Publications from Primary Faculty Members - April 2018:

de Melo J, Clark BS, Venkataraman A, Shiau F, Zibetti C, Blackshaw S.  Ldb1 and Rnf12-dependent regulation of Lhx2 controls the relative balance between neurogenesis and gliogenesis in retina. Development. 2018 Apr 12. pii: dev.159970. doi: 10.1242/dev.159970. [Epub ahead of print]

Heo S, Diering GH, Na CH, Nirujogi RS, Bachman JL, Pandey A, Huganir RL. Identification of long-lived synaptic proteins by proteomic analysis of synaptosome protein turnover. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Apr 17;115(16):E3827-E3836. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1720956115. Epub 2018 Apr 2.

Newman EA, Kim DW, Wan J, Wang J, Qian J, Blackshaw S.  Foxd1 is required for terminal differentiation of anterior hypothalamic neuronal subtypes. Dev Biol. 2018 Apr 18. pii: S0012-1606(17)30906-5. doi: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2018.04.012. [Epub ahead of print]

Weyemi U, Paul BD, Snowman AM, Jailwala P, Nussenzweig A, Bonner WM, Snyder SH. Histone H2AX deficiency causes neurobehavioral deficits and impaired redox homeostasis. Nat Commun. 2018 Apr 18;9(1):1526. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03948-9.

Xie T, Ho MC, Liu Q, Horiuchi W, Lin CC, Task D, Luan H, White BH, Potter CJ, Wu MN. A Genetic Toolkit for Dissecting Dopamine Circuit Function in Drosophila. Cell Rep. 2018 Apr 10;23(2):652-665. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.03.068.

Scientists are trained to be meticulous when they speak about their work. That’s why David Linden likes getting his neuroscience colleagues tipsy. For years, after plying them with spirits, he has been asking brain researchers the same simple question: “What idea about brain function would you most like to explain to the world?”  He reports, “I’ve been delighted with their responses. They don’t delve into the minutiae of their latest experiments or lapse into nerd speak. They sit up a little straighter, open their eyes a little wider, and give clear, insightful, and often unpredictable or counterintuitive answers.”

A new book, called THINK TANK, now available from Yale Press, is the result of those conversations. He’s invited a group of the world’s leading neuroscientists, including many from Johns Hopkins, to answer that key question in the form of a short essay.

You can read an excerpt on Amazon here:

https://www.amazon.com/Think-Tank-Neuroscientists-Biological-Experience/

Congratulations to Neuroscience Graduate Students Natalie Hamilton (in Dr. Alex Kolodkin's lab) and Jessie Benedict (in Dr. David Linden's lab) who were awarded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships for 2018!

Congratulations to Kyle Severson, a Neuroscience Graduate Student in Dr. Dan O'Connor's lab, who is one of the 2018 Young Investigators’ Day Winners. He was chosen to receive the The Bae Gyo Jung Research Award.

The Young Investigators’ Day will be held April 17, 2018, at 3 p.m. in the Mountcastle Auditorium in the Preclinical Teaching Building, 725 N. Wolfe St., Baltimore, MD 21205.  

Richard Huganir and colleagues report success in using large-scale studies of proteins and high-tech chemical analysis to discover 164 proteins within synapses in mice that outlast neighboring proteins by weeks and months. These stable proteins, they say, may be part of the molecular machinery that governs long-term memory and learning—as well as loss of memory—in all mammals, including humans. A summary of their experiments is published the week of April 2 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Paper link: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1720956115