have to have everything figured out from the beginning—sometimes just keeping moving forward can get you where you need to be.
Check out our latest profile! Dr. Rebecca Shansky (
@ShanskyLab
) studies the role of sex and hormones on stress- & fear-related behaviors & neural circuitry. Listen to her interview and learn more at the link below:
#WomenInSTEM
#WomenInNeuroscience
Does being in the same covid pod mean your fashion choices start to cycle together? PhD students Julia and Patricia independently wore our unofficial lab t-shirt today, designed by
@markgbaxter
💗
Ooh I love getting new things going!
@mikaelawave
has started doing USV recordings during fear conditioning and I am extremely excited. Turns out rats don’t like getting shocked.
Love to close out the week with a "basically accepted" on a new SABV Perspective piece, written with the amazing
@AnneZMurphy
! Looking forward to sharing it in '21 and continuing conversations on how scientific culture will need to adapt to make SABV initiatives successful.
Congrats to Viv Sheppard, who absolutely crushed her Masters talk today! A beautiful neuroanatomical analysis of sex diffs in ACC projections to the PAG. Can’t wait to get these data out!
When you encourage students to look online for an answer to a question you didn’t know off the top of your head and they find the answer in…
...the book you edited.
@JCBCneuro
🎉🎉🎉 The website for the Stress Neurobiology Workshop is now live! We are so excited to announce Featured Speakers Amy Arnsten and
@bjmarlin
, as well as the themes for our main sessions. Registration is not yet live but check back later this year!