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.

The Behavioral Neuroscience graduate program at UC San Diego was named the best in the nation Wednesday March 17th 2016 by U.S. News & World Report.

Many other programs at UCSD and San Diego State University were also highly ranked. See the full rankings here!

The article, “Individual Differences in Timing of Peak Positive Subjective Responses to d-Amphetamine: Relationship to Pharmacokinetics and Physiology”, was accepted for publication in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

Other authors include Chris Smith, Ronald Cowan, Robert Kessler, Abraham Palmer, Harriet de Wit, and David Zald.

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!