Brandon (Brady) Weissbourd developed a new genetically tractable transparent jellyfish model for systems and evolutionary neuroscience, called Clytia hemisphaerica.  Using whole-jellyfish imaging of population neural activity, he discovered that these jellyfish have an unsuspected parcellation of their seemingly diffuse neural net into a series of "pizza wedge"-like neuronal assemblies, which control localized infolding of of the umbrella to pass trapped food to the central mouth. His work was featured on the cover of Cell.  He will be joining the faculty of MIT in the winter of 2023.

Tomomi Karigo discovered two different forms of male mounting behavior in mice, a male-directed form used to establish social dominance, and a female-directed form used for reproduction.  She found that these two forms are controlled by distinct regions and cell types in the hypothalamus. This work uncovered a subset of "make love, not war" neurons in the medial preoptic area whose activation in males can interrupt ongoing attack and convert it to reproductive mounting behavior. Her work was published in Nature.  She will be joining the faculty of Johns Hopkins Medical School this summer.

Ann Kennedy is a theoretical neuroscientist.  She introduced the use of sophisticated computational tools to analyze calcium imaging data recorded in deep brain regions active during emotional behaviors such as freezing, fighting and mating.  Using these tools, she has identified signals of internal motive states underlying defensive and aggressive behaviors in the hypothalamus.  Ann has also developed a suite of AI-based tools for automated analysis of social behaviors in mice. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Moriel Zelikowsky is a behavioral psychologist and neuroscientist who studies how different forms of stress alter animals' responses to threatening stimuli.  She discovered an evolutionarily conserved role for a tachykinin neuropeptide, NkB, in the control of social isolation stress-induced increases in aggressiveness, learned and innate fear. This work reveals previously unknown major changes in brain chemistry that occur during weeks of social isolation, and identify a pharmacological inhibitor of these effects that may one day prove useful in the treatment of social isolation-induced stress in humans.  Moriel is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the University of Utah Salt Lake City School of Medicine. She is a recipient of a L'Oreal for Women in Science Award.

2022

Make war not love: The neural substrate underlying a state-dependent switch in female social behavior. Neuron. ISSN 0896-6273. Liu, Mengyu and Kim, Dong-Wook and Zeng, Hongkui et al. (2022) doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2021.12.002. (In Press) https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20220104-157919000

2021

What Can Animals Tell Us About Emotions?

Credit: Life & Work Ideas Essay What Can Animals Tell Us About Emotions? Do elephants tear up in sorrow and squirrels flee in fear, or are those just reflexes? Scientists are plumbing animals' mental states for insight into human mental health. Illustration: Vidhya Nagarajan

Read the article in the Wall Street Journal

The Neuroscience of Emotion: A New Synthesis