Bye, y'all, I'm out. Come find me on the other place! 🦋 @ dougp

Word of the day is ‘recrudescence’ (17th century): the return of something terrible after a time of reprieve.

🎉Congratulations to @PopovTori on receiving the prestigious F99/K00 NIH BRAIN Initiative Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience award from the @NINDS! #URochesterResearch Read more about her & her research in the @CNL_Rochester

Listen to this winner of the Nobel Prize-ala!

Huge congratulations to my friend and colleague @NathanASmith1 on his new position. Nathan's energy and enthusiasm for mentoring make him exactly the right person for this, and it's great to see @URochester_SMD devoting resources to this critical component of biomedical research.

I am honored to take on the role of inaugural Associate Dean for Research Mentorship at the School of Medicine and Dentistry! Excited to work with leadership and all stakeholders to empower the next generation of scientists and foster a thriving mentoring culture. Together, we

It was a pleasure and honor to talk with the thoughtful and engaging @JohnnyFoxe about the amazing nematode #celegans and the work we’ve been doing in the lab. If you’ve got half an hour to kill and want to hear me blather on about worms, give it a listen!

Congratulations to the newly minted Dr. Gregory Reilly! Greg successfully defended his thesis last week and we're writing up his work on sex differences in #celegans behavioral states now. #ceneuro24 folks will get a sneak preview next week!

How are the brain systems that support adaptive human cognition and beha... https://t.co/rcMIpo1Y3e via @YouTube

My opinion of @elonmusk I like his cars (I own a 2015 S, and 2023 S), his rockets, his solar energy systems, and his satellite communication system. I also like his positions on open source and patents. But I very much disagree with him on a number of issues. I disagree with

Feeling honored and humbled to be among this group of amazing scientists!

Finally, thanks to the many people who provided feedback and suggestions on this work, and to the intrepid worm researchers who laid the foundation without which these studies would have been impossible!

Read the paper for many more interesting tidbits! 😉

While we've known about signals that males use to find hermaphrodites for a while, this work teases apart the contributions of these signals in a more natural context and helps us better understand what's important to males when choosing a mate.

Unexpectedly, we find that the ASH neurons (known for detecting aversive stimuli in hermaphrodites) have a role in male attraction to ascaroside sex pheromones. This may be related to sex differences in ASH's physiology or connectivity (see https://t.co/QXKX76h7UV).

At least some of this reflects sex differences in sensory function, consistent with previous work from our group (e.g., https://t.co/wgMwXyxA0o) and others.

Mate preference is also sex-specific: only males prefer to interact with hermaphrodites. But if we genetically masculinize a hermaphrodite's nervous system, these animals are now attracted to other hermaphrodites.

We don't know exactly how males distinguish these features, but this involves multiple cues - ascarosides and other, unknown ones that will be interesting to identify.

It makes sense that males would have these preferences - they likely help promote the number and health of their progeny. This says that some hermaphrodite cues are probably honest indicators of fitness.

But males can also distinguish other features of potential mates! They prefer well-fed over food-deprived hermaphrodites. They also prefer virgins over hermaphrodites that have previously mated with another male.