Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted

Lisa Beutler @lbeutler.bsky.social · Aug 16

Amid lots of uncertainty, anger, and exhaustion I am excited to share this work from my incredibly talented MSTP and @nuincomm.bsky.social student Haley Province. In it we explore the fascinating and powerful anti-aversive properties of GIPR agonists

bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · Aug 16

GIP receptor agonism suppresses inflammation-induced aversion and food intake via distinct circuits https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.12.669936v1

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Reposted

Diabetologia @diabetologiajnl.bsky.social · Jul 17

The GLP-1RA/GIP agonist tirzepatide increased risk of early worsening of diabetic #retinopathy in #T2D, similar to effects of GLP-1RA treatment but conversely had a protective effect against new retinal complications in those without retinopathy
link.springer.com/article/10.1... 🔓

Early worsening of diabetic retinopathy in individuals with type 2 diabetes treated with tirzepatide: a real-world cohort study - Diabetologia

Aims/hypothesis Early worsening of diabetic retinopathy (EWDR) has been described during treatment with glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists including subcutaneous semaglutide. Whether EWDR occur...

link.springer.com

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danasmall.bsky.social @danasmall.bsky.social · Jul 9

One third of kids 12-17 in the US have pre-diabetes. gis.cdc.gov/grasp/diabet...

Spotlight - United States Diabetes Surveillance System

Diabetes Atlas(maps) of national, county and state-level data and trends

gis.cdc.gov

Reposted

Jeremy Day @daylab.bsky.social · Jul 9

Double-blind placebo controlled trial (led by UAB faculty Dr. Timothy Garvey) demonstrates >20% weight loss with co-administration of cagrilintide (which targets amylin receptors) with semaglutide (which targets GLP-1 receptors).
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

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danasmall.bsky.social @danasmall.bsky.social · Jul 9

I think Mark is onto something with this one. Totally agree that there is something wrong with onions. open.substack.com/pub/markscha...

Something is Wrong with Onions

They are getting less irritating and less pungent, which means they’re losing flavour. That isn’t good.

open.substack.com

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Reposted

Eelke Snoeren @eelkesnoeren.bsky.social · Jul 7

Nothing beats the feeling when your research gets picked up by the media! 🎉 Our latest study is featured on NRK – so great to see science reaching a wider audience. 🔬📰 #ScienceCommunication #NRK

www.nrk.no/trondelag/kj...

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danasmall.bsky.social @danasmall.bsky.social · Jul 3

Congratulations on the award and fantastic talk!

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danasmall.bsky.social @danasmall.bsky.social · Jun 11

For the past couple of years I met weekly with 3 amazing younger scientists @lilweb.bsky.social @debyee.bsky.social @rikepetzschner.bsky.social to share ideas and teach each other. No agenda. It was often the favorite part of my week. Then we started writing. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The interoceptive origin of reinforcement learning

Rewards play a crucial role in sculpting all motivated behavior. Traditionally, research on reinforcement learning has centered on how rewards guide l…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Reposted

Cell Press @cellpress.bsky.social · May 16

#ResearchRewind: "Habitual daily intake of a sweet and fatty snack modulates reward processing in humans" http://dlvr.it/TKpXYF

@cp-cellmetabolism.bsky.social @danasmall.bsky.social

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danasmall.bsky.social @danasmall.bsky.social · May 24

open.substack.com/pub/markscha...

It isn't carbs. It isn't fat. It's both.

A new body of research shows that the two nutrients are more powerful together than they are apart.

open.substack.com

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Reposted

Mark Andermann @markandermann.bsky.social · Apr 29

A drop of milkshake takes a wild ride as it passes through the body. Rachel and Kiersten and the team came up with cool strategies for visualizing food passing through the mouse GI tract and mapping the activity of the same 100s of brainstem neurons across weeks during feeding and other behaviors.

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danasmall.bsky.social @danasmall.bsky.social · Apr 6

open.substack.com/pub/markscha.... As a former president of the society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior @ssib, I recommend this great read describing what we are up against

The Ingredients' Ingredients

Is it possible for science to grasp the complexity of ultraprocessed foods?

open.substack.com

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Reposted

Healthy Brains, Healthy Lives @hbhlmcgill.bsky.social · Mar 12

Join us for the next edition of Neurogenesis on March 26 at @theneuro.bsky.social, featuring @danasmall.bsky.social & @yasharneuro.bsky.social!

Learn about their research on gut-brain connections and the aging brain & network with peers at the post-event reception.🧠

Register now: mcgill.ca/x/iw5

Neurogenesis Speaker Series. March 26, 2025, 4:30-5:30 p.m. at the Neuro ft. Dana Small and Yashar Zeighami

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Reposted

Kate Wassum @katewassum.bsky.social · Feb 19

🚨📃New Wassum Lab Paper📃🚨

Out today, @jackiegio.bsky.social discovered brain pathways that support agency and habit and how chronic stress disrupts them to rob of us our agency and cause us to form rigid habits 🧵👇

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Free full text: rdcu.be/eaxEv

A dual-pathway architecture for stress to disrupt agency and promote habit - Nature

Adaptive decision-making often requires an understanding of our agency in a situation; however, chronic stress can disrupt agency and promote inflexible, habitual behaviour by turning off a brain path...

www.nature.com

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danasmall.bsky.social @danasmall.bsky.social · Feb 19

Please join us for the Neurobiology of Ingestive Behavior Keystone Conference in spectacular Pacific Grove. vimeo.com/1058375928/2...

25D4-Event Promo-V2

This is "25D4-Event Promo-V2" by Keystone Symposia on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

vimeo.com

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Reposted

Imaging Neuroscience @imagingneurosci.bsky.social · Dec 29

2024 was the first full calendar year for Imaging Neuroscience @mitpress - 350 papers published.

We're proud of how the brain imaging community enthusiastically embraced open access non-profit publishing. Our aim is to be *your* journal.

Full size PDF: drive.google.com/file/d/1M170...

A collage of figures from the 350 papers published in Imaging Neuroscience in 2024.

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danasmall.bsky.social @danasmall.bsky.social · Jan 29

Looking forward to reading this one. www.cambridge.org/core/service...

www.cambridge.org

danasmall.bsky.social @danasmall.bsky.social · Jan 28

Very cool! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Identification of the subventricular tegmental nucleus as brainstem reward center

Rewards are essential for motivation, decision-making, memory, and mental health. We identified the subventricular tegmental nucleus (SVTg) as a brainstem reward center. In mice, reward and its predic...

www.science.org

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Reposted

Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · Jan 4

The scientist who is responsible for driving GLP-1 drugs for the treatment of obesity and testing them for prevention of Alzheimer's disease—Lotte Bjerre Knudsen— tells her story in a remarkable conversation. Full transcript, or video, all free, no ads.
erictopol.substack.com/p/lotte-bjer...

Lotte Bjerre Knudsen: The Scientist Who Drove GLP-1 Drugs For Obesity and Alzheimer's

Facts, data, and analytics about biomedical matters.

erictopol.substack.com

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Reposted

Nils Kroemer @nbkroemer.bsky.social · Dec 22

Our manuscript was accepted for publication just before Christmas 🎁

Nils Kroemer @nbkroemer.bsky.social · Sep 11

Can we use macronutrients to understand altered food reward in depression? Our new preprint shows that patients with MDD report lower wanting & liking for foods rich in fat or protein (vs. carbs). #neuroscience 🩺

W/ @corcerebrum.bsky.social @neuromadlab.bsky.social
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Altered food liking in depression is driven by macronutrient composition of the depicted food. We analyzed wanting and liking ratings of patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and matched healthy control participants. Patients with MDD reported lower food wanting, whereas food liking was primarily associated with symptoms of anhedonia. We then evaluated whether the macronutrient composition of the food accounted for differences in ratings. This led to a substantial improvement in models and showed that patients with MDD show specific deficits for food rich in fat and protein.

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danasmall.bsky.social @danasmall.bsky.social · Dec 21

Photo credit @dokkum.bsky.social

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danasmall.bsky.social @danasmall.bsky.social · Dec 21

One of the amazing wonders of South Pacific Costa Rica.

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danasmall.bsky.social @danasmall.bsky.social · Dec 20

Interesting new paper showing flavor nutrient conditioning is associated with D2R binding potential, intake and not pleasantness. Also conserved in obesity and after bariatric surgery. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Postingestive reward acts through behavioral reinforcement and is conserved in obesity and after bariatric surgery

Obesity has been associated with altered reward-related eating behavior and brain changes that may be related to overeating. This behavioral and neuroimaging study shows that postingestive nutrient st...

journals.plos.org

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danasmall.bsky.social @danasmall.bsky.social · Dec 15

New neighbors. Puntarenas Costa Rica.

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danasmall.bsky.social @danasmall.bsky.social · Dec 10

Curious to know more about the upcoming Keystone on the Neurobiology of Ingestive Behaviour? April 22-25 in California. Here is a video from lead co-organizer Daniela Cota. youtu.be/iQm1Y66b25Y.

KSQA: Dr. Daniela Cota (Neurobiology of Ingestive Behavior)

YouTube video by KeystoneSymposia

youtu.be

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