I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E

1 Honoring FoundingDirector Michael Shipley

2 NOVA

3 Faculty ResearchHighlights

4 New Faculty Researcher:Tom Longden

5 Recent PIN Graduates

6 Tom Longden (cont’d)

7 Research Spotlight:Deanna Kelly

8 Student Highlights

Fall 2020

Program in Neuroscience Univers ity of Maryland School of Medicine http://l i fesc iences.umaryland.edu/neurosc ience

BrainStorm

The Program in Neuroscience (PIN) is saddened by the loss of one of its most distinguished, long-valued members, Michael Shipley, PhD, who passed away this August. Dr. Shipley was the Donald E. Wilson, MD, MACP Distinguished Professor, preeminent Neuroscientist, longtime Chair of the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, and Founding Director of the UMSOM Program in Neuroscience. He had retired in July 2019.

Over the course of his more than 25 years at UMSOM, Dr. Shipley conducted important research into the complex neural networks within the nervous system. Using advanced cell physiological and imaging methods, Dr. Shipley’s research team identified and defined the neuron types and circuits that encode raw odor sensory information into signals that engage higher brain networks to generate perception, motivation, and behavior. During his career, he published more than 185 peer-reviewed papers, invited reviews, and book chapters about neural networks.

Losing a Legend: Program in Neuroscience Founder Dr. Shipley

Honoring Dr. Shipley continued on page 4

@UMMNeuro

Page 2 BrainStorm

NOVA By Andreas Wulff, PIN student and President of NOVA

The Neuroscience Outreach Volunteer Association, NOVA, is a student-led organization whose mission is to foster civic responsibility within the neuroscience community through outreach in the Baltimore area organized by students, faculty, and staff. NOVA’s goal is to establish the University of Maryland’s Program in Neuroscience as a strong presence in the Baltimore area and to promote brain and scientific awareness that enriches the community through STEM and neuroscience related activities. NOVA is open to participation for all at UMB, regardless of program affiliation and whether you are student, postdoc, faculty or staff.

Every year, we like to reintroduce the Neuroscience community to the many activities that NOVA hosts and participates in – and there are plenty. We organize monthly BINGO nights at the Spring Grove Psychiatric Center, Halal on the Lawn for the UMB community every spring, Lab Tours for local high school students in the fall, middle School visits during Brain Awareness Week and much more. Under normal circumstances NOVA, is always busy organizing new outreach events.

This year is unfortunately different. We were sad to see many of our planned events thwarted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our Brain Awareness Week events were canceled last minute, and we were unable to host our beloved Halal on the Lawn.But it’s going to take more than a pandemic to stop NOVA! As we wait for the pandemic to subside, the incredible NOVA officer team have begun a transition to virtual science outreach.

We have created a Twitter account (@NOVAatUMB) where we post neuroscience content related to events happening in the Baltimore area. If you have ideas for what we should be discussing next you can fill out this google form here.

We are also working with the Maryland Science Center to create Instagram Live videos where we will do neuroscience demonstrations for kids and adults.

Finally, we are working on a “Sidewalk Science” project where participants use the sidewalk as a canvass for discussing their research with the surrounding community. Using chalk, participants write about a science topic of their choice on their local sidewalk and encourage people to leave questions/comments to continue the discussion. If you are interested in participating you can sign up on our google form here .

We look forward to continuing our science outreach events with you virtually and, hopefully soon, in person.

Email Andreas (andreas.wulff@som.umaryland.edu) if you are interested in hearing more!

Fall Lab Tours

Local students get hands on experience with the brain

Brain Awareness Week

@NOVAat UMB

BrainStorm

Page 3

Brad Alger, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Department of Physiology, was among the authors of “Defense of the Scientific Hypothesis: From Reproducibility Crisis to Big Data” by Oxford University Press, October 2019.

Tom Blanpied, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, was honored by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) with a Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) A ward for his grant "Internal Dynamics of the Postsynaptic Density", now in its 13th year.

Yasmine Cisse, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Pharmacology, received a three-year, F32 grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NIH/NICHD) for "Programmatic Role of Maternal Preconception Stress on Offspring Metabolic Health".

Joseph Cheer, Ph.D. and Mary Kay Lobo, Ph.D., both Professors in Anatomy and Neurobiology, were appointed co-directors for the new Substance Use in Pregnancy (SUP) research center.

Luana Colloca, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Pain and Translational Symptom Science, was featured in National Geographic’s January 2020 cover story “Scientists are unraveling the Mysteries of Pain”

Yasmine Cisse

Luana Colloca on the cover of National Geographic

Andrea Meredith featured in Netflix documentary

“Diagnosis”

Alex Poulopoulos

Program in Neuroscience Faculty and Postdoctoral Fellow Research Highlights

We welcome our newest PIN faculty members: Roger Bannister, Miroslaw Janowski and Piotr Walczak. Congratulations to faculty and postdocs in the Program in Neuroscience on

their many publications, grants, presentations and achievements!

Todd Gould, M.D., Associate Professor,Department of Psychiatry was highlighted in the National Institute of Mental Health Director's blog for his pioneering work in ketamine research to treat depression.

Andrea Meredith, Ph.D., Professor in Physiology, was featured in Episode 4 of the Netflix spcial "Diagnosis" titled "Looking for a Village" which features her lab's research into a rare genetic disorder that is caused by a mutation in the BK channel.

Brian Polster, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, has a new publication in the June 2020 issue of Journal of Neuroscience: "Idebenone has distinct effects on mitochondrial respiration in cortical astrocytes compared to cortical neurons due to differential NQO1 activity".

Alex Poulopoulos, Ph.D., Assistant Professor Department of Pharmacology was awarded the NIH Director's New Innovator Award in 2019.

Joyce Texeira da Silva, Ph.D., postodoctoral fellow and Dave Seminowicz, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Neural and Pain Sciences, published "Neuroimaging of pain in animal models: a review of recent liternature" in Pain Reports.

Page 4 BrainStorm Honoring Dr. Shipley continued from page 1

A continuously funded National Institutes of Health (NIH) investigator for more than four decades, Dr. Shipley was ranked in the 99th percentile of NIH-funded investigators during that period. He recruited 27 tenured/tenure–track faculty members over the years, all of whom achieved NIH R01 funding. It is estimated that Dr. Shipley generated more than $150 million in total NIH funding during his 25 years at UMSOM.

Current Director of the Program in Neuroscience, Dr. Margaret McCarthy adds: “Michael Shipley may have been small in stature, but he was always the biggest presence in the room. His exceptionally high standards for scientific rigor combined with energy and enthusiasm transformed neuroscience on this campus. As the inaugural Director of the Program in Neuroscience, he has left an enduring legacy in the many trainees and faculty who benefited directly from his leadership. He will be dearly missed but never forgotten.”

Tom Longden is excited about science! A life-long lover of biology, his lab at UMB studies blood flow in the brain and the complex mechanisms that regulate it. He likens the neurons in the brain to a field of crops that are watered and fed by an irrigation system. “Blood flow control in the brain is kind of like a neuron watering system. The blood vessels have to provide the food neurons need at a moment’s notice in the form of oxygen and nutrients in the blood, as they don’t have any energy stores as a backup. This means the blood vessels have to ‘know’ when neurons become more active, so that they can direct more blood to those cells. These neuronal activity sensing and responding mechanisms are what we study, to try to understand how blood flow to neurons is fine-tuned moment-to-moment to keep them working for a lifetime”.

It is this lifetime regulation of blood flow in the brain that makes Tom’s research relevant to today’s aging human population. The studies his lab conducts aim to shed light on previously unseen ways that blood flow in the brain is regulated, and how it breaks down in disease. The long-term promise of their work is that it may point to new targets for the development of treatments for diseases like

Faculty Spotlight: Tom Longden continued on page 6

New Faculty Researcher:

Dr. Thomas Longden

BrainStorm

Page 5

to our Most Recent PIN Graduates

Quinton Banks, Ph.D. successfully defended his thesis “Optical Recordings of Action Potentials and Voltage Sensing Domains”, work he accomplished while in the lab of Martin Schneider, Ph.D. We send Quinton sincere congrats as he joins the Center for Strategic Philanthropy at the Milken Institute.

Allison Arai, Ph.D. successfully defended her thesis “LRP1 as a Regulator of the Vasculature and Extracellular Matrix”, work she accomplished while in the lab of Dudley Strickland PhD. We wish Allison the best of luck as she returns to medical school at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and await great things from her in the future.

Sarah Aronson Fischell Ph.D. successfully defended her thesis “Neuroimaging Insights into Neuromodulation for Addition: Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Cognitive Circuits Implicated in Nicotine Withdrawal Syndrome” work she accomplished while in the lab of Elliot Stein, Ph.D. Good luck to Sarah as she returns to medical school to continue on her path to becoming a physician scientist.

Kasey Girven, Ph.D. successfully defended her thesis “A Bridge Between Integration Stations: Insula’s Connection with the ventral Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminalis”, work she accomplished while in the lab of Dennis Sparta, Ph.D. Kasey’s next step is joining the Bruchas lab at the University of Washington as a postdoctoral fellow. Congrats Kasey!

Alex Klausing Ph.D. successfully defended his thesis “Effects of Acute Stress on Discriminative Fear Conditioning: a Key Role of Kynurenic Acid in the Medial Prefrontal Cortex” work he accomplished while in the lab of Robert Schwarcz, Ph.D. Best of luck to Alex as he joins Medpace as a Senior Project Coordinator.

Amanda Labuza, Ph.D. successfully defended her thesis “Understanding the Role of Small Ankryin 1 in Calcium Regulation in Excitable Cells”, work she accomplished while in the lab of Robert Bloch, Ph.D. Congratulations to Amanda as she embarks on her postdoctoral studies at the Nathan S. Kline Institute in New York.

Jennifer McFarland, Ph.D. successfully defended her thesis "Post-translational regulation of glucokinase in the hypothalamic neurons", work she accomplished while in the lab of Megan Rizzo, Ph.D. We wish Jenn the best of luck as she begins her next journey as a science educator!

Page 6 BrainStorm

Faculty Spotlight: Tom Longden continued from page 4

Pial arteries (orange/white) on the brain surface

Alzheimer's in which brain blood flow is one of the earliest things to go awry. Such targets are desperately needed, as there are currently no treatments for Alzheimer's disease that have shown long term efficacy.

As you can still occasionally find him at the bench, just as thrilled about the real-time changes in blood flow revealed by in vivo imaging as his lab members, Tom makes it a point to devote personal attention to each of his lab members whom he views as a team of complimentary collaborators. A drive for scientific discovery and the motivation to pursue where the science leads them is their common bond. He aims to create an atmosphere in his lab of one more family than co-workers, an attitude that stems from his own training experiences.

Before joining the Department of Physiology at UMB in 2019, Tom earned his B. Sc. In Pharmacology at the University of Manchester. He later completed his PhD at the same institution before moving to the U.S. to complete a postdoc at the University of Vermont, where he was promoted to Assistant Professor in 2015. Since he has joined UMB, Tom has been steadily growing his lab and promises that research into this fascinating and still developing area of biology offers many opportunities for lab members to develop an amazing and exciting project.

When he is not at work, you can find Tom rock climbing or walking his dog, Tesla and likely still curiously pondering all the answers to the big questions of life - exactly what inspired him to become a scientist to begin. We welcome Tom to UMB and expect to be reporting on his many successes for years to come!

BrainStorm

Page 7

Throughout her 20+ year career, Dr. Deanna Kelly has been awarded many titles and numerous honors: PharmD, BCPP, New Investigator’s Award, Future Leaders in Psychiatry Award, eventually Professor of Psychiatry, to be followed by Director of the Treatment Research Program at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center (MPRC). More recently she was honored with the 2017 Foundation Maltz Prize for Innovative and Promising Schizophrenia Research, an honor she describes as “humbling”. What is remarkable about Deanna however is that beyond the titles and awards, at heart she is most passionate about effecting real change for real people - in particular, patients with schizophrenia.

Deanna is one of multiple researchers at the MPRC, an internationally renowned research center dedicated to providing treatment to patients with schizophrenia and related disorders, educating professionals and consumers about schizophrenia, and conducting basic and translational research into the manifestations, causes, and treatment of schizophrenia

Deanna and other researchers at the MPRC host an innovative view of schizophrenia in that they consider it not to be a single disorder but instead a constellation of disorders that may present quite differently in distinct subsets of patients. Applying this perspective, Deanna’s research focuses on innovative treatment targets and for understudied populations. While Deanna says the field “still has a long way to go”, she has already made key strategic moves to achieve better understanding of and treatment for this debilitating mental illness. She has completed one of the few large clinical trials in women with schizophrenia, and she runs a unique large multinational trial to improve outcomes with clozapine treatment in people of African descent. She has also completed a handful of unique studies in specific schizophrenia subgroups and she is notably running the only inpatient clinical trial focusing on the removal of dietary gluten in people with schizophrenia who have antibodies to the gluten protein, gliadin.

The work Deanna conducts at the MPRC often translates into improved quality of life for her patients, an experience Deanna describes as the most motivating facet of her studies. Her ultimate goal is to move the latest understanding behind the mechanisms and underpinnings of schizophrenia into clinical trials so that patients and their families may find relief they desperately need.

Research Spotlight on Dr. Deanna Kelly

Page 8 BrainStorm

Jason Alipio, PIN student in the lab of Asaf Keller, published “Enduring consequences of perinatal fentanyl e xposure in mice” in Addiction Biology.

Cheryl Brandenburg PIN student in the lab of Gene Blatt, published “Differential serotonin (5-HTT) and 5-HT2 rece pto r density in limbic and neocorticalareas of a dults and children with autism spectrumdisorders: implications for selective serotoninreuptake inhibitor efficacy” in the Journal ofNeuroche mistry.

Andrew F urman, PIN student in the lab of Dave Seminowi cz, published 2 first author publications this pas t year: “Cerebral peak alpha frequency reflects a verage pain severity in a human model of sustained , musculoskeletal pain” in the Journal of Neurophy siology and “Sensorimotor Peak Alpha Frequenc y is a Reliable Biomarker of Prolonged Pain Sensitivity” in Cerebral Cortex

Daniela Franco, PIN student in the laboratory of Mary Kay Lobo was selected as Editor for the National Hispanic Science Network newsletter, El Faro.

Utsav Gyawali, PIN student in the lab of Donna Calu, has published "The role of BNST CRFR1 receptors in incubation of fentanyl seeking in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.

Program i n Neuroscience Graduate Program in Life Sciences University of Maryland School of Medicine 685 W. Baltimore St. HSF1 Room 512 Baltimore, MD 21201

Phone: (410) 706-4701 @UMMNeuro

E-mail:Georgia Rogers, Academic Services Specialist grogers@som.umaryland.edu

Sam Krimmel PIN student in the lab of Dave Seminowicz in colloboration with the Mathur lab published “Resting state functional connectivity and cognitive task-related activation of the human claustrum” in Neuroimage, his second 1stauthor publication to date.

Niaz Khan, PIN student in the lab of Alan Faden, presented an online webinar entitled “Exosomes: Exploiting the Diagnostic and Therapeutic Potential of Nature’s Biological Nanoparticles”.

Michael Patton, PIN student in the lab of Brian Mathur, published “Compulsive alcohol consumption is regulated by dorsal striatum fast-spiking interneurons” in Neuropsychopharmacology. Michael was also selected as a poster prize winner at the Alcohol and the Nervous System Gordon Research Conference in February 2020.

Lace Riggs, PIN student in the lab of Todd Gould was awarded both the Trainee Professional Development Award from the Society for Neuroscience and the Attilo R. and Myrtle L. Jackson Award from the IMDS Leadership/Meyerhoff Program. Lace was also selected for the Program for Excellence in Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Program in Neuroscience Student Highlights

Congratulations to Jamila Asgar, Sam Bacharach, Ashley Marquardt, Lace Riggs – our latest PIN students to be awarded NRSAs from NIH to fund their research!

PIN believes