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Fright or Delight? Dopamine-Mediated Fear Response in the Amygdala
Since little is known about how dopamine affects aversive learning in humans, Frick et al. recently sought to describe the role of dopamine in fear memory formation within the human amygdala, which we review in this blog post.
The Future of Muscle Physiology: Student Research at the MHRC
The Muscle Health Research Centre (MHRC) is home to many researchers who push the boundaries of muscle physiology. In this blog post, we summarize an interview with three students from the Muscle Health Research Centre (MHRC) at York University.
Industry Insights with Trent Lund on the ANY-maze Operant Interface
This episode of Share Science features Trent Lund from Stoelting Co., who shares some of Stoelting's latest developments such as the deceptively simple and surprisingly powerful ANY-maze, a behavioral tracking software!
Talking Real Science with Brent Sinclair
This episode of Share Science features Brent Sinclair, PhD, a biology professor at Western University who researches insect thermal biology and organizes career events for graduate students. In this interview, Brent shares why these opportunities are so important for students as they get close to finishing their degrees, as well as his career path and passions in and out of the lab.
Protocol Preview: Creating an Artificial Human Thymus in Mice
The majority of treatments for immunodeficiencies are temporary fixes, in part due to a lack of preclinical models that can accurately predict immune responses in humans. However, a novel model recently published in Nature Methods has potential to greatly improve future immune response studies, which we review in this blog post.
Investigating Muscle Weakness and Fatigue with the MHRC
The Muscle Health Research Centre (MHRC) is home to many researchers who push the boundaries of muscle physiology. For this blog, we summarize interviews with two professors from the MHRC who investigate the mechanisms of muscle weakness and fatigue: Christopher Perry and Arthur Cheng.
Talking Real Science with Chris Perry
This episode of Share Science features Christopher Perry, PhD, an associate professor at York University’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science, who shares his career path, but also his ideas and goals of creating a contract research organization (CRO) to further help those with muscle disease and to provide more opportunities for his trainees.
The Cancer-Immunity Cycle: Research Solutions for Preclinical Immuno-Oncology
Cancer immunotherapy has undoubtedly expanded the cancer treatment landscape and improved patient outlook, which can in part be attributed to the recognition of the importance of the cancer-immunity cycle as a whole. In this blog, we provide an overview of the cancer-immunity cycle and highlight some preclinical models that can facilitate cancer immunotherapy research.
Passive Avoidance Response in Rats: Effects of Handling and Novel Object Recognition
Storing aversive memories is important to survival, but learned avoidance responses decrease over time without reinforcement. Since little is known about the mechanisms behind this process, Bengoetxea de Tena et al. evaluated how naive rats respond to a learning and memory task under fear conditions in a recently published study, which we review in this blog post.
Video Game Therapy: A “Game Changer” for Post-COVID Brain Fog
Originally posted on Scientist.com, this article takes a look at post-COVID brain fog, its causes, and video game therapy as a potential treatment.
Talking Real Science with Tim Hacker
This episode of Share Science features Tim Hacker, PhD, director of the Cardiovascular Physiology and Surgery core facility at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Tim shares his career path and insights for young scientists on what it's like to run a core lab at an academic institution.
Long-Term Cardiovascular Symptoms of Mild COVID-19
Although the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has been ongoing for more than two years, a clear understanding of the symptoms of long COVID remains elusive. In this blog post, we review a recent study published in Nature Medicine that investigated cardiovascular symptoms in individuals with prior mild SARS-CoV-2 infections.
Skin-on-Chip for Preclinical Herpes Disease Modeling
Organs-on-a-chip are attractive alternatives for bridging the translational gap between preclinical and clinical stages in vaccine development, particularly for herpes simplex virus (HSV). In this blog post, we review an article from Nature Communications on a skin-on-chip device for modeling HSV infection, as well as evaluating immune responses and antiviral drug efficacy (featured image © 2022 Sun et al., licensed under CC BY 4.0).
USDA Under Fire for Relaxing Animal Welfare Inspection Standards
Originally posted on Scientist.com, this article references a lawsuit filed by the Harvard Law School Animal Law and Policy Clinic against the United States Department of Agriculture for failing to conduct full annual inspections and highlights the need for an independent, transparent assessment program.
Biomarker Imaging for Preclinical Cancer Research
Cancer biomarkers that do not cross the translational gap to clinical practice can still further research and drug discovery. In this article, we review several techniques commonly used for cancer biomarker imaging at preclinical stages, as well as recent technological advances.