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Laura Bradfield (she/her)

@bradfield-neuro.bsky.social

990 followers 460 following 72 posts

Behavioural neuroscientist. With a 'u'. Slight obsession with astrocytes

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Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · 10d

rdcu.be/eIyQB

Now published in Neuropsychopharmacology, here we mimicked the striatal neuroinflammation seen in the brains of individuals with compulsive disorders and found that this facilitated goal-directed action, whereas activating the Gi pathway in astrocytes prevented it

Dorsomedial striatal neuroinflammation causes excessive goal-directed action control by disrupting astrocyte function

Neuropsychopharmacology - Dorsomedial striatal neuroinflammation causes excessive goal-directed action control by disrupting astrocyte function

rdcu.be

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Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · 8d

P.P.S. As far as treatments go, my prediction would be that varenicline would be most effective in treatment individuals with neuroinflammation in the dorsal striatum in particular, based on prior work showing that acetylcholine in the dorsal striatum is necessary for cognitive flexibility

Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · 8d

We have recently back-translated a task from humans to rats and mice (called value modulated attentional capture) that is associated with transdiagnostic compulsivity, and we are finding really interesting effects of neuroinflammation in dorsal/ventral striatum on that too. Stay tuned!

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Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · 8d

environmental circumstances (e.g. sometimes it is underscored by enhanced cognitive control, other times it results from increased sensitivity to cues). This is interesting as it shows that compulsivity is complex and multi-faceted, which could be why treatments work for some and not others. 4/4

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Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · 8d

such that these individuals might have distinct cognitive processes underlying their compulsivity. Second, for those with neuroinflammation in both regions it could mean that the source of their compulsivity is multi-factorial and changes depending on the 3/4

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Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · 8d

goal-directed control, whereas in the ventral striatum, neuroinflammation caused excessive sensitivity to cues. This is interesting for a couple of reasons, first because different individuals have different distributions of neuroinflammation in their striatum 2/4

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Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · 8d

Probably the thing that is most exciting to me is the finding that, even within the striatum, there is heterogeneity in the behavioural consequences of neuroinflammation in different regions. That is, neuroinflammation in the dorsal striatum caused excessive 1/4

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Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · 9d

Thank you! I would love to think so. Anti-inflammatories, cholinergic agonists (e.g. champix/varenicline) with anti-inflammatory properties are two of the ideas we are going to try in the lab. Also interested in exercise, sleep, and behavioural training, and interactions between all of the above

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Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · 10d

Dorsomedial striatal neuroinflammation causes excessive goal-directed action control by disrupting astrocyte function

Neuropsychopharmacology - Dorsomedial striatal neuroinflammation causes excessive goal-directed action control by disrupting astrocyte function

rdcu.be

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Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · 10d

You played a critical part! And we are extremely grateful

Reposted by Laura Bradfield (she/her)

Natalie Matosin @nataliematosin.bsky.social · 13d

Latest lab preprint! Astrocytes are a brain cell type vulnerable to the effects of stress and the development of psychiatric-like phenotypes in animals, yet how this translates to humans is unclear... so we dived in:

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Astrocytic glutamate regulation is shaped by adversity and glucocorticoid signalling

Astrocytes are a brain cell type vulnerable to the effects of stress and the development of psychiatric-like phenotypes in animals, yet how this translates to humans is unclear. Here, we probed the di...

www.biorxiv.org

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Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · Aug 21

Thank you for your interesting paper too!

Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · Aug 21

I think this is consistent with our findings in mice that hippocampal neuroinflammation enhances goal-directed control. Depression is linked with hippocampal neuroinflammation. Paper if you're interested:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I suspect this effect might be different for aged mice

Hippocampal neuroinflammation induced by lipopolysaccharide causes sex-specific disruptions in action selection, food approach memories, and neuronal activation

Hippocampal neuroinflammation is present in multiple diseases and disorders that impact motivated behaviour in a sex-specific manner, but whether neur…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted by Laura Bradfield (she/her)

Michal Caspi Tal, PhD @immunofever.bsky.social · Aug 17

Fantastic review of #SexxAndImmunity! @soniasharma.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Sex differences in tissue-specific immunity and immunology

Biological sex exerts a substantial influence on the immune system and immune-related diseases. Males are more susceptible to the acute effects of viral disease and certain cancers, whereas females ex...

www.science.org

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Reposted by Laura Bradfield (she/her)

Claire O'Callaghan @claireocallaghan.bsky.social · Aug 15

Position open for a neuroimaging focused postdoc to come work with us in Sydney

Feel free to get in touch for a chat if you have any questions about it :)

usyd.wd105.myworkdayjobs.com/en-GB/USYD_E...

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Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · Aug 12

I guess they're better than the ones that charge $10k though.

Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · Aug 11

Best meeting ever!

Congrats Mel xo

Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · Jul 31

Oooh interesting. I'd love to know how you did it.

Just between you and me (and anyone reading this post, lol), we have some more recent data in which we've induced neuroinflammation in NAC core which prevents rats from showing sign-tracking, but they still show a VMAC effect on measures.

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Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · Jul 30

Very cool!

Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · Jul 30

Oh sorry!

Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · Jul 30

co-authors that are on bluesky:

@poppywat.bsky.social, @karlyt.bsky.social

Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · Jul 30

New preprint from the lab, produced in collaboration with Simon Killcross' lab:

Modelling compulsive actions in rats and mice: The back-translation of value-modulated attentional capture from humans to rodents

doi.org/10.31234/osf...

I will be presenting some of this work at Pavlovian next week!

OSF

doi.org

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Reposted by Laura Bradfield (she/her)

Melissa Cooper, PhD @melcooperphd.bsky.social · Jul 22

Now on bioRxiv! Astrocytes in one brain region (cyan) communicate in expansive networks (magenta). Through tool development, tissue clearing, and many hours on our @zeiss-microscopy.bsky.social Z1, we now know these networks are repeatable across mice, plastic, and specific.
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

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Reposted by Laura Bradfield (she/her)

Francisco Garre-Frutos @frangfr.bsky.social · Jul 21

New paper out! Here we show that attentional biases induced by reward history depend on awareness of such reward history (w/ @jlupiane.bsky.social and @mavadillo.bsky.social).
link.springer.com/article/10.3...

👇🧵

Value-modulated attentional capture depends on awareness - Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

Value-modulated attentional capture (VMAC) refers to a process by which a priori neutral stimuli gain attentional priority when associated with reward, independently of goal or stimulus-driven attenti...

link.springer.com

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Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · Jul 18

What? Noooo! This is the main way I keep up to date with news in the USA. Hopefully Seth Meyers and Jon Stewart will continue

Laura Bradfield (she/her) @bradfield-neuro.bsky.social · Jul 14

I would add to this that journals are increasingly asking more of reviewers (e.g. format reviews in a specific way, long consults on top of reviewing) which I understand the reasoning for, but it does increase burden, and increase difficulty to find reviewers.

www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Quality of scientific papers questioned as academics ‘overwhelmed’ by the millions published

Widespread mockery of AI-generated rat with giant penis in one paper brings problem to public attention

www.theguardian.com

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