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Reposted by Vidita Vaidya

Abhilasha Joshi, PhD @rhythmicspikes.bsky.social · 22d

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🚨 New preprint! 🚨

Excited and proud (& a little nervous 😅) to share our latest work on the importance of #theta-timescale spiking during #locomotion in #learning. If you care about how organisms learn, buckle up. 🧵👇

📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
💻 code + data 🔗 below 🤩

#neuroskyence

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · May 11

This suggests multiple critical period windows in postnatal life wherein disruption of serotonergic neurotransmission could have opposing effects on mood, paralleled by differential molecular, cellular and bioenergetic consequences

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · May 11

It is difficulty to clear extrapolate the temporal windows tested here in rodents to precise equivalents in humans, but points to the possibility that exposure to SSRIs in distinct time windows of childhood and adolescence may exert long-lasting consequences.

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · May 11

This all adds to a body of literature that indicates very long-term effects across the life-span that emerge when serotonergic neurotransmission is disrupted in developmental temporal windows, and also highlights that timing of perturbation is key.

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · May 11

This phenotype is noted in male, but not female, rats and underscores the importance to looking carefully at long-term effects of early perturbations in both sexes.

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · May 11

Early exposure to Prozac evokes diametrically opposing effects on mood behavior, global gene expression, dendritic architecture and mitochondrial function in the prefrontal cortex which is long-lasting and persists well into adulthood.

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · May 11

Work from former graduate student @utkarshaghai ably assisted by several labmates - examining the persistent marks associated with postnatal and juvenile exposure to Prozac

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · May 11

Glad to see this published "Postnatal and juvenile fluoxetine treatment evokes sex-specific, opposing effects on mood-related behavior, gene expression, mitochondrial function, and dendritic architecture in the rat medial prefrontal cortex" doi.org/10.1016/j.bi....

Redirecting

doi.org

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Reposted by Vidita Vaidya

Alex Kwan @alexkwan.bsky.social · Apr 10

Awhile back we started a Slack group for psychedelic science.

Researchers used it to organize meetups and panels at conferences. We discuss papers, including a lively discussion now of the Lu et al. preprint.

DM @mikaelpalner.bsky.social or I if you work in academia and want to join

An AI generated image of a psychedelic slack discussion group

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · Apr 10

Vital to profile India's genetic diversity - as the authors said - "The demographic history of India is also unique, with exposure to different environments and widespread admixture, followed by formation of numerous endogamous groups". www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Mapping genetic diversity with the GenomeIndia project - Nature Genetics

The rich ethnolinguistic and sociocultural differences that exist in India offers a unique opportunity to study human diversity. With the whole genomes of 10,000 healthy and unrelated Indians from 83 ...

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Vidita Vaidya

Bryan Roth @zenbrainest.bsky.social · Apr 9

A multi-institutional investigation of psilocybin's effects on mouse behavior
#psychedelics
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

www.biorxiv.org

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · Apr 9

A big shout out to Sashaina Fanibunda, Kowshik Kukkemane, Utkarsha Ghai and our collaborators, Ullas Kolthur and Lal Hingorani - and of course raising a toast to my Dad, Dr. Ashok Vaidya - who remains an inspiration to me always.

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · Apr 9

A modern medicine mindset of a clear preference for single molecule therapeutics, has been widened to consider benefits of multi-targeted therapy - opening the path to use modern tools to investigate both the veracity, and mechanisms, of insights from indigenous knowledge systems.

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · Apr 9

In the context of plant and fungi-derived natural products with psychoactive effects, there has been a recent resurgence of interest in their therapeutic utility to treat neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders - for eg. serotonergic psychedelics

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · Apr 9

In his words "Reverse pharmacology will have to maintain dynamism, flexibility, and a progressive approach to adopt and assimilate relevant scientific and technological advancements along with the due cognition of a rich, untapped heritage"

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · Apr 9

My father continued to stay deeply engaged with this work from its conception uptil submission of the manuscript - there has been nothing more precious to me than this opportunity to collaborate with him - on a reverse pharmacology approach that he championed his whole life.

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · Apr 9

Our findings suggest that the stress resilience boosting effects empirically and clinically observed with Aswagandha root extract may involve the mitochondrial and bioenergetic actions of withania somnifera, mediated via WithanolideA and WithanosideIV through recruiting BDNF-SIRT1 signaling.

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · Apr 9

Inspired by 'reverse pharmacology' which capitalizes on transdisciplinary insights from indigenous knowledge systems - we set out to ask if mitochondria and bioenergetics might be a key target in neurons - which could contribute to the putative neuroprotective effects of Ashwaganda

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · Apr 9

In our study led by Sashaina Fanibunda, a collaboration between TIFR and MRC-KHS uncovered the potent effects of Withania somnifera on mitochondrial biogenesis and function in cortical neurons - driven via BDNF and SIRT1 signaling.

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · Apr 9

Many drugs are derived from the knowledge domain of natural products- with famous examples including the aspirin, digitoxin, taxol, quinine and artemesinin - highlighting the importance of continuing to explore plant-derived phytoactives using state of the art modern tools.

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · Apr 9

What a started as conversations between our team with my father, the late Prof. Ashok Vaidya, matured into this story, which has a special place in my heart as it is dedicated to his memory. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · Apr 9

Withania Somnifera (Ashwagandha) has been used for centuries in Indian traditional medicine as an 'adaptogen' that boosts stress resilience, but the cellular mechanisms and key beneficial bioactives that drive putative neuroprotective effects remain unclear..

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Reposted by Vidita Vaidya

Julie Lefebvre @julielefebvrelab.bsky.social · Apr 8

Calling all new neuroscientist PIs in US/Canada, from diverse/underrepresented backgrounds and/or lack substantial start-up funds: APPLY to the #IBRO Rising Star Award by April 15, 2025! See 🔗 ow.ly/SeAQ50UrIlg. Please spread the message to your colleagues. @ibroorg.bsky.social

Rising Stars Awards

These awards support the research needs of early career neuroscientists who either come from diverse and/or underrepresented backgrounds (racial/ethnic minorities, sexual orientation, special needs…

ow.ly

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · Mar 31

Bombay in spring from the @tifrscience.bsky.social campus - the fleeting window of time before summer descend in full blazing glory!

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Vidita Vaidya @viditavaidya.bsky.social · Mar 31

Random scribblings in a talk from years ago - from a spherical cow to an antennapedia version of a cow.

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