2024
January
A great way to kick off the year – we have been awarded another five-year R01 grant by the National Institute of Mental Health to investigate the impact of HIV1 infection, of the antiretroviral drugs used to suppress the virus, and of their combination, on the whole-brain neural circuitry. This will model both the infection (in humanized mice) and the pre-exposure prophylaxis. Surprisingly, very little is known about the effects of HIV1, ARVs, and HIV1/ARVs combination on the brain circuitry. The project will be carried out together with my longtime collaborators Michael Bukrinsky from George Washington University and Alex Koulakov from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Actively looking for postdocs and students!
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News
2023
December
A nice Xmas present – we received a hefty grant from the newly launched SBU Aging Center to study the effects of prolonged exposure to senolytics on neurogenesis and neural circuity.
November
Our image of neural stem cell nuclei in the Nestin-CFPnuc mice (the strip of blue dots), featured on the cover of the August issue of Journal of Neuroscience, was selected by the SfN for the 2023 meeting, so every couple of minutes there were dozens of copies of our motif on each banner and poster throughout the Washington DC convention center. An unexpected, even if slightly surreal, surprise.
October
Shuvaev et al paper on Bayesian+game-theoretic modeling of real-world social behaviors “A normative theory of social conflict” was selected to be presented at #NeurIPS2023
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September
Stony Brook University published a press release on our two papers on cognitive flexbilility
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September
Awarded a grant by the National Institute on Aging on the effect of antiretrovirals on cognitive flexibility and neurogenesis in aging and Alzheimer's disease models.
August
Amelchenko et al. paper selected for the Journal of Neuroscience cover
July
Manuscript accepted to Frontiers in Neuroscience: Amelchenko E., Bezriadnov, D., et al. (2023) Age-related decline in cognitive flexibility is associated with the levels of hippocampal neurogenesis.
Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2023, 17
The key points of the paper:
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we applied our novel behavioral task, context discrimination Morris water maze (cdMWM; Journal of Neuroscience, in press) to assess changes in cognitive flexibility mature adult and late middle age mice (6 and 14 months old, somewhere between a grad student and a professor); we intentionally wanted to avoid comparisons between very young and very old mice where changes might be evident but not unexpected.
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we found that there was no difference in the ability of the older mice to resolve problems related to learning and memory, but there was a pronounced impairment in tasks requiring cognitive flexibility (bottom line – grad students are much more intellectually nimble than their professors, even if professors know a lot more).
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we found an excellent correlation between the cognitive flexibility individual mice and the number of adult-born neurons that were generated two months prior to the tests; in other words, animals with higher level of hippocampal neurogenesis before the tests, scored higher in cognitive flexibility, even though their scores in learning and memory tests were the same. Remarkably, this correlation was more pronounced in the older mice. Bottom line – try to increase hippocampal neurogenesis (exercise, enriched environment, grants and papers) today to be ready for the new challenges tomorrow.
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June
Manuscript accepted to Journal of Neuroscience: Amelchenko E., Bezriadnov D., et al. (2023) Cognitive flexibility is selectively impaired by radiation and is associated with differential recruitment of adult-born neurons. Journal of Neuroscience, 2023, 43 (34), 6061-6083.
The key points of the paper:
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we introduce a novel behavioral paradigm which we called context discrimination Morris water maze (cdMWM), which we developed to specifically assess cognitive flexibility. cdMWM presents animals with a complex task that requires integrating various spatial and non-spatial contextual cues and continuously adjusting previously employed search strategies.
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using cdMWM, we were able to detect subtle changes in cognitive flexibility induced by radiation exposure that were not discernable using conventional approaches.
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specific components of the cdMWM paradigm selectively recruit 12 week-old adult-born hippocampal neurons, significantly extending the timeframe for the functional maturation of new neurons.
March
Manuscript deposited to arXiv: Shuvaev S., Amelchenko E. et al. (2023) A normative theory of social conflict. arXiv:2303.04285
Manuscript deposited to arXiv: Shuvaev S., Amelchenko E. et al. (2023) A normative theory of social conflict. arXiv:2303.04285
March
Aleena Xavier joined the lab
2022
December
Manuscript accepted to Cells: Itaman, S. et al. Detection of De Novo Dividing Stem Cells In Situ through Double Nucleotide Analogue Labeling. Cells, 2022. 11(24).
June
Manuscript accepted to Nature Cell Biology: Chandrakanthan, V., et al., Mesoderm-derived PDGFRA(+) cells regulate the emergence of hematopoietic stem cells in the dorsal aorta. Nat Cell Biol, 2022. 24(8): p. 1211-1225.
June
R01 grant awarded by National Institute on Aging: Endogenous barcoding to determine complex dynamics of adult neurogenesis in aging and Alzheimer’s disease.
June
Manuscript accepted to Cells: Ivanova, A., et al., Synthetic Thymidine Analog Labeling without Misconceptions. Cells, 2022. 11(12).
February
Manuscript accepted to Fluids and Barriers of the CNS: Xue Y., et al. Sustained glymphatic transport and impaired drainage to the nasal cavity observed in multiciliated cell ciliopathies with hydrocephalus. Fluids Barriers CNS 2022, 19(1):20.
January
Manuscript accepted to Scientific Reports: Shuvaev S. et al. (2022) Spatiotemporal 3D image registration for mesoscale studies of brain development. Sci Rep, 2022. 12(1): p. 3648.
2021
November
Manuscript deposited to bioRxiv: Hiramoto, T., et al., Transcriptional regulation of neonatal neural stem cells is a determinant of social behavior. bioRxiv, 2021: p.2021.11.12.468452.
October
Manuscript accepted to Histochem Cell Biol: Maltsev, D.I., et al. The bioavailability time of commonly used thymidine analogues after intraperitoneal delivery in mice: labeling kinetics in vivo and clearance from blood serum. Histochem Cell Biol, 2022. 157(2): 239-250.
August
Manuscript deposited to bioRxiv: Tkatchenko, T.V., et al., Critical period for vision-dependent modulation of postnatal retinal neurogenesis. bioRxiv, 2021: p. 2021.08.30.458213.
August
Manuscript deposited to bioRxiv: Chandrakanthan, V., et al., Mesoderm-Derived PDGFRA(+) cells regulate the emergence of hematopoietic stem cells in the dorsal aorta. bioRxiv, 2021: p. 2021.08.08.455592.
May
Manuscript deposited to bioRxiv: Shuvaev, S., et al., Spatiotemporal 3D image registration for mesoscale studies of brain development. bioRxiv, 2021: p. 2021.05.12.443839.
February
Manuscript accepted to Life Sciences Alliance: Mikhailik, A., et al., nNOS regulates ciliated cell polarity, ciliary beat frequency, and directional flow in mouse trachea. Life Sci Alliance, 2021. 4(5).
2020
November
Manuscript deposited to F1000Research: Ivanova, A., et al., Differential activation of c-Fos and Egr1 during development of the mouse visual cortex. F1000Research, 2021. 10(82).
2019
September
Manuscript accepted to Neuroscience: Kedrov et al. (2019) Involvement of adult-born and preexisting olfactory bulb and dentate gyrus neurons in single-trial olfactory memory acquisition and retrieval Neuroscience, 422, 75-87
July
Manuscript accepted to Behavioral Brain Research: Lazutkin, A., O. Podgorny, and G. Enikolopov, Modes of division and differentiation of neural stem cells. Behav Brain Res, 2019. 374: p. 112118.
June
Manuscript accepted to International Journal of Molecular Sciences: Subach et al. (2019) Slowly-reducible genetically encoded green fluorescent indicator for in vivo and ex vivo visualization of hydrogen peroxide. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 20, E3138.
May
Manuscript accepted to Cell Reports: Fu, C.H., et al., Early seizure activity accelerates depletion of hippocampal neural stem cells and impairs spatial discrimination in an Alzheimer’s disease model. Cell Reports, 2019. 27(13): p. 3741-3751 e4
March
Alexander Lazutkin joining the lab as a Visiting Scientist
February
Manuscript accepted to Nature: Newton, P.T., et al., A radical switch in clonality reveals a stem cell niche in the epiphyseal growth plate. Nature, 2019. 567(7747): p. 234-238.