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NPP BrainPod

About the show

BrainPod is the podcast from the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, produced in association with Nature Publishing Group. Join us as we delve into the latest basic and clinical research that advance our understanding of the brain and behavior, featuring highlighted content from a top journal in fields of neuroscience, psychiatry, and pharmacology. For complete access to the original papers and reviews featured in this podcast, subscribe to Neuropsychopharmacology. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Newest episodes

Altered thalamo-prefrontal synchrony dynamics during spatial working memory task performance in a SETD1A loss-of-function mouse model of schizophrenia predisposition

Nov 10, 2026 9 min

Joshua Gordon is a professor and chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University, and one of the authors of a new study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. There can be a strong genetic risk factor for schizophrenia, and loss of function mutations in the gene SETDIA raise the risk of schizophrenia by about 60-80 fold, a dramatic increase in risk. Sofiya Hupalo is the clinical and regulatory science lead at the Usona Institute and is another one of the study’s authors. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shared genetic architecture and neurobiological pathways of problematic alcohol use and anxiety disorders

Aug 31, 2026 7 min

Problematic alcohol use frequently occurs in conjunction with anxiety disorders. Between 20 to 40 percent of individuals with anxiety disorders are also diagnosed with alcohol use disorder. Anxiety can lead people to use alcohol to self-medicate, and disordered alcohol use can cause increased anxiety for people when they go through withdrawal. Joshua Gray is an associate professor in the department of psychology at Uniformed Services University, and one of the authors of a new study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. For the study, he and his colleagues drew on data from biobanks that originally included more than a million individuals. The samples were then modified to minimize overlap between the datasets, and the team ended up with about 860,000 individuals in the problematic alcohol use analysis and about 620,000 in the anxiety analysis. Read the full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-026-02494-z Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Examining fronto-limbic brain and sleep mechanisms of antidepressant effects in cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia

Jul 2, 2026 9 min

Insomnia and depression are two serious and debilitating conditions. Insomnia on its own is linked to an increase in suicide risk, and insomnia can also exacerbate the severity of depression. Andrea Goldstein-Piekarski, assistant professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford, and Adam Krause, post-doctoral research fellow in Stanford’s psychiatry department, are two of the authors of a recent study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBTI, is the gold standard for treating insomnia, and it’s been shown to relieve depressive symptoms as well. Read the full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-026-02431-0 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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All episodes

Altered thalamo-prefrontal synchrony dynamics during spatial working memory task performance in a SETD1A loss-of-function mouse model of schizophrenia predisposition

Nov 10, 2026 9 min

Shared genetic architecture and neurobiological pathways of problematic alcohol use and anxiety disorders

Aug 31, 2026 7 min

Examining fronto-limbic brain and sleep mechanisms of antidepressant effects in cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia

Jul 2, 2026 9 min

Incentive salience, not psychomotor sensitization or tolerance, drives escalation of cocaine self-administration in heterogeneous stock rats

May 15, 2026 9 min

There are a number of theories that have been studied to try to explain addiction and drug use escalation, and thus to also create animal models of that behavior that can then serve to help develop treatments. One theory for escalation is that people feel worse and worse over time and so they take the drug to feel better. Another is that they just don’t get as much of a reaction to the drug and so need more and more of it to get the euphoria. And then there’s something called incentive salience, which is a craving for the drug. Read the full study here: Incentive salience, not psychomotor sensitization or tolerance, drives escalation of cocaine self-administration in heterogeneous stock rats | Neuropsychopharmacology Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oxytocin neurons in the anterior and posterior paraventricular nucleus have distinct behavioral functions and electrophysiological profiles

Feb 23, 2026 9 min

Oxytocin has become known for having anti-anxiety and affiliative behavioral effects. That’s why clinicians and researchers are excited about using oxytocin as a potential therapeutic. Brian Trainor is a professor at UC Davis, and his lab has been studying this complexity for the past decade. For an animal model, they work with a territorial, aggressive, monogamous rodent species called California mice. If the male is removed and the female is forced to defend their nest, she will experience what’s known as social defeat, and she will exhibit what’s called inhibited affiliative behavior, the type that can be affected by oxytocin — and this effect can be studied in a mouse’s brain. Read the full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-026-02352-y Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The genetics of cannabis lifetime use

Jan 7, 2026 9 min

Cannabis, which is increasingly legally available, both for therapeutic and recreational use, is now one of the most commonly used drugs worldwide. Of people who have ever used cannabis, studies vary, but they estimate that about 10-25 percent of people who use cannabis go on to develop cannabis use disorder. Uri Bright is a postdoctoral associate at the Yale School of Medicine and is one of the authors of a recent study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology on the genetics of cannabis lifetime use — which is anyone who has ever used cannabis even once. That’s a distinct population from people who have cannabis use disorder, as his colleagues had looked into in the previous study. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Older and wiser? The neural correlates of worry induction and reappraisal in older adults

Oct 27, 2025 9 min

Worry seems like something most people do from time to time, but for some people, severe worry can become an overwhelming sensation, and for older adults later in life, severe worry has been associated with an increased risk of stroke and coronary heart disease. Carmen Andreescu is a professor of psychiatry and bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She says mild worry is useful evolutionarily, to help us make plans or adapt behavior. Read the full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-025-02193-1 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Grey matter morphometry in young adult e-cigarette users, tobacco cigarette users & non-using controls

Jul 29, 2025 8 min

There’s been a fair amount of animal data suggesting that nicotine can affect the developing brain, but there hadn’t been the equivalent human studies done on people whose brains are still developing. And today there are two predominant forms of nicotine delivery - tobacco cigarettes, and e-cigarettes, or vaping. Laurie Zawertailo is a senior scientist at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto and an associate professor in the department of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Toronto. Kanwar Boparai recently completed her PhD, working with Dr. Zawertailo, and is now a postdoc. For their new study, they and some colleagues recruited young adults age 18-25, and these people fell into three groups: one that had only smoked cigarettes, one that had only ever vaped, and a third that functioned as a control, that had never used either. They ended up with 26 smokers, 27 vapers, and 25 controls. This is the first human study to separate cigarette smokers and vapers into distinct groups. Read the full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-025-02086-3 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Validation of L-type calcium channel blocker amlodipine as a novel ADHD treatment through cross-species analysis, drug-target Mendelian randomization, and clinical evidence from medical records

Jun 4, 2025 9 min

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, is a common condition that, for a lot of people, is difficult to treat. The drugs that exist have a number of adverse side effects, and about 25 percent of patients don’t respond to existing drugs. And so a team of researchers in Iceland, led by Karl Karlsson, professor of biomolecular engineering at Reykjavik University, undertook a number of different steps to narrow in on and then test what the team has determined to be a novel treatment for ADHD, using an existing drug, amlodipine. Read the full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-025-02062-x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rapid and sustained antidepressant effects of vaporized N,N-Dimethyltryptamine: A Phase 2a clinical trial in Treatment-Resistant Depression.

Apr 18, 2025 9 min

Draulio Araujo, professor at the Brain Institute in the University of Rio Grande Norte in Natal, Brazil, has been studying ayahuasca for more than 20 years. It’s a psychedelic plant used in rituals in South America that has also been researched for its potential to treat depression. The effects of ayahuasca can last for hours and also lead to side effects including vomiting and diarrhea. The active psychedelic drug in ayahuasca is DMT, and so Dr. Araujo and his colleagues decided to conduct the first test of DMT itself, which is also an endogenous chemical and has been demonstrated to be safe. Read the full article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-025-02091-6 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Endocannabinoid contributions to the perception of socially relevant, affective touch in humans

Mar 4, 2025 9 min

New drugs that target the endocannabinoid system are being proposed for disorders that are usually characterized by the dysregulation of social processing, like social anxiety disorder and autism spectrum disorder. Researchers have been trying to understand the mechanisms for how these drugs work. Leah Mayo is assistant professor at the University of Calgary, and she’s one of the authors of a new study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology in which they examined two aspects of the system. One is the endocannabinoid system itself. And then there’s another aspect of social processing called the C tactile system. Read the full study here: Endocannabinoid contributions to the perception of socially relevant, affective touch in humans | Neuropsychopharmacology Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sex differences in sensitivity to dopamine receptor manipulations of risk-based decision making in rats

Jan 15, 2025 9 min

The scientific literature has shown that females demonstrate more aversion to risk-taking than males. Studies have also demonstrated that the basal lateral amygdala, or BLA, is a critical hub for processing risk and reward information. And yet further research has shown that activity in the amygdala differs between males and females, and that the expression of particular dopamine receptors called D2 receptors are greater in females than in males. The authors hypothesized that one mediating mechanism that leads to greater risk aversion in females is differential activity of dopamine in the basal lateral amygdala. Caitlin Orsini is an assistant professor in the departments of psychology and neurology at UT Austin. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Biomarker development for menstrual Cycle affective change: the need for greater temporal, mechanistic, and phenotypic specificity.

Dec 2, 2024 9 min

The menstrual cycle is known to affect things like mood and changes in pain. But there can also be symptoms that have a serious impact on a person’s function, ability to work, ability to maintain friendships and romantic relationships. This is a rare condition known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder. But it’s not the only psychiatric condition that can worsen with changes in the menstrual cycle. For instance, nearly 60 percent of menstruating patients with depression can experience cyclical worsening similar to PMDD. Conditions such as these are generally referred to as menstrual cycle affective change. Menstrual cycle affective change is more common in those with chronic psychiatric disorders. The authors are interested in reframing the conversation around menstrual cycle affective change to be something that is a more fundamental process that we can study across disorders, across categories, and identify biomarkers that might help us predict who's going to have those symptoms in more complex ways than we might be able to do with categories. This paper represents how can we take this dimensional way of thinking about menstrual cycle affective change and talk about the specific ways that we can be precise in looking at the time the time characteristics of that, the specific mechanisms, et cetera. Tory Eisenlohr-Moul is an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the department of psychiatry, and she’s one of the authors. Jordan Barone is an MD/PhD candidate at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and she’s another author. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Genome-wide association studies of coffee intake in UK/US participants of European ancestry uncover cohort-specific genetic associations

Aug 21, 2024 9 min

Researchers are interested in understanding the biology of why some people are more likely to overconsume substances. Some substances are difficult to study—people might not admit to illegal substance abuse or to how much alcohol they drink. But Americans are more likely to accurately recall and share how much coffee they drink—which is related to how much caffeine they consume. And so a team of researchers paired up with the company 23 and Me to try to understand genetic differences among a large set of people, to try to tease out any genetic similarities that could be correlated with coffee consumption. Sandra Sanchez-Roige is an associate professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of California San Diego, and she’s one of the study’s authors. Abraham Palmer is a professor and vice chair of basic research in the department of psychiatry at UC San Diego, and he’s another of the study’s authors. Read their full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-024-01870-x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

C-reactive protein moderates associations between racial discrimination and ventromedial prefrontal cortex activation during attention to threat in Black American women

Jun 21, 2024 9 min

Scientists have been amassing an increasing amount of evidence about the impact of racial discrimination and racial trauma, including how it can have an impact on brain regions involved with threat vigilance and emotional regulation. At the same time, there’s evidence that increased engagement in those areas has been linked to increased risk of mental health problems like depression, and they also suspect it could be a vulnerability for brain health issues such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Negar Fani is an associate professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University School of Medicine, and she worked with Aziz Elbasheir, a PhD candidate at Emory University in the neuroscience program, on the study. They knew that C-reactive proteins, or CRPs, are a marker of immune activation in the blood. Read their full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-023-01737-7 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ghrelin decreases sensitivity to negative feedback and increases prediction-error related caudate activity in humans, a randomized controlled trial

May 6, 2024 9 min

There’s a hormone called ghrelin that’s secreted in the stomach, and when someone is hungry it contributes to that feeling of hunger and the need to search for food. But neurological studies have suggested that ghrelin might also play a role in compulsivity and impulsivity, and it might be related to substance use disorders. Rebecca Boeme is an assistant professor at Linkoping University in Sweden. She and her colleagues decided to use human subjects to investigate how ghrelin affects reinforcement learning, basically how ghrelin influences decision making when subjects receive positive and negative feedback —and also how it might actually be affecting the brain. Read the full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-024-01821-6 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Spotlighting SHAPERS: Sex hormones associated with psychological and endocrine roles

Mar 5, 2024 9 min

Dr. Nicole Petersen is an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at UCLA. Her commentary is a new paper in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, called “Spotlighting SHAPERS: sex hormones associated with psychological and endocrine roles.” Dr. Petersen starts the paper describing an unnamed signaling molecule that can affect the physical structure of the brain and that seems to be related to a wide number of psychological and neurological conditions. Then she reveals that this is estradiol. The point she makes in the paper is that estrogen isn’t the only neuroactive substance that affects the brain in ways that we just don’t understand. Read the full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-024-01819-0 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Comparable roles for serotonin in rats and humans for computations underlying flexible decision-making

Jan 4, 2024 9 min

Serotonin is a critical chemical when it comes to a number of psychiatric conditions, such as OCD, where it seems to play a particular role in cognitive flexibility. That is, serotonin levels are related to the fact that someone is perseverating on intrusive thoughts or compulsions and isn’t able to be as flexible as otherwise would be necessary. Trevor Robbins, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, is one of the authors of a recent study titled Comparable roles for serotonin in rats and humans for computations underlying flexible decision-making, and he says such cognitive flexibility also plays a role in depression and schizophrenia. Read the full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-023-01762-6 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Integrating public health and translational basic science to address challenges of xylazine adulteration of fentanyl

Oct 16, 2023 9 min

The drug naloxone, otherwise known as Narcan, is a critical tool in reversing fentanyl overdoses and reducing mortality. But now fentanyl is appearing on the streets adulterated with a drug called xylazine. Justin Strickland, assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Cassandra Gipson-Reichardt, associate professor in the department of pharmacology nutritional sciences at the University of Kentucky, are the coauthors of a new paper in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology about the importance of integrating public health and translational science to address the challenges of xylazine adulteration of fentanyl. Read the full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-023-01680-7 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The why, when, where, how, and so what of so-called rapidly acting antidepressants

Sep 6, 2023 8 min

Sanjay Mathew is a professor and vice chair for research at Baylor College of Medicine and director of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program. He’s one of the two authors of a recent review paper in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, “The why, when, where, how, and so what of so-called rapidly acting antidepressants.” With his colleague Alan Schatzberg, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and director of the Mood Disorders Center at Stanford University, they explore both the drugs that have been studied as rapidly-acting anti-depressants to date, and they also review the challenges and opportunities in how such research is conducted. They say that a version of ketamine has changed the field. Read the full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-023-01647-8 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

AI-based analysis of social media language predicts addiction treatment dropout at 90 days

Jun 23, 2023 9 min

In-person treatment for substance use disorders is an incredibly important tool, but there’s a high failure rate — more than 50 percent of people who enter drop out within the first month. There hasn’t been a highly accurate method of identifying who might leave and who might succeed, and knowing this could help centers allocate resources to give the right type of assistance to the right people at the right time. One tool available is called the Addiction Severity Index, which is used to help identify the severity of the addiction and thus customize treatment, but it wasn’t developed to gauge whether a patient might drop out entirely. So a team of researchers decided to mine something known as a digital phenotype. Dr. Brenda Curtis is a clinical researcher at the National Institute on Drug Abuse Intramural Research Program, and she’s one of the paper’s authors. Read the full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-023-01585-5 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oxytocin effects on amygdala reactivity to angry faces in males and females with ASPD

Apr 21, 2023 9 min

Antisocial personality disorder, or ASPD, is a difficult disorder to study. There have been studies on psychopathic individuals, and on youth with psychopathic traits, but most studies on ASPD to date have been on incarcerated adults. A team of researchers at Heidelberg University wanted to study individuals who are not incarcerated and see what these findings could elucidate about the brains, in particular the amygdalas, of individuals with ASPD. Haang Jeung-Maarse is a medical doctor at Bielfeld University in Germany and is one of the authors of the paper in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, on the effects of oxytocin on amygdala reactivity to angry faces in males and females with antisocial personality disorder. Read the full study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-023-01549-9 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To dismantle structural racism in science, scientists need to learn how it works

Feb 22, 2023 9 min

It’s clear there are diversity issues in science, both in terms of who does or doesn’t receive research grants, as well as who is or isn’t represented at the highest levels of scientific research. When Caleb Weinreb and Daphne Sun began their PhD program at Harvard University Medical School in systems biology, they took this on as an issue. They learned from others in their department, and they eventually created a course on the topic for incoming first year PhD students. As they worked on improving their course over the years, they saw that in science there was a focus on narrowing racial gaps by correcting for implicit bias. For example, there had been a well-known study in which resumes with stereotypically African-American names weren’t considered as seriously as those with stereotypically white names. But the two PhD students realized that efforts to overcome such implicit bias weren’t moving the needle. They recently published a perspective paper in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology called “To dismantle structural racism in science, scientists need to learn how it works.” Caleb Weinreb is now a post-doc in the neuroscience department at Harvard Medical School. Read the full paper here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-023-01534-2 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Low doses of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) increase reward-related brain activity

Dec 22, 2022 9 min

Psychedelic drugs have received attention recently for their potential use as treatments for psychiatric disorders. Single, high doses of LSD have shown promise for treating depressive disorders. But there’s another way in which people have been using LSD, and it’s what’s known as micro-dosing, taking LSD at below noticeable levels, where it doesn’t seem to have a psychedelic impact—but users say it does in fact have an impact on their overall sense of well-being. This is just what Harriet de Wit, University of Chicago professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience, wanted to study. Dr. de Wit partnered with James Glazer, a postdoc in psychiatry at Northwestern University. Read their full study here: Low doses of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) increase reward-related brain activity | Neuropsychopharmacology (nature.com) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sex-dependent risk factors for PTSD: a prospective structural MRI study

Nov 1, 2022 9 min

After a traumatic event, women are more likely to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. Research has been conducted on what might be causing this higher rate of diagnoses; for instance, perhaps women had more cumulative trauma in their lives than the men in question. But scientists say that even taking prior childhood trauma into account, women are still diagnosed at a higher rate than men. Alyssa Roeckner is a neuroscience PhD candidate at Emory University, she’s in the lab of Dr. Jennifer Stevens, assistant professor in the department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University. They are two of the authors of a recent study in NPP titled “Sex-dependent risk factors for PTSD: a prospective structural MRI study.” Read the full study here: Sex-dependent risk factors for PTSD: a prospective structural MRI study | Neuropsychopharmacology (nature.com) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sex differences in appetitive and reactive aggression

Sep 6, 2022 9 min

Maladaptive aggression, while not a diagnosable neuropsychiatric disorder on its own, often presents as an important comorbid condition with other neuropsychiatric disorders. But while both men and women can and do display aggression, there’s been a bias to thinking of aggression, in both its adaptive and maladaptive forms, as a male behavior. Sam Golden is an assistant professor at the University of Washington in the department of biological structure and also has an appointment in the Center for Excellence in the Neurobiology of Addiction, Pain, and Emotion. He’s one of the authors of a recent study on aggression in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. Read the full study here: Sex differences in appetitive and reactive aggression | Neuropsychopharmacology (nature.com) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What’s wrong with my experiment?: The impact of hidden variables on neuropsychopharmacology research

Jun 16, 2022 9 min

Sometimes, when researchers are conducting an experiment, the results are confusing. Maybe the control group of animals doesn’t behave the way a control should in theory be behaving. Maybe a researcher repeats a study and sees results that are unusually different from the first time around. The answers to these issues might lie in something called ‘hidden variables,’ according to a new study titled, “What’s wrong with my research? The impact of hidden variables on neuropsychopharmacology research.” Brian Trainor is a professor of psychology at the University of California Davis, and he’s one of three authors of the study. His co-authors are Amanda Kentner, professor at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and Hannah Butler-Struben, a graduate student in the animal behavior group at UC Davis. They say that many of the articles in the review are from journals about animal behavior that wouldn’t typically come across the desk of those working in the field of neuroscience. Read the full article here: What’s wrong with my experiment?: The impact of hidden variables on neuropsychopharmacology research Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A scientific approach to navigating the academic job market

May 9, 2022 7 min

Kirstie Cummings and Sofia Beas are both new assistant professors in the department of neurobiology at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. When they met, they discussed the job application process, their support network, and their own personal processes, and they decided to write an article that could serve as a resource for candidates from different backgrounds, many of whom might not have the same resources that Dr. Cummings and Dr. Beas did. The result was their paper, “A Scientific Approach to Navigating the Academic Job Market,” published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. Read the full article here: A scientific approach to navigating the academic job market | Neuropsychopharmacology (nature.com) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Identification of THC impairment using functional brain imaging

Feb 23, 2022 9 min

Driving while under the influence of THC, known as drugged driving, is becoming more of an issue as more states legalize cannabis for both medical and recreational use around the country. THC is known to impair cognitive and psychomotor performance and thus impair driving. Jodi Gilman is a neuroscientist and an associate professor of psychiatry at Mass General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and she’s one of the authors of a new study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. She says that impairment and exposure are easier to correlate with alcohol. But tolerance to THC is so vastly different among different people, and the amounts that people use whether for pain or to get high are also so vastly different, that people can have detectible amounts of THC in their system, but it does not necessarily correlate with whether or not that person is too impaired to drive. Listen in to hear what she and her team did to try to detect brain impairment under the influence of THC. Read the full article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-021-01259-0 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Evolution of prefrontal cortex

Jan 31, 2022 9 min

In the past, there had been a school of thought that looked at evolution linearly — that is, you could in theory draw a line among mammals as they evolved, and so, say, rodent brains would basically be less evolved primate brains. That turns out not to be true; evolution is much more like a branching tree, and each branch then goes on to develop independently, sometimes in parallel. Some groups of animals such as primates can evolve features of their brains that other groups simply don’t have. And now, with advanced DNA sequencing, scientists have been able to determine which groups of mammals are more closely related than others, and so they’ve figured out that, for instance, tree shrews and flying lemurs are more closely related to primates than rodents are. Here, we speak with Dr. Todd M. Preuss, professor of pathology at Emory University and an associate research professor at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. Dr. Preuss is co-author with Steven Wise of a review article in Neuropsychopharmacology called “Evolution of prefrontal cortex.” Listen in! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Astrocyte-neuron signaling in the mesolimbic dopamine system: the hidden stars of dopamine signaling

Nov 1, 2021 9 min

Star-shaped cells called astrocytes are the most abundant cells to be found in the human brain. In the past, they’d been thought to play a supporting role to neurons, such as providing metabolic support, but recently they’re also emerging as stars of information processing. They can respond to neurotransmitters and release neuroactive substances that then affect synaptic transmission and plasticity. Michelle Corkrum is a child neurology resident at Columbia University and is one of the authors of a recent review paper on the links between astrocytes and dopamine signalling. The review looks back at the history of research in this field, going back decades. Listen in to learn more! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Neurobiology of loneliness: a systematic review

Sep 13, 2021 8 min

Loneliness is a subjective experience, but neuroscientists define it as a distress that arrives from a discrepancy between perceived and desired social relationships. There may be an evolutionary benefit to the feeling of loneliness; we’re a social species, and feeling lonely might have sent us to seek out other humans, which has been very important for survival. Moreover, if gone unaddressed and isolation worsens, health effects of loneliness have been shown to double mortality rates. It's linked to cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, cognitive decline, higher rates of dementia, and poor mental health outcomes (i.e. depression and anxiety). With loneliness implicated in so many cognitive impacts, Dr. Lee and her colleagues wanted to understand what is known to date about the impact of loneliness on the brain. They conducted a systematic review of the published research that examines loneliness and resulting neurobiological assessments, such as imaging studies, EEG studies, and pathological studies. Listen in and read to learn more! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Medial orbitofrontal cortex dopamine D1/D2 receptors differentially modulate distinct forms of probabilistic decision-making

Jul 20, 2021 8 min

It’s known that dopamine transmission in the brain, particularly in the frontal lobes, can affect decision-making and can regulate choices when it comes to actions and rewards. But the effect of dopamine transition in the medial orbital frontal cortex hasn’t yet been studied, and dysfunction in that region has been implicated in a variety of mental illnesses, including obsessive compulsive disorder, certain kinds of depression, and even schizophrenia. And so a team of researchers led by Stan Floresco, professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, used a rat model to study the effects of dopamine on two receptors in the region, D1 and D2. To do so, they trained the rats on two games that involved decision-making, and then they infused drugs, one an agonist and one an antagonist, to the brain region. Have a listen! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Addiction as a brain disease revised: why it still matters, and the need for consilience

May 21, 2021 9 min

Nearly 25 years ago, a paper was published about addiction that transformed the field. The director of the US National Institute on Drug Abuse at the time called addiction a “brain disease,” and he wrote a paper articulating this position and the agenda that it implied. It led to a focus on researching the brain to understand the mechanisms behind addiction, which could lead to novel treatments. And it meant that the country began to treat addiction as a disease, thus treating it within the medical system and removing the victim-blaming stigma. Over the years, there has been a pushback against the view of addiction as a brain disease, even within the scientific community. In part, this occurred because research in neuroscience didn’t lead to effective treatments as quickly as the field hoped or promised. And in part, says Markus Heilig, it’s because other researchers felt that funding into the neuroscience of addition meant that other relevant mechanisms, such as social and psychological factors, were perhaps being somewhat neglected. Dr. Heilig and his colleagues recently published a review addressing these and other concerns. Listen in to learn more! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Big data in psychiatry: multiomics, neuroimaging, computational modeling, and digital phenotyping

Mar 19, 2021 9 min

The world of medicine has been changing rapidly due to the increasing use of ‘big data.’ And there’s been a major revolution in this approach in neuroscience and psychiatry as well: computing power, sample sizes, neuroimaging technologies, digital approaches to phenotyping, and computational modeling all are already starting to unleash dramatic new understandings of the brain, as well as new approaches to treatment. And so the journal Neuropsychopharmacology recently published a Reviews issue on the topic of Big Data. Kerry Ressler, chief scientific officer at McLean hospital and professor of psychiatry at Harvard medical school, is one of the editors. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Acute dose-dependent effects of lysergic acid diethylamide in a double-blind placebo-controlled study in healthy subjects

Jan 19, 2021 9 min

Interest is growing in the use of the psychedelic drug LSD for psychiatric research and even potentially for treatment. But placebo-controlled studies conducted to date have used just one dose of the drug—none have investigated the impacts of a variety of dosages within the same subjects. In addition, past studies did not use pharmaceutically-defined dosages of LSD, which has made verifying the effects of a particular dose difficult. To address this gap, Matthias Liechti, professor in the department of clinical pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Basel in Switzerland, and his colleagues conducted a study. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Big behavior: challenges and opportunities in a new era of deep behavior profiling

Nov 4, 2020 9 min

Scientists who study neuropsychiatric conditions and treatments often use rodent models to do so. From depression to anxiety to memory impairment and impulsivity, there are certain rodent behaviors that are used to represent these types of conditions in humans. And to use these models, researchers have had to watch the animals live or on video and jot down every instance of, say, exploratory behavior. As the process is labor intensive and results vary slightly from researcher to researcher, Dr. Bohacheck and his colleagues created a new system based on machine learning, and they published the results of their study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, along with a review of the field. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Leveraging large genomic datasets to illuminate the pathobiology of autism spectrum disorders

Sep 23, 2020 9 min

The application of the study of genetics and the use of big data to identify patterns of inheritance as well as de novo mutations has had a dramatic impact on the field of Autism Spectrum Disorder research, and it offers pathways to a greater understanding of biological mechanisms, even potentially treatments. Matthew State, chair of the department of psychiatry at University of California San Francisco, and his colleagues wrote a review paper in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, called “Leveraging large genomic datasets to illuminate the pathobiology of autism spectrum disorders.” Have a listen to learn more! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pubertal adversity alters chromatin dynamics and stress circuitry in the pregnant brain

Jul 10, 2020 9 min

It’s understood in epidemiological research that women who experience trauma during puberty are at significantly higher risk for affective disorders such as depression and anxiety when they become pregnant. And so Tracy Bale, a professor in the departments of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, has done several studies using mice to try to model and understand this effect. In her latest paper in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, she and her colleagues set out to study just what was happening to make the mouse brain so vulnerable to stress and trauma during puberty, and how this was activated during the hormonal onslaught of pregnancy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Social networking and mental health: looking beyond frequency of use and towards mechanisms of action

May 15, 2020 9 min

Over the past decades, there’s clearly been a dramatic increase in the amount of time people spend online using social networking sites. For instance, Facebook and Instagram have literally billions of users. At the same time, there’s been a rise in mental health issues for young people from teens through their mid 20s. The rise in these issues has been seen particularly for Millennials and the I generation, both of which grew up with increased access to and use of social networking sites. As a result, some have drawn the conclusion that perhaps the two are linked, and the rise in mental health issues is linked causally to the increase in time spent online, and so treatment should involve reducing social networking use. Dr. Kiara Timpano, associate professor at the University of Miami department of psychology, and Dr. Courtney Beard, co-director of the clinical research program in behavioral health at McLean Hospital and associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, reviewed the literature. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Distinct acute effects of LSD, MDMA, and D-amphetamine in healthy subjects

Mar 6, 2020 9 min

A number of drugs that are used recreationally are now being studied for their use in psychopharmacology. But while the ways in which these drugs are similar or different has been described anecdotally by recreational users, they haven’t been studied in comparison to one another. Dr. Matthias Liechti and his team of researchers recently published a study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, in which 28 healthy subjects, men and women, take doses of LSD, MDMA, amphetamines, and a placebo over four different sessions. Dr. Liechti says this blinding is important; in other studies, participants either have taken a drug or a placebo and can tell when they’re taking the drug. But in this case they don’t know which drug they’re taking, which allows the effects of the drugs to be compared against each other. Take a listen to find out more! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chronic opioid pretreatment potentiates the sensitization of fear learning by trauma

Jan 17, 2020 9 min

It’s known that there’s a relationship between post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and a higher rate of opioid abuse. What isn’t understood, though, is what that relationship is. Does PTSD cause people to turn to opioids in particular among all the potential drugs of abuse, or is there something about opioid use that makes users particularly sensitive to trauma? This is just what Michael Fanselow, professor in the psychology and psychiatry departments at UCLA, and his colleagues investigated for a recent study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Effects of MDMA on attention to positive social cues and pleasantness of affective touch.

Sep 19, 2019 9 min

The recreational drug MDMA, also known as Ecstasy or Molly, is particularly popular in social settings and raves, in large part because of how socially connected it makes the users feel. It's being studied for use in psychotherapy — there's a phase III clinical trial for the use of MDMA to treat PTSD. What's clear is that the drug affects how users experience social interactions. But there are questions: Does the drug make positive social interactions feel better, or reduce the negative feelings associated with negative social interactions? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Superolateral medial forebrain bundle deep brain stimulation in major depression: a gateway trial.

Jul 16, 2019 9 min

Depression is an incredibly important disorder—according to Thomas Schlaepfer, head of the department of interventional biological psychiatry at the University of Freiburg, at least 20 percent of people have a depressive episode at least once in their lives. And while most patients' symptoms improve with a combination of psychotherapy and medicine, up to 20 percent of depressed patients do not improve from existing treatments. Dr. Schlaepfer and his colleagues have been conducting research on deep brain stimulation, in which implanted electrodes automatically deliver electrical impulses to a particular region of the brain. Have a listen to learn more! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cues play a critical role in estrous cycle-dependent enhancement of cocaine reinforcement

May 17, 2019 9 min

Research has demonstrated that, overall, women are more vulnerable to drug addiction than men are. They become addicted more quickly after first using, they have a harder time staying off drugs, and they relapse at higher rates. But most studies have focused on men, and models that have been developed nearly entirely focus on male subjects. Now, two things are changing the situation: scientists are realizing that women's experience and women's brains are different when it comes to addiction, and the NIH has mandated that tests involve female subjects as well. Erin Calipari is assistant professor of pharmacology at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and she's one of the authors of a new paper in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. In it, she and her colleagues create a new model for examining the differences between female and male rodents when it comes to drug addiction. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Food Addiction: A Valid Concept?

Mar 8, 2019 9 min

Over the past decade, the use of the term 'food addiction' to describe an unhealthy approach to eating has grown. It refers to the idea that, for some people, their inability to control their food intake has similarities to that of a drug of abuse. Paul Kenny is the chair of the Department of Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine in New York. He's one of two authors of a recent circumspective in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. In the piece, Dr. Kenny and his colleague Dr. Paul Fletcher of the University of Cambridge take opposing viewpoints, Dr. Fletcher arguing against the use of the term food addiction, and Dr. Kenny in favor. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sex Matters

Jan 15, 2019 9 min

As our environment becomes ever increasingly complex, understanding how sex differences impact disease risk and resilience will only become more critical. The 2019 , "Sex Matters," edited by Dr. Tracy L. Bale, highlights the causal and mechanistic value in cases where significant sex differences are found, as well as when they're not; where sex differences may arise at one period of life and disappear in another. Additionally, this podcast, as well as the special issue, reinforces the message that males are not the control, and females are not more variable. The value is in appreciating the difference. Sex matters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recent advances in the study of aggression

Nov 16, 2018 9 min

Aggression is an evolutionary behavior seen throughout the animal world. When it comes to humans, however, some forms of aggression can be seen as pathological, dangerous, and quite costly to society. And yet there's a dearth of approved, effective treatments for aggression. Meghan Flanigan is a graduate student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and one of the authors of a new article in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, titled "Recent advances in the study of aggression," in which she argues that there isn't much data about the causes of abnormal aggression in humans, and part of the problem has been that it hasn't been modeled well in animals. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Neurocognitive effects of umami: association with eating behavior and food choice

Sep 14, 2018 9 min

While the influence of sweet taste on neurocognitive function has been widely studied, umami or savory has received less of a research focus. Animal models and even some small human studies seem to show that umami given in a broth before a meal can influence appetite and food intake. And this inspired Dr. Miguel Alonso-Alonso, Assistant Professor and Director of the Laboratory of Bariatric and Nutritional Neuroscience at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. He and his colleagues decided to test the influence of glutamate on behavior and food choice, as well as the neurocognitive mechanisms that might be affecting such behavioral changes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Burst activation of dopamine neurons produces prolonged post-burst availability of actively released dopamine.

Jul 13, 2018 9 min

For years now, scientists have noticed a rather strange phenomenon in animal models: scientists would stimulate dopamine production in the brain, but once the stimulation was over, the dopamine would remain. Bita Moghaddam is chair and professor of behavioral neuroscience at Oregon Health and Science University. She says that when dopamine is released, dopamine transporters take the dopamine back up into cells so it can be synthesized and broken down. So scientists had assumed that the dopamine that remained for those twenty minutes was just leftover dopamine from the original activation. But in theory the dopamine transporters should be more efficient in taking up the dopamine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Altered thalamo-prefrontal synchrony dynamics during spatial working memory task performance in a SETD1A loss-of-function mouse model of schizophrenia predisposition

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Podcast details

Created by: Springer Nature
Status: Active
Latest episode: Nov 10, 2026
Episodes: 68
Release period: Occasionally
Avg. episode length: 9 min
Explicit: No
Language: English

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