Meghan Morgan-Smith will defend her PhD defense on January 31, 2014 at 3:00pm in the Bioinformatics Auditorium. Her talk is titled: “GSK-3 Regulation of Neuronal Migration and Morphogenesis in the Developing Cortex“ Advisor: William Snider

Alice Stamatakis from Stuber lab publishes paper in Neuron demonstrating that lateral habenula projecting VTA neurons promote reward by their release of GABA, not dopamine. This paper was featured on the cover of the November 20th issue of Neuron.

First year student Andrew Crowther in Gershon lab publishes in Neuroscience. Read his full publication here.

UNC neuroscientist Juan Song discovers how baby neurons stay alive, a key finding for understanding neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s.

Jason Cook successfully delivered his PhD defense on November 22, 2013 at 12:00pm in the Bioinformatics Auditorium. His talk was titled “Ethanol Alters the GABAergic Neuroactive Steroid Allopregnanolone at Local Brain Sites: Significance of Local Allopregnanolone Increases in the Ventral Tegmental Area” Advisor: Dr. A. Leslie Morrow

UNC researchers, including Neurobiology Curriculum students, have published FOUR papers in Nature or Science in 2013. That’s more than Duke, Princeton, Yale, UC Berkeley, UCLA, USC, UCSD,UCSF, U Michigan, or Northwestern. And SEVEN papers in Nature or Science since 2010! http://go.unc.edu/n5ECa

Anel Jaramillo was awarded the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education, Inc (AAHHE) graduate student fellows program (GRFP), which includes all travel expenses to their annual conference. Congrats Anel!

Smith CT, Swift-Scanlan T, Boettiger CA (2013). Genetic polymorphisms regulating dopamine signaling in the frontal cortex interact to affect target detection under high working memory load. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience