A recent article in Neuroscience News features the new findings presented by Dr. Abraham Palmer and James MacKillop at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology’s 2015 meeting. Their research shows that delayed discounting has a heritable genetic basis. Delayed discounting is the tendency to choose a smaller reward that is available immediately over a larger reward that will be delivered in the future. Identifying the genes responsible for this trait will be an important step in understanding the basis of various psychiatric disorders.

Read the full article here!

The American College of Neuropsychopharmacology’s 54th annual meeting was held in Hollywood, Florida from December 6-10th.

Dr. Abraham Palmer chaired a panel titled “Genetic Approaches to Delay Discounting: Human and Non-Human Animal Approaches”, which included NIDA Center for GWAS in Outbred Rats collaborator Jerry Richards. The research discussed here has generated significant media interest!

Former Palmer Lab members Clarissa Parker and Camron Bryant also attended ACNP. Clarissa Parker presented a poster.

The article, “A dendritic organization of lateral amygdala neurons in fear susceptible and resistant mice“, was accepted for publication in Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.

Authors include Luke R Johnson, Vitor Castro-Gomes, Hadley C Bergstrom, Jennifer L McGuire, Clarissa C Parker, Jennifer Coyner, Jesus Landeira-Fernandez, Robert J Ursano, and Abraham A Palmer.

In recognition of her outstanding presentation at the 29th International Mammalian Genome Conference, Natalia Gonzales was awarded the book “Genetics of the Mouse” from Springer.

The name of her talk was “Genetic architecture of behavior in an advanced intercross line of mice” during the plenary session “Large Scale Resources”.

Congratulations, Natalia!

Natalia Gonzales has won the International Mammalian Genome Conference Trainee Scholarship to support her attendance to IMGC 2015 and the associated Trainee Symposium. This scholarship covers her travel, lodging, and conference registration costs.

Congratulations, Natalia!

Katherine McMurray defended her thesis, “Methylglyoxal & Glyoxalase 1 (GLO1) in Psychiatric Disorders: Insights into possible treatments”, this month and it was approved by her committee. Congratulations, Kat!

In December, she will join Dr. Renu Sah’s lab as a post-doctoral scholar. Dr. Sah is in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of Cincinnati. Her lab studies the pathophysiology of anxiety disorders and hopes to identify novel biomarkers and improved therapeutic options.

The article, “Hnrnph1 is a quantitative trait gene for methamphetamine sensitivity”, was accepted for publication in PLoS Genetics.

Authors include Neema Yazdani, Clarissa Parker, Ying Shen, Eric Reed, Michael Guido, Loren Kole, Stacey Kirkpatrick, Jackie Lim, Greta Sokoloff, Riyan Cheng, Evan Johnson, Camron Bryant, and Abraham Palmer.

The Conte Center at the University of Chicago held its 4th annual Brain Awareness Day on October 24, 2015. The event gathered over 100 high school students, teachers, and other guests.

Brain Awareness Day was supported in part by the NIDA Center for GWAS in Outbred Rats. Oksana Polesskaya (Scientific Coordinator) presented an overview of the Center’s research.

Nicholas Grahame, Ph.D., Eva E. Redei, Ph.D., and Erik Jorgensen, Ph.D. delivered lectures on topics related to brain research. Graduate students form University of Chicago prepared demonstrations ranging from fixed human brains to electrophysiology

The Society for Neuroscience’s 45th annual meeting was held in Chicago from October 17-21st. Alex Gileta, Katherine McMurray, Kayla Chase and Celine St. Pierre presented posters.

The article, entitled “Genetic and pharmacological manipulation of Glyoxalase 1 regulates voluntary ethanol consumption in mice”, was accepted for publication in Addiction Biology.

Authors include Katherine McMurray, Dr. Abraham Palmer, and collaborators.