Author Archives: samweiss

We developed a Motor Assisted Commutator to Harness Electronics in Tethered Experiments (MACHETE), an open-source device that helps behavioral neuroscientists retain naturalistic behavior during tethered, freely moving experiments in mice. We were particularly interested in freely-moving experiments relevant to studying arousal disorders, including the open field test, splash test, and...

Anxiety disorders arise when the brain’s response to threats become too intense or persists when not needed, leading to maladaptive behaviors and excessive arousal. We found that specialized arousal neurons in a brain region called the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis activate when mice escape an aversive stimulus, offering...

This paper presents SimNorth, an unsupervised deep learning method for organizing non-standard fetal ultrasound images. By learning feature embeddings using a novel contrastive loss and clustering similar anatomical structures, SimNorth outperforms existing methods like Autoencoders, MoCo, and SimCLR in identifying meaningful image groups.

Xylazine, an adulterant increasingly found in the illicit opioid drug supply, enhances the interoceptive (subjective) effects of lower doses of fentanyl in rats. These results in rats align with reports from people who use drugs and may be used to better understand the mechanism of the effects of xylazine on...

Our newest paper suggests frontoparietal theta synchrony as a promising therapeutic target for attention disorders. We show that top-down theta connectivity stabilizes attentional performance in a freely moving behavioral task under high cognitive demand.

Our newest paper suggests frontoparietal theta synchrony as a promising therapeutic target for attention disorders. We show that top-down theta connectivity stabilizes attentional performance in a freely moving behavioral task under high cognitive demand.

Myra Daniel, currently serving as AHEC and Medical Student Coordinator, celebrates her 50th year with UNC Psychiatry! Since August 1974, Myra has had multiple roles working with faculty, residents, and medical students alike. Myra’s career developed from helping to research and edit manuscripts to be submitted for publications for psychanalysts...

Members of the UNC Department of Psychiatry joined with UNC Health teammates from UNC Health Virtual Care Services and UNC Health Caldwell to present findings from an innovative clinical model to address the shortage of psychiatrists in rural North Carolina. Their talk, titled “Expanding Access to Inpatient Psychiatric Care Through Telepsychiatry:...

“It’s a huge transition for the family as a unit,” said Dr. Hubbard, “so, not just mom but also dad is significantly impacted.” “If [a father] is not receiving any care,” said Dr. Hubbard, “and he’s going weeks, months of experiencing severe depression or anxiety or irritability or fatigue or a...