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danai-lama.bsky.social
Danai Riga
@danai-lama.bsky.social
480 followers 420 following 170 posts
Assistant Professor | Locus Coeruleus enthusiast | Ephys, (stressed) Synapses & Neuromodulators Center for Neurogenomics & Cognitive Research | Amsterdam UMC Stressing out, one day at a time | she/her https://tinyurl.com/RigaLab-NoC
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danai-lama.bsky.social
Danai Riga @danai-lama.bsky.social · Jul 23
Beyond happy & proud to have our paper on peptidergic neuromodulation of the #LC out!

This is a project that started with naive intentions & silly curiosity, withstood 1 pandemic & 2 lab moves & made us fall in ❤️ with the most beautiful brain regions of all!! 🔵

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Neuropeptide Y neurons surrounding the locus coeruleus inhibit noradrenergic system activity to reduce anxiety
Endogenous neuropeptide Y signaling modulates locus coeruleus activity, promoting adaptive responses to stress.
www.science.org
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Reposted by Danai Riga
sgrella.bsky.social
Stephanie L. Grella, PhD @sgrella.bsky.social · 2d
First lab paper out today! Student authors: Mikayla Cutler and Abhi Thati 🎉🤩

Hippocampus | Neuroscience Journal | Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Drug‐Related Engrams and Their Role in the Persistence and Recurrence of Drug‐Related Behaviors
Memory is a cornerstone of human behavior, and addiction offers a compelling model of its persistence and plasticity. The scope of engram research has rapidly expanded to include addiction-related ph....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
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danai-lama.bsky.social
Danai Riga @danai-lama.bsky.social · 2d
Congrats!
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Reposted by Danai Riga
sgrella.bsky.social
Stephanie L. Grella, PhD @sgrella.bsky.social · 4d
How prediction error drives memory updating: role of locus coeruleus–hippocampal interactions: Trends in Neurosciences www.cell.com/trends/neuro...
How prediction error drives memory updating: role of locus coeruleus–hippocampal interactions
The brain constantly generates predictions based on one’s knowledge of the world, as captured in memory. When these predictions are in error, our knowledge base must be revised to remain relevant. Her...
www.cell.com
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Reposted by Danai Riga
jojolab.bsky.social
Josh Johansen @jojolab.bsky.social · 6d
Excited to announce that I'll be moving to the Univ of California Irvine @ucirvine.bsky.social next Spring!🌴

Happily, this is not goodbye to Japan as I'll continue my lab @RIKEN_CBS for some time.

Help spread the word: the new UCI lab will be hiring, DM or email ([email protected]) if interested!
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danai-lama.bsky.social
Danai Riga @danai-lama.bsky.social · 14d
Fantastic opportunity, APPLY! ⬇️
lindsayschwarz.bsky.social
Lindsay Schwarz @lindsayschwarz.bsky.social · 14d
With 2 postdocs moving on to faculty positions🥳, we're looking to hire someone new. If you're interested in norepinephrine and neural circuits, please apply! tinyurl.com/42bfe24k
Postdoctoral Research Associate - Developmental Neurobiology
A postdoctoral research associate position is available in the laboratory of Dr. Lindsay Schwarz in the Department of Developmental Neurobiology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The Schwarz l...
tinyurl.com
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Reposted by Danai Riga
mjdahl.bsky.social
Martin J. Dahl @mjdahl.bsky.social · 20d
At #ICON? – Join us tomorrow to hear about novel measurement & manipulation approaches for neuromodulatory systems!
🗓️Sept 19,
🕚11:45 am
🏫Room Sé

#ICON2025 #CogNeuro #AcademicSky #LocusCoeruleus #neuroskyence
Speakers for ICON symposium on novel measurement & manipulation approaches for neuromodulatory systems! Sept 19, 11:45 am Room Sé
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Reposted by Danai Riga
gottapatchemall.bsky.social
Alex Naka @gottapatchemall.bsky.social · 20d
My group at Science has been running a big campaign to engineer new channelrhodopsins.

Excited to share the first results from it today: a suite of highly sensitive new opsins.

We call them "WAChRs".

Everyday indoor office lighting is enough to activate them pretty strongly.
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Reposted by Danai Riga
brainbodylab.bsky.social
Abha Karki Rajbhandari, PhD @brainbodylab.bsky.social · 20d
William James saw the brain as a filter of bodily signals shaping thought, memory and emotion. That psychological processes require bodily input, brain processing and then action. A century later, science has come full circle to this same mind–body insight! #mindbodyconnection
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Reposted by Danai Riga
bohaceklab.bsky.social
Johannes Bohacek @bohaceklab.bsky.social · 21d
🔵 I'm interrupting my social media hiatus to flag this important preprint from the Bruchas lab (is he not on Bluesky!?) together with @davidweinshenker.bsky.social. Very difficult experiments to show that dopamine release from LC terminals is independent of VTA 🔥
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
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danai-lama.bsky.social
Danai Riga @danai-lama.bsky.social · 22d
Wow, amazing news! Congrats and best of luck with starting the lab 🎊🎊
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danai-lama.bsky.social
Danai Riga @danai-lama.bsky.social · 22d
🤣🤣
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danai-lama.bsky.social
Danai Riga @danai-lama.bsky.social · 25d
Congrats! This is great, and the figures look beautiful 🤩
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Reposted by Danai Riga
labnir.bsky.social
Yuval Nir @labnir.bsky.social · 28d
🚨 New paper alert! 🚨(1/6)

Excited to share our work, out now in Science Advances

We show that a rapid norepinephrine surge along a brainstem pathway (LC→PRN) is a key driver of sound-evoked awakenings
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
An early surge of norepinephrine along brainstem pathways drives sensory-evoked awakening
The locus coeruleus has a specialized pathway to the brainstem that controls sound-evoked awakening from sleep.
www.science.org
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Reposted by Danai Riga
jordacular.bsky.social
Jordan McCall @jordacular.bsky.social · 26d
Happy to share our recent work attempting to better understand the impact of early life maternal separation on locus coeruleus function. Super proud of first author (the now Dr.) Chayla Vazquez. She brought this idea when she joined in… March 2020… and she carried it through these rough few years!
npp-journal.bsky.social
Neuropsychopharmacology @npp-journal.bsky.social · 29d
#ThisWeekInNPP

Early life stress profoundly impacts the 🧠 & can result in negative affective behaviors well into adulthood

Here, maternal separation stress produced dysregulated noradrenergic activity in the locus coeruleus (LC) across the lifespan, disrupting LC regulation of coping strategies
Maternal separation disrupts noradrenergic control of adult coping behaviors - Neuropsychopharmacology
Neuropsychopharmacology - Maternal separation disrupts noradrenergic control of adult coping behaviors
www.nature.com
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Reposted by Danai Riga
melaniedwhite.bsky.social
Melanie D. White @melaniedwhite.bsky.social · Aug 29
Bird’s eye view, literally. 🐦👁️ Glowing quail embryo eye for #FluorescenceFriday, #DevBio 🧪🔬
A microscope image showing a developing eye in a quail embryo. Actin is labelled in orange and nuclei are in cyan.
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Reposted by Danai Riga
drugmonkey.bsky.social
Drug Monkey @drugmonkey.bsky.social · Sep 5
Liberty depends on an accurate understanding of reality.
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danai-lama.bsky.social
Danai Riga @danai-lama.bsky.social · Sep 5
Some PhD programs, like in Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, offered combined degrees, where the last year of your (research) master's degree is the first year of your PhD. I'm not sure if this is still true tho..
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danai-lama.bsky.social
Danai Riga @danai-lama.bsky.social · Sep 5
Hey Zoe, this is true for the Netherlands, a master's (or equivalent) is needed before you can be hired as an AiO (Assistent-in-Opleiding), which is the official position a PhD candidate is employed for.
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Reposted by Danai Riga
intlbrainlab.bsky.social
International Brain Laboratory @intlbrainlab.bsky.social · Sep 3
Two flagship papers from the International Brain Laboratory, now out in ‪@Nature.com‬:
🧠 Brain-wide map of neural activity during complex behaviour: doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09235-0
🧠 Brain-wide representations of prior information in mouse decision-making: doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09226-1 +
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danai-lama.bsky.social
Danai Riga @danai-lama.bsky.social · Sep 4
pervasive inequalities in the lab. On the other hand, this would clearly impede (a certain) diversity of thought that some deem necessary for success

I ask advice from the void, new & seasoned PIs, what's your take here? +/- points? alternative ideas? How do you navigate such dillemas?

🧠🧪👩‍🔬
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danai-lama.bsky.social
Danai Riga @danai-lama.bsky.social · Sep 4
#newPI thoughts: I feel a heavy responsibility towards #WomenInSTEM, same as my♀️mentor had towards me. In a recent heated discussion, relevant to growing the team, I found myself committed to only hire ♀️ candidates. On one side I feel it's the least I can do to balance out long-standing but 1/
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Reposted by Danai Riga
sciolinolab.bsky.social
Natale R. Sciolino, PhD @sciolinolab.bsky.social · Sep 2
🧠 1/ In our latest study, we show that stress responses aren't one-size-fits-all. CB1 receptors in norepinephrine & epinephrine neurons modulate stress reactivity contextually. A nuanced look at the endocannabinoid system's role in emotional regulation www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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danai-lama.bsky.social
Danai Riga @danai-lama.bsky.social · Sep 1
Beautiful work!
tjryan.bsky.social
Tomás Ryan @tjryan.bsky.social · Sep 1
Updated (final) preprint below:

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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danai-lama.bsky.social
Danai Riga @danai-lama.bsky.social · Sep 1
Somehow summer is officially over (?) and I'm both terrified of and extremely excited about the new academic year starting!

We have new courses, new students, new experiments & more data coming in, and the anticipation is at an all time high.

Let's goooo! 🧠 🧪 👩‍🔬
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danai-lama.bsky.social
Danai Riga @danai-lama.bsky.social · Aug 30
Congratulations Natale! Wonderful news for the 🔵 community.
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