The Browsers is a daily radio program and podcast produced at KSL NewsRadio in Salt Lake City, Utah. Hosts Jay McFarland and Amy Iverson discuss “the best of the web”, including current and breaking stories.

Dr. Abraham Palmer discusses the delayed discounting phenotype and its implications on health and economics, as well as his latest collaboration with personal genetics company 23andme to elucidate the genetic architecture of impulsivity.

Listen to the segment here!

The article, “Neuronal overexpression of Glo1 or amygdalar microinjection of methylglyoxal is sufficient to regulate anxiety-like behavior in mice“, was accepted for publication in Behavioral Brain Research.

Authors include Katherine McMurray, Xueliang Du, Michael Brownlee, and Abraham Palmer.

The Oriental Congress of Laboratory Medicine held their 2015 annual meeting at the Shanghai International Convention Center on December 10-12, 2015. Dr. Jianjun Gao was invited to present his talk, “Genome-wide association study of Loneliness demonstrates a role for common variation”. The event organizers covered all fees related to the meeting.

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.