Interdisciplinary Collaborations With Researchers at Rutgers Newark

Tomorrow we'll be heading to Rutgers Newark to participate in the 30th annual Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Minisymposium and to reconnect with our collaborator, Professor James Tepper. Big advances are commonly made at the intersection of fields and techniques. Many of the labs in Newark, and in particular the Tepper Lab, are experts in basal ganglia anatomy, physiology, and neurochemistry. We recently published some of our findings on how sensory and motor cortex controls behavior and affects striatal microcircuitry that resulted from our ongoing collaboration with the Tepper Lab. We'll be presenting our newer results examining a potential structural basis for our aforementioned results. We're looking forward to hearing what other researchers think about our ongoing work and learning about the latest developments coming from our friends in Newark.

-CL

The Margolis Lab in Mexico

This fall we attended the III Neurobiology Meeting of the Mexican Society for Biochemistry. During our visit we had the wonderful opportunity to present our progress on current projects investigating sensory motor integration, as well as attend several talks. There is abundance of excellent research being conducted by neuroscientists in Mexico. The variety and ingenuity of the experiments being conducted by our colleagues across the globe has contributed to a significantly better understanding of how the nervous system works compared to years ago. For example, there is an increased interest in the role of dopamine in the brain as new molecular tools and methods revealed that our traditional model of dopamine’s role in reward and motivation doesn’t not fit. Even more interesting is the identification of novel specialized gut-brain reward circuits! Yet, despite the advancements and rigorous efforts to unravel the mysteries of our brain, we are continually left with more questions than answers, a sign perhaps that we are doing something right. 
-Branden Sanabria