This Week in Neuroscience

TWiN describes a study that reveals activation of endogenous retroviruses in oligodenroglia from patients with traumatic brain injury. 

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, and Timothy Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Activation of endogenous retroviruses in TBI oligodendroglia (Cell Rep)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN explains an amazing study of a man who was paralyzed after a spinal cord injury and regained the ability to walk after implantation of a brain-spinal cord interface. 

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, and Timothy Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Walking naturally after spinal cord injury (Nature)
• The paralyzed rat that walked (YouTube)
• Mike the headless chicken (Wikipedia)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN explains research showing that interaction between glioma cells and neurons in the brain shares mechanistic features with synaptic plasticity that contributes to memory and learning in the healthy brain. 

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, and Timothy Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Glioma synapses recruit mechanisms of adaptive plasticity (Nature)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN discusses research showing that sciatic nerve activation with electroacupuncture at the sciatic nerve controls systemic inflammation and rescues mice from polymicrobial peritonitis, by inducing vagal activation of aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase, leading to the production of dopamine in the adrenal medulla. 

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, and Timothy Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Electroacupuncture modulates the immune system (Nat Med)
• Electroacupuncture drives the vagal–adrenal axis (Nature)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN reviews a mouse model of ADHD to characterize hypersensitivity to pain, and that sensitization is further amplified in a pathological inflammatory state.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, and Timothy Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Pain hypersensitivity in ADHD model (PNAS)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN discusses a study of on the pathways that control opioid analgesic tolerance, a root cause of opioid overdose and misuse, which can develop through an associative learning.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, and Timothy Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Associative opioid analgesic tolerance (Sci Adv)
• Pavlovian-conditioned opioid tolerance (Sci Adv)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN explains how psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, and MDMA, which are being explored for treating a wide range of neuropsychiatric diseases, reopen the social reward period for critical learning.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, and Timothy Cheung

Click arrow to play
Download TWiN 042 (34 MB .mp3, 57 min)
Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Psychedelic drugs open critical period (Nature)
• Psychedelics reopen critical periods (News-Med)
• LSD microdosing doesn’t work (U Chicago Med)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

Vivianne explains how early in Alzheimer’s disease, the brain attempts to counteract the increased excitatory drive caused by amyloid deposition, and that melanin-concentrating hormone, produced during sleep, is involved in this protective response.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, Timothy Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Melanin-concentrating hormone and Alzheimer’s disease (Nat Neurosci)
• Alzforum
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

Tim takes TWiN through two studies on the role of dopamine: that syllables are natural units of spontaneous behavior used by the brain to structure action, and that mesolimbic dopamine release conveys causal associations but not reward prediction errors, thereby challenging the dominant theory of reward learning.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, Timothy Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Spontaneous behavior without explicit reward (Nature)
• Dopamine release conveys causal associations (Science)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

Junjie from Jason’s lab joins TWiN to discuss the observation that the cell gene PNMA2 encodes non-enveloped virus-like capsids that induce autoantibodies which underlie paraneoplastic syndrome.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, Timothy Cheung, and Junjie Xu

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Virus-like capsids in paraneoplastic disease (bioRxiv)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN explains the finding that immunity to commensal bacteria promotes sensory neuron regeneration via the cytokine interleukin-17A.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Ori Lieberman, Timothy Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Immunity to the microbiota promotes sensory neuron regeneration (Cell)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN reviews the field of microgial research, which has advanced in recent decades but is constrained by nomenclature that is necessary but often implies specific functions.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, Timothy Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• Microglia states and nomenclature (Nature)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN answers listener questions about Alzheimer’s disease, glaucoma and the microbiota, Dravet’s Syndrome, schizophrenia, brain development, and chips implanted in the human brain.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, Timothy Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• Letters read on TWiN 36
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

Jason and Tim review the use of an implanted chronic deep brain sensing and stimulation device to carry out biomarker-driven closed-loop therapy that resulted in a rapid and sustained improvement in depression. 

Hosts: Jason Shepherd and Timothy Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email

Links for this episode

• Closed-loop neuromodulation for depression (Nat Med)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN explains how central nervous system resident macrophages known as microglia coordinate cellular interactions during spinal cord repair in mice.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, Timothy Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email

Links for this episode

• Microglia coordinate spinal cord repair (Nat Commun)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN describes how neurotropic viruses leave the brain via meningeal lymphatic vessels located dorsally and basally beneath the skull.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Ori Lieberman, Jason Shepherd, and Timothy Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email

Links for this episode

• Meningeal lymph vessels and viral exit from brain (Nature Neuroscience)
• Clearing mouse brain video (YouTube)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN reviews how, in a mouse stroke model, recovery of movement is associated with the remaining cortex and the striatum coordinating their activity together.

Hosts: Ori Lieberman, Timothy Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email

Links for this episode

• Recovery after stroke in mice (Cell Rep)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN explains the observation that in mice, the HIV-1 co-receptor CCR5 closes the temporal window for linking different memories.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, Timothy Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email

Links for this episode

• CCR5 and memory linking (Nature)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN describes experiments demonstrating that gut injection of alpha-synuclein fibrils in mice converts endogenous alpha-synuclein to a pathologic form that spreads to the brain and leads to features of Parkinson’s disease.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Ori Lieberman, Jason Shepherd, Timothy Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email

Links for this episode

• Gut-brain alpha-synuclein transport in PD (Neuron)
• Gut has a mind of its own (Colbert Report)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN explains the finding that in the mouse visual cortex, astrocytes are key elements in the experience-dependent wiring of brain circuits.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, Timothy Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS, email

Become a patron of TWiN!

Links for this episode

• Astrocytes close the critical period (Science)
• Timestamps by Jolene. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv