Congrats to Anna, Linda, and team on our new paper revealing sex-specific differences in how early life low-calorie sweetener consumption yields long-term changes in energy expenditure and sugar preferences. See here, and in Publications.

Check out our new paper identifying a hippocampal-septal circuit that is selective to foraging-related memory, here, and in Publications. Congrats Léa, Clarissa, and team!

Linda’s project revealing cognitive and metabolic impairments associated with early life low-calorie sweetener consumption is now published online at JCI Insight, see here and in Publications. Congrats Linda et al.!!

Naz and John are joining us for the summer through the USC SPIDOR program, and Alicia is our new full-time research technician. Welcome all!

Check out the article, linked here!

…. including Linda (PhD in Neuroscience), Isabella (B.S. in Neuroscience), Alicia (B.S. In Neuroscience and Psychology), and Rita (B.S. in Human Biology).

Anna, Jesse, and Lea won awards for their excellent presentations at the 2022 DORI symposium, and Kara won first prize for the American Physiological Society/Human Biology Award at the USC Undergraduate Research Symposium. Way to go, y’all!

Zander recently joined the lab via the Neuroscience Graduate Program after completing his B.S. in Biology and Italian at Vassar College. Welcome aboard!

Rita was selected for the Appleman Award, which is given to the most outstanding graduating Senior in Biological Sciences with the intent to pursue a career in medicine. Awesome job Rita!

Linda Tsan crushed her PhD defense earlier this week! Her dissertation research sheds new light into the neural, behavioral, and physiological mechanisms through which Western dietary factors (including low-calorie sweeteners) during early life developmental periods negatively impact memory function and metabolism. Way to go Linda!

Here we identify a cell-type-specific synaptic regulatory mechanism in the dentate gyrus that, when disrupted, impairs contextual episodic memory in rats. The paper was featured by USC press, and can be found here, and in “Publications”.

Kristen recently joined the lab as a research technician after completing her undergraduate at the University of Georgia Athens, under the research mentorship of none other than Dr. Emily Noble. Welcome to the team Kristen!

Check it out here, and in Publications.

Here we reveal that early life Western diet consumption can yield long-lasting memory impairments and gut microbiome dysbiosis in female rats, even despite healthy dietary intervention. See here, and in Publications.

With Alan Watts, Graciela Sanchez-Watts, and Wolfgang Langhans, we provide a comprehensive review on how physiological signals are integrated into different brain networks to regulate eating behavior, see here and in Publications.