This month’s featured researcher is the UMass Director of Neurosciences, Paul Katz. His lab studies the neural basis of behavior. Three of his recent papers appeared in PubMed this month. His recent commentary in Current Biology explores how often Life Scientists display a bias in their choice of experiments and their understanding of evolution. His work shows that different levels of biological organization undergo separate evolutionary history. In particular, his recent Journal of Neuroscience paper showed that the same neuron in different species have dramatically different functions in neural circuits that produce the same behavior. Another paper, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Academy, which appeared in PubMed this month showed convergent evolution of neural circuits and behaviors. Katz is leading a collaborative team of researchers from four universities that form the Berghia BRAIN project to use high throughput methods to study the neural basis of behavior in a sea slug.
Here’s what else is new for ‘ ”University of Massachusetts” AND Amherst AND neuroscience’ in PubMed. These publications appeared on line in July. They are just a fraction of the research that occurs on campus.
1: LaClair M, Febo M, Nephew B, Gervais NJ, Poirier G, Workman K, Chumachenko S, Payne L, Moore MC, King JA, Lacreuse A. Sex differences in cognitive flexibility and resting brain networks in middle-aged marmosets. eNeuro. 2019 Jul 1. pii: ENEURO.0154-19.2019. doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0154-19.2019. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 31262949.
2: Sakurai A, Katz PS. Command or obey? Homologous neurons differ in hierarchical position for the generation of homologous behaviors. J Neurosci. 2019 Jun 17. pii: 3229-18. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3229-18.2019. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 31209170.
3: Spedden ME, Choi JT, Nielsen JB, Geertsen SS. Corticospinal control of normal and visually guided gait in healthy older and younger adults. Neurobiol Aging. 2019 Jun;78:29-41. doi:10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2019.02.005. Epub 2019 Feb 13. PubMed PMID: 30852367.
4: Wen X, Wang B, Huang S, Liu TL, Lee MS, Chung PS, Chow YT, Huang IW, Monbouquette HG, Maidment NT, Chiou PY. Flexible, multifunctional neural probe with liquid metal enabled, ultra-large tunable stiffness for deep-brain chemical sensing and agent delivery. Biosens Bioelectron. 2019 Apr 15;131:37-45. doi: 10.1016/j.bios.2019.01.060. Epub 2019 Feb 7. PubMed PMID: 30818131; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6602555.
5: Tamvacakis AN, Senatore A, Katz PS. Single neuron serotonin receptor subtype gene expression correlates with behaviour within and across three molluscan species. Proc Biol Sci. 2018 Aug 22;285(1885). pii: 20180791. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2018.0791. PubMed PMID: 30135151; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6125911.
6: Ribeiro F, Ribeiro IP, Gonçalves AC, Alves AJ, Melo E, Fernandes R, Costa R, Sarmento-Ribeiro AB, Duarte JA, Carreira IM, Witkowski S, Oliveira J. Effects of resistance exercise on endothelial progenitor cell mobilization in women. Sci Rep. 2017 Dec 19;7(1):17880. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-18156-6. PubMed PMID: 29259281; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5736626.
7: Tavares ER, Silva-Gotay A, Riad WV, Bengston L, Richardson HN. Sex Differences in the Effect of Alcohol Drinking on Myelinated Axons in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex of Adolescent Rats. Brain Sci. 2019 Jul 16;9(7). pii: E167. doi: 10.3390/brainsci9070167. PubMed PMID: 31315270.
8: Sato S, Choi JT. Increased intramuscular coherence is associated with temporal gait symmetry during split-belt locomotor adaptation. J Neurophysiol. 2019 Jul 24. doi: 10.1152/jn.00865.2018. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 31339832.
9: Katz PS. The conservative bias of life scientists. Curr Biol. 2019 Jul 22;29(14):R666-R667. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.05.066. PubMed PMID: 31336077.
10: Pollak DJ, Feller KD, Serbe É, Mircic S, Gage GJ. An Electrophysiological Investigation of Power-Amplification in the Ballistic Mantis Shrimp Punch. J Undergrad Neurosci Educ. 2019 Jun 30;17(2):T12-T18. eCollection 2019 Spring. PubMed PMID: 31360136; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6650263.
11: Moseley DL, Joshi NR, Prather JF, Podos J, Remage-Healey L. A neuronal signature of accurate imitative learning in wild-caught songbirds (swamp sparrows, Melospiza georgiana). Sci Rep. 2017 Dec 11;7(1):17320. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-17401-2. PubMed PMID: 29229942; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5725582.