Jungkyun Seo will start his PhD in Computational Biology & Bioinformatics at the Duke University Graduate School this fall. Congratulations and farewell, Jung!

The article, “Genome-wide association study of behavioral, physiological and gene expression traits in outbred CFW mice” has generated considerable interest in various news and social media outlets! Twitter, multiple blogs & websites, and two university press releases (UCSD, Middlebury) are among those covering the article. Altmetric ranks it in the top 5% of all scientific articles, ranked by attention.

The article, “Genome-wide association study of behavioral, physiological, and gene expression traits in outbred CFW mice”, was published in the most recent issue of Nature Genetics. Authors include current and former Palmer Lab members (Clarissa Parker, Shyam Gopalakrishnan, Peter Carbonetto, Natalia M Gonzales, Emily Leung, Yeonhee J Park, Emmanuel Aryee, Joe Davis, and Abraham Palmer) as well as collaborators Cheryl L Ackert-Bicknell, Arimantas Lionikas, and Jonathan K Pritchard.

Read the article here!

The article, “The Latent Structure of Impulsivity: Impulsive Choice, Impulsive Action, and Impulsive Personality Traits”, was accepted for publication in Psychopharmacology. Authors include James MacKillop, Jessica Weafer, Joshua Gray, Assaf Oshri, Abraham Palmer, and Harriet de Wit.

Laura Sittig was selected from among 350 applications as a Travel Awardee for this year’s meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. She will present at ACNP 2016 in Hollywood, Florida this December. She will attend special receptions and luncheons with ACNP leadership as well as participate in a coveted Travel Awardee poster session. All of her travel, lodging, and registration fees will also be paid by the award. Congratulations, Laura!

Dr. Abraham Palmer has been appointed as Vice Chair for Basic Research in the Department of Psychiatry. In this role, he will coordinate department research efforts, support fellow faculty and student researchers, and organize regular departmental research events. He will work closely with Dr. Murray Stein, MD, the Vice Chair for Clinical Research in Psychiatry.

The article, “Systems genetic and pharmacological analysis identifies candidate genes underlying mechanosensation in the von Frey test”, was published in Genes, Brain and Behavior on May 27, 2016. Other authors include Erin Young, Camron Bryant, Seo Eun Lee, Ximei Peng, Benjamin Cook, Harsha Nair, Kathleen Dreher, Xiaoying Zhang, Jin Mo Chung, Jeffrey Mogil, Elissa Chesler, and William Lariviere.

Dr. Palmer presented at the Pharmacology and Toxicology Seminar Series at Virginia Commonwealth University on May 5th. His talk was titled “Quantitative Genetic Studies of Behavior in Mice, Rats and Humans”.

Dr. Palmer presented at the Psychiatry Grand Rounds at the University of Michigan on May 4th, hosted by Dr. Shelly Flagel. His talk was titled “GWAS for Behavioral, Physiological and Gene Expression Traits in Mice and Rats, How We Do It and What Do We Learn?”.

The article, “Premature responding is associated with approach to a food cue in male and female heterogeneous stock rats”, was accepted for publication in Psychopharmacology.

Authors include Christopher King, Abraham Palmer, Leah Solberg Woods, Larry Hawk, Jerry Richards, and Paul Meyer.

This study is part of Research Project 3 (“Association between behavioral regulation and cocaine cue preference”) of the P50 Center for GWAS in Outbred Rats, of which Dr. Palmer is the Director.