Host: University of Maryland, Baltimore

October 27 

12:00PM-1:00 PM

Impact of early life adversity on amygdala recruitment during social learning across development

Shana is a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Kennedy Krieger Institute working with Dr. Maya Opendak. Her research focuses on understanding the neural mechanisms associated with early-life adversity on social learning development.

Host: University of Maryland, Baltimore

October 27 

12:00-1:00 PM

Investigating the effects of environmental enrichment on alcohol-related outcomes in preclinical models and people with alcohol use disorder. 

After completing Ph.D. training in behavioral neuroscience models of alcohol use disorder at UNC-Chapel Hill SOM under the mentorship of Dr. Joyce Besheer, Ryan expanded his training to clinical research by joining the joint NIDA/NIAAA Clinical Psychoneuroendocrinology and Neuropsychopharmacology (CPN) Section as a postdoctoral fellow under the mentorship of Dr. Lorenzo Leggio. Ryan has developed an independent line of research that is the first attempt to translate the preclinical literature on the alcohol-related therapeutic benefits of environmental enrichment to people with alcohol use disorder (AUD). Ryan hopes to lead a bidirectional translational research lab focusing on novel interventions for AUD, for which the environmental enrichment clinical trial serves as a primary example. 

Host: National Institute on Drug Abuse

November 6 

12:00-1:00 PM

Identification of a novel family of human catecholamine-gated ion channels

I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. My research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms surrounding synaptic communication via ion channels in the central nervous system. By integrating functional and structural assays, my work characterizes the molecular pathophysiology underlying signaling dysfunction associated with neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, which can be leveraged for therapeutic design.

Host: National Institute on Drug Abuse

November 6

12:00-1:00 PM

Pathway Specific Eligibility Traces: Reinforcement-like Plasticity in the Visual Cortex

Christian is a 6th year Ph.D. Candidate in the Cellular, Molecular, Developmental Biology and Biophysics graduate program at Johns Hopkins University, working under Hey-Kyoung Lee and Alfredo Kirkwood on synaptic plasticity and neumodulation. His work furthers understanding of a form of synaptic plasticity that is 'reinforcement-like' where a delayed neuromodulatory signal is instructive in gating plasticity. Within a single cell, excitatory inputs from different cortical layers are selectively gated by distinct neuromodulatory signals with implications for different 'reinforcement' rules for feed-forward and contextual information in the mouse primary visual cortex.

Host: National Institute on Drug Abuse

December 4

12:00-1:00 PM

Nucleus Accumbens BDNF TrkB Signaling Mediates Social and Ethanol Reward

Chloe is a 4th year PhD candidate in Dr. Brian Mathur’s lab at UMB. Her work aims to investigate how BNDF-TrkB signaling in the nucleus accumbens modulates heterosynaptic plasticity involved in social and alcohol reward.

Host: University of Maryland, Baltimore

December 8

12:00-1:00 PM

Rewiring Inhibition: A Synaptic Switch for Balancing Stability and Plasticity

Daniel Severin is an Assistant Research Scientist in Alfredo Kirkwood’s lab at Johns Hopkins University. He studies how cortical circuits regulate plasticity by rapidly rewiring the excitatory connections that recruit parvalbumin interneurons, allowing networks to move between stable and plastic states.

Host: National Institute on Drug Abuse

December 4

12:00-1:00 PM

Cerebellar circuits mediating social craving

Zhengyi Huang is a fifth-year graduate student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore in the lab of Dr. Marco Venniro. Her research focuses on the role of cerebellar circuits in social and drug-related reward-seeking behaviors, using a combination of behavioral modeling, chemogenetics, and ex vivo electrophysiology. 

Host: University of Maryland, Baltimore

December 8

12:00-1:00 PM

The Role of NAc MSN Subtypes in Context-Dependent Decision Making During Reward-Punishment Conflict