I’m excited to share the most recent study from the @mbruchas lab, which represents the culmination of my postdoctoral work, and serves as the platform for my future research programs investigating the in vivo role of the endocannabinoid signaling system!.

Really excited to have been invited to give this seminar! Please come check it out!.

A real tour de force from many many @mbruchas lab members and across the UW community! Shines the light on an understudied and underappreciated brain region.

A little late to the party, but this is a really exciting new technology for simultaneous in vivo pharmacology and photometry, developed through a collaboration of the @mbruchas and @ProfJohnARogers labs!.

RT @MayoOnTheBrain: The first @pact_lab paper of 2025 is out now in @npp_journal 🤩. "Endocannabinoid contributions to the perception of soc….

RT @SachinPatelLab: If you’re interested in understanding how cannabis can increase anxiety and cause panic reactions in some people, this….

RT @DrJKhokhar: Huge congrats to all the PECASE winners: @TheErinCalipari @xiaosigu @NeuroTejeda @lukejchang @DWWil….

Thank you to the @yulonglilab for the generation and characterization of the GRABeCB sensor, which made this study possible.

Thank you to @StellaLab11, @cloverpharm, and @cloverpharm for the continued discussion and helping to refine my story, and especially for the creation and validation of the Linear Track pipeline for supervised behavioral classification.

Lastly, I would like to extend my gratitude to all of our wonderful collaborators both within the UW community and abroad.

RT @StellaLab11: .Congrats to.@DavidJMarcus2.@cloverpharm.@StellaLab11.@Graphtablet .@mbruchas .& many other collea….

Overall this study describes a fundamental molecular mechanism that involves localized eCB production in the regulation of engagement in reward-seeking behaviors through gain-control of an anatomically and genetically defined thalamo-striatal circuit.

Furthermore, using novel pose estimation and machine learning algorithms combined with 1-photon imaging, we found that engagement in reward-seeking is encoded by specific ensembles of genetically defined NAc neurons that receive aPVT input.

We found that eCBs are released in the Nucleus Accumbens (NAc) during reward seeking, and that these eCBs regulate engagement in reward-seeking behaviors through retrograde inhibition excitatory terminals arising from the anterior paraventricular thalamus (aPVT).

In this study, we brought to bear several novel tools and approaches to understand how endocannabinoid signaling regulates reward-seeking behaviors, which are highly evolutionarily conserved, and importantly disrupted in numerous psychiatric and substance use disorders.

Since my undergraduate research, I have been investigating the eCB system, the most widely expressed neuromodulatory system in the brain. However, this ubiquitous expression as well as the lipophilic nature of the ligands have made investigation if its role in vivo difficult.

RT @Noldoggs11: Pleased to share a new preprint of our collaborative effort with Sean Hill’s lab and @BlueBrainPjt led by Dr. Polina Litvak….

RT @Jingyi_Neuro: Hi ACNPer @ACNPorg. My name is Jingyi and I'm a postdoc in the Bruchas lab. Come check my poster T203 today from 5-7 p.m.….

Hello ACNP! I'm David and I am a postdoc in the @mbruchas lab at the University of Washington studying how endogenous cannabinoid signaling facilitates motivated behavior. Please swing by poster T61 on Tuesday from 5-7 to hear more about my work over the last four years!.

RT @mejoffe: Our lab is hiring at all levels. Currently have postings up for entry level, more senior, and postdoc positions. Please reach….