Bianca Leonard
@biancaleonard.bsky.social
MD/PhD Candiate | UC Irvine | GR5, Yassa Lab | PRIME-LC
See you tonight! Here to chat about motivational conflict, early life adversity, anhedonia, and more 💡
#ACNP2026 @acnporg.bsky.social Today's the day to visit @biancaleonard.bsky.social 's poster, number 113!
#ACNP2026 - Wednesday afternoon @biancaleonard.bsky.social will present a computational model-driven motivational conflict challenge that identifies novel, *opposing* influences of early-life unpredictability and anhedonia @mikeyassa.bsky.social @hartleylabnyu.bsky.social @malejandra.bsky.social
January 14, 2026 at 3:21 PM
See you tonight! Here to chat about motivational conflict, early life adversity, anhedonia, and more 💡
Publishing highlight of 2025, getting to look at PVT neurons under the microscope and co-first-authoring this paper :D
Published! to NAIL human paraventricular thalamus, we imaged & aligned postmortem human thalamus labeled c calretinin. Finally a gold standard allowing mouse, rat human comparisons onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... @ted-satterthwaite.bsky.social @flagel-lab.bsky.social @mikeyassa.bsky.social l
A Combined Neuroanatomy, Ex Vivo Imaging, and Immunohistochemistry Defined MRI Mask for the Human Paraventricular Nucleus of the Thalamus
Existing definitions of the human paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) differ between histological and MRI atlases; this study addresses this conflict by leveraging MRI and histology in the ...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
January 13, 2026 at 1:49 PM
Publishing highlight of 2025, getting to look at PVT neurons under the microscope and co-first-authoring this paper :D
Reposted by Bianca Leonard
I think these findings raise interesting questions about the adaptive function of anhedonic attitudes. Find @biancaleonard.bsky.social and myself to learn more!
January 13, 2026 at 1:40 PM
I think these findings raise interesting questions about the adaptive function of anhedonic attitudes. Find @biancaleonard.bsky.social and myself to learn more!
Reposted by Bianca Leonard
#ACNP2026 - Wednesday afternoon @biancaleonard.bsky.social will present a computational model-driven motivational conflict challenge that identifies novel, *opposing* influences of early-life unpredictability and anhedonia @mikeyassa.bsky.social @hartleylabnyu.bsky.social @malejandra.bsky.social
January 13, 2026 at 1:40 PM
#ACNP2026 - Wednesday afternoon @biancaleonard.bsky.social will present a computational model-driven motivational conflict challenge that identifies novel, *opposing* influences of early-life unpredictability and anhedonia @mikeyassa.bsky.social @hartleylabnyu.bsky.social @malejandra.bsky.social
📰👀 What does a chunk of thalamus have to do with mental health?
Find out in my 1st PhD first-author paper✨about functional connectivity between the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) and nucleus accumbens in young adults with anhedonia.
sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Find out in my 1st PhD first-author paper✨about functional connectivity between the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) and nucleus accumbens in young adults with anhedonia.
sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Anhedonia is associated with higher functional connectivity between the nucleus accumbens and paraventricular nucleus of thalamus
Anhedonia stands as a life-threatening transdiagnostic feature of many mental illnesses, most notably major depression and involves neural circuits fo…
sciencedirect.com
August 28, 2024 at 3:07 PM
📰👀 What does a chunk of thalamus have to do with mental health?
Find out in my 1st PhD first-author paper✨about functional connectivity between the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) and nucleus accumbens in young adults with anhedonia.
sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Find out in my 1st PhD first-author paper✨about functional connectivity between the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) and nucleus accumbens in young adults with anhedonia.
sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Bianca Leonard
My good friend and inspiring colleague Bianca @biancaleonard.bsky.social sharing her work at #ACNP2023 on imaging the PVT in humans and exploring its role in adversity-induced changes in reward behaviors at yesterday’s hot topics session! Check out her poster on Tuesday (T95)!
December 4, 2023 at 7:00 PM
My good friend and inspiring colleague Bianca @biancaleonard.bsky.social sharing her work at #ACNP2023 on imaging the PVT in humans and exploring its role in adversity-induced changes in reward behaviors at yesterday’s hot topics session! Check out her poster on Tuesday (T95)!