Past News

03/11/2024 - 03/17/2024 - Happy Brain Awareness Week! 

Let's celebrate the powerhouse that is our brain! From March 11th to 17th, let's raise awareness about brain health and the importance of caring for our minds. Stay tuned for details about our upcoming events! 

03/11/2024 - Joshua Kogan's Dissertation Defense is scheduled for Monday, March 11, 2024 at 12:00 noon (Eastern Time) at Life Sciences Bldg Room 038. The seminar is titled "Neural Coding of Taste and Taste-guided Decisions in the Mouse Gustatory Cortex” Alfredo Fontanini is the advisor.

03/04/2024 - Thomas Kim's Dissertation Defense is scheduled for Monday, March 4, 2024 at 12:00 noon (Eastern Time) In Person, Laufer Center - Lecture Hall 101 or Via Zoom:

Join Zoom Meeting: https://stonybrook.zoom.us/j/93659822090?pwd=WlFSRFBqWUxPVjl0MW5HZ0VmTWZDZz09

Meeting ID: 936 5982 2090

Passcode: 094521

The seminar is title: "Neurogenesis and blood flow dynamics in Alzheimer's disease mice.” Shaoyu Ge is the advisor.

2023

12/15/2023 - Tianshu Li's Dissertation Defense is scheduled for Friday, December 15, 2023 at 11:00 a.m. Life Sciences Bldg - Room 038. This seminar is titled, "Neural Mechanisms for Strategy-dependent Decision-making in the Prefrontal Cortex.” Giancarlo LaCamera is the advisor.

12/13/2023 - Jeffrey M Malgady's Dissertation Defense is scheduled for Wednesday, December 13, 2023 at 1:15 p.m. Laufer Center - Lecture Hall 101. The seminar is titied, "Adaptations in Cholinergic Signaling in a SAPAP3 Null Mouse Model of Compulsive Motor Behaviors." Joshua Plotkin is the advisor.

(CLOSED) FACULTY OPENINGS 2023-2024: Please see the links below for application instructions:

• https://apply.interfolio.com/130321
• https://apply.interfolio.com/127267
• https://apply.interfolio.com/130303

FACULTY OPENINGS 2022-2023:

• (CLOSED) One opening is in the area of Computational Neuroscience / NeuroAI at the Assistant or Associate professor level. See here for the application link and details! Deadline Dec 15. Welcome our new faculty member Dr. Siwei Wang!
• (CLOSED) A SUNY Empire Innovation Program tenured/tenure-track (open rank) position, with candidates studying movement, movement disorders and neurodegeneration relying on animal models and optical approaches especially encouraged to apply! Details and application link here. Deadline Dec 9.

10/15/2023 - Applications for our Fall 2023 BRITE (Bolstering Research through Inclusion, Talent and Excellence) Postdoctoral Seminar Series are now closed. Congratulations to our selected speakers:

• November 30, Pierre Rodriguez Aliaga, Stanford University
• December 7, Emily A. Aery Jones, Stanford University
• December 14,  Jacqueline Grovanniello,  UCLA

9/22/2023 - Group photo of the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at our recent retreat at the Old Field Club! Thanks to all our speakers and presenters, and our keynote speaker Dr. Jamie Maguire

09/22/2023 - On Sep 22nd at Old Field Club, NY, is the 2023 Retreat of the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior. Keynote Speaker: Dr. Jamie Maguire from Tufts University School of Medicine. Explore Circuit Dysfunction and Biased Information Routing in Mood Disorders.

09/20/2023 - Liam Lang's Dissertation Defense is on Wednesday, September 20, 2023 at 12:15 p.m. Laufer Center, Lecture Hall 101. The seminar is titled "Metastable Cortical Dynamics During Taste-Based Decision-Making.” Alfredo Fontanini is the advisor.

09/07/2023 - Alan Guo's Dissertation Defense is on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. The event will be held in Room 038 of the Life Sciences Building. The seminar is titled "Extracellular Factors Acting on Localized Intrinsic Determinants Promote Dendrite Development During Embryonic Brain Development.” Maya Shelly is the advisor.

07/03/2023 -  Our guest speaker for the 2023 Departmental Retreat will be Dr. Jamie Maguire – Professor, Tufts University, School of Medicine

07/03/2023 - The Thomas Hartman awards have been decided for 2023. CONGRATULATIONS to our 2023 Award Recipients: Dr. Joshua Plotkin, Dr. Markus Riessland (Co-Pi’s Dr. Joshua Plotkin, Dr. Lonnie Wollmuth), Dr. Mary Kritzer (CoPi Dr. Daniel Davis), Dr. Irene Solomon

(CLOSED) 2023 Hartman Applications: APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED. A call for proposals has been issued.  The deadline is May 29, 2023. If you have any questions, please contact Catherine Costanzo (catherine.costanzo@stony.brook.edu).

09/22/2023 - SAVE THE DATE! Department of Neurobiology Retreat at the Old Field Club.

04/28/2023 - Maurice Kernan was awarded the SUNY Chancellor Award for Excellence in Teaching.

04/10/2023 - Our annual Mind Brain Lecture series welcomes professor Emery N. Brown, M.D., Ph.D. from MIT to speak on "Deciphering the Dynamics of the Unconscious Brain Under General Anesthesia."

03/13/2023 - 03/19/2023 - Brain Awareness Week has returned! This year, we will be visiting a variety of libraries and organizations to educate children, teenagers, and adults on essential neuroscience hot topics. Come check us out at the following locations from March 13th 2023 - March 19th 2023.

• Sachem Public Library: 3/13 @6pm on Emotions/mental health & hygiene (Teen Program)
• Emma S. Clark Memorial Library: 3/14 @2pm on Neurobiology of Sleep (Adult Program)
• The Smithtown Library: 3/14 @5pm on Movement (Children 8-12)
• Middle Country Public Library: 3/16 @7:30pm on Memory & emotions (Adult)
• Garden Farmer's Market at Daisy Gardens: 3/18 @10-2pm Table with Demonstrations (Open to all!)
• Explorium at Port Jefferson: 3/19 @1-4PM Table with Demonstrations (Open to all!)

2022

11/15/2022 - Applications for our Fall 2022 BRITE (Bolstering Research through Inclusion, Talent and Excellence) Postdoctoral Seminar Series are now closed. Congratulations to our selected speakers:

• November 10, Angelica Torres-Berrio, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine
• November 17, Lindsay Sailer, Cornell University
• December 8, Rose Creed, UC San Francisco

10/07/2022 - It's time for our Hartman Symposium for Parkinson's research! Check out the latest research! We feature Keynote Speaker Dr. David Sulzer from Columbia University. You can download the flyer here.

9/20/2022 - We are excited to invite you to the Parkinson's Research Symposium on October 7th featuring Keynote Speaker Dr. David Sulzer from Columbia University.  You can download the flyer here and register for the meeting here:  http://bit.ly/hartmancentersymposium2022

9/16/2022 - Group photo of the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at our recent retreat at the Old Field Club! Thanks to all our speakers and presenters, and our keynote speaker and former NBB faculty Dr. Joe Fetcho!

8/10/2022 - After a fantastic series of talks last fall, we are pleased to announce applications are now open for another our Fall 2022 BRITE (Bolstering Research through Inclusion, Talent and Excellence) Postdoctoral Seminar Series! The goal of this initiative is to enhance inclusion in neuroscience research by recognizing the achievements of talented postdoctoral fellows and providing an opportunity to foster their professional development.  Three outstanding applicants will be selected to give a seminar for the Neuroscience community at Stony Brook University in the Fall of 2022 (honorarium and coverage for travel arrangements and expenses included).  Awardees will be selected based on their scientific accomplishments and potential in all fields of neuroscience, and commitment to diversity and inclusion in science; applications due Sept. 19, 2022. Apply now!

5/2022 - Our department is ending the spring semester with another batch of great news!

First, several of our graduate students have won awards: Priscilla Yevoo (Maffei lab) and Allen Chen (Xiong/Ge labs), have been selected for the NIH Outstanding Scholars in Neuroscience Award Program (OSNAP), and Amalia Napoli (Sirotkin lab) was award a SBU Presidential Dissertation Completion Fellowship! 

Next, several papers have been published or accepted:

• Hurley N, Srinivas S, Fang J, Sun M, Hong S, Chien CT, Guo A, Khan T, Li M, Cotlet M, Moretti F, Bourret-Courchesne E, Radin D, Tsirka S, Shelly M, Wong S, Investigation of the Photoluminescent Properties, Scintillation Behavior, and Toxicological Profile of Various Magnesium Tungstate Nanoscale Motifs. Royal Society Open Science, In Press.
• Wang C, Collins WF 3rd, Initiating daily acute intermittent hypoxia (dAIH) therapy at 1-week after contusion spinal cord injury (SCI) improves lower urinary tract function in rat. Solomon IC. Exp Neurol. 2022 Oct 12;359:114242. doi: 10.1016/j.expneurol.2022.114242. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36240880.
• Allen P.F. Chen, Jeffrey M. Malgady, Lu Chen, Kaiyo W. Shi, Eileen Cheng, Joshua L. Plotkin, Shaoyu Ge, Qiaojie Xiong, Nigrostriatal dopamine pathway regulates auditory discrimination behavior. Nature Communications (2022).
• Hanxiao Liu, Mohamed Badawy, Shaoqin Sun, George Cruz, Shaoyu Ge, Qiaojie Xiong, Microglial repopulation alleviates age-related decline of stable wakefulness in mice. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience (2022).
• Guillermo M Alexander, Terry D Heiman-Patterson, Frank Bearoff, Roger B Sher, Laura Hennessy, Shannon Terek, Nicole Caccavo, Gregory A Cox, Vivek M Philip, Elizabeth A Blankenhorn, Identification of quantitative trait loci for survival in the mutant dynactin p150Glued mouse model of motor neuron disease. PLoS One 2022 Sep 15;17(9):e0274615 (2022).
• Demetrios Neophytou, Diego Arribas, Robert Levy, Tushar Arora, Il Memming Park, and Hysell V Oviedo, Differences in temporal processing speeds between the right and left auditory cortex reflect the strength of recurrent synaptic connectivity. PLoS Biology (2022).
• Josiah Zoodsma, Emma Keegan, Gabrielle R. Moody, Ashwin A. Bhandiwad, Amalia J. Napoli, Harold A. Burgess, Lonnie P. Wollmuth§, and Howard I. Sirotkin, Disruption of grin2B, an ASD-associated gene, produces social deficits in zebrafish. § Molecular Autism (2022) 
• Rodrigo Triana Del-Rio, Sayali Ranade, Jahel Guardado, Joseph Ledoux, Eric Klann and Prerana Shrestha. The modulation of stress/threat and social behaviors by oxytocin signaling in the limbic network. Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, October 2022
• Russo T. and Riessland M., Age-Related Midbrain Inflammation and Senescence in Parkinson’s Disease Disease. Front. Aging Neurosci. 14:917797 (2022).
• Matityahu L, Malgady JM, Schirelman M, Johansson Y, Wilking J, Silberberg G, Goldberg JA and Plotkin J, A tonic nicotinic brake controls spike timing in striatal spiny projection neurons, Elife. 11:e75829 (2022).
• Pinizzotto CC, Patwardhan A, Aldarondo D and Kritzer MF: Task-specific effects of biological sex and sex hormones on object recognition memories in a 6-hydroxydopamine-lesion model of Parkinson’s disease in adult male and female rats, Hormones and Behavior, in press (2022).

Congratulations to all!

4/2022 - Lots of great news from our students this month! Josue Nassar (Park lab) received the President's Award to Distinguished Doctoral Students, Camelia Zheng (Fontanini lab) received the 2022 AAUW International Fellowship, John Chen's (Fontanini lab) NRSA predoctoral fellowship was recommended for funding, Charlotte Rubin (Sirotkin lab) won first place at the Westchester Science and Engineering Fair (WESEF),  Sarah Schubel (Sirotkin lab) won first place at the Long Island Science and Engineering Fair (LISEF)---both
advancing to the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF)---and Gabriella Vaccaro was awarded an Explorations in STEM summer scholarship! Congratulations to all!

4/04/2022 - Happening soon! Join us April 4th at 4 pm in the Staller Center for our annual Mind/Brain Lecture, "Constructing the World of Taste in Your Head," by Professor Donald Katz from Brandeis University. The Mind/Brain Lecture Series is a public event intended for a general audience, and is sponsored by the Swartz Foundation. We're looking forward to seeing you here, but for those who can't make it in person, the event will also be livestreamed at this link. 

3/14-3/20/2022 - It's Brain Awareness week! Be on the lookout for works of brain art hidden around Long Island near Stony Brook, and come join us on March 20th at the Long Island Explorium from 1 - 5pm for some scientific demonstrations and opportunities to chat with neuroscientists!

2/2022 - Congratulations to Dr. Prerana Shrestha, who has been named one of this year's Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellows in Neuroscience! Read more about the award and Stony Brook's other new Sloan fellows here.

2/2022 - Congratulations to Andrea Arreguin (Colognato lab), Noele Certain (Wollmuth lab), and Josh Kogan (Fontanini lab) for winning a 2022 SUNY Graduate Research Empowering and Accelerating Talent (GREAT) award! Read more about this award and the list of winners from other fields here.

2/2022 - High school students Sarah Schubel and Amy Feng, working with Drs. Sirotkin and Park, respectively, have been named among top 300 scholars in the national 2022 Regeneron Science Talent Search (Regeneron STS) competition. Read more here.

2021

Applications for our inaugural  BRITE (Bolstering Research through Inclusion, Talent and Excellence) Postdoctoral Seminar Series  are now open! The goal of this seminar series is to enhance inclusion in neuroscience research. 3 postdoctoral scholars will be invited to give seminars in November 2021; applications due Sept. 20, 2021.  Apply now!  (8/3/2021)

The semester is coming to a close, and with that we recap everything that has happened in the department in our  Spring 2021 Newsletter!

Applications are now open for the  2021 Hartman Awards . (4/12/2021)

Congratulations to Dr. Maya Shelly (PI) on receiving both a Stony Brook University OVPR Seed Grant award and SUNY Seed Grant award. (4/4/2021)

The   19th Annual Symposium in Neuroscience  will take place April 20, 2021, 9am-1pm, with keynote speaker Dr. Michael Hasselmo, Boston University. (3/31/2021)

The  Center for Affective Neuroscience of Depression and Anxiety (CANDA) at Stony Brook University invites you to a  Special Virtual Mini-Symposium: Neural Mechanisms and Treatments of Affective Disorders – Lessons From Mice to Humans . Monday April 12, 2021 from Noon to 3PM on Zoom. (3/31/2021)

Congratulations to PhD Student   Priscilla Yevoo  ( Maffei Lab) as one of   22 inaugural recipients of the new SUNY Graduate Research Empowering and Accelerating Talent Awards. (3/17/2021)

March 15-21  marks global   Brain Awareness Week  so check out our   schedule of events  and follow us on Twitter   @SBUNeurobiology to see how we're showing up to educate and celebrate brain science in our community. (3/14/2021)

Professor   Arianna Maffei  is featured along with other inspiring women in today's SBU News article, "Stony Brook Women Faculty: Inspiring the Next Generation" at   bit.ly/30eUWNZ  ; View full article at   bit.ly/3kP0TdH (3/5/2021)

Congratulations to   Liang Chen, Postdoc in the   Xiong Lab, who has been offered an Assistant Professor position in the School of Basic Medical Sciences at Fudan University in Shanghai, China (2/26/2021)

Congratulations to   Postdoc Olivia Swanson  ( Maffei lab) who got 2nd place in the SBU Postdoc Spotlight event with her 5-minute talk "The Science of Feeling Full." More info on the event at   https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/postdoc/spotlight/ (2/25/2021)

Welcome to our new Assistant Professor   Prerana Shrestha! (1/4/2021)

2020

• Congratulations to alumnus   Ke Chen, PhD student   Josh Kogan, and Professor   Alfredo Fontanini  ( Fontanini lab)  on their publication in Current Biology , " Spatially Distributed Representation of Taste Quality in the Gustatory Insular Cortex of Behaving Mice ." And read the   SBU News summary of the research. (11/12/2020)

  Congratulations to Postdoc   Mel Haley, undergraduate student   Stephen Bruno, Professor   Alfredo Fontanini, and Professor and senior author  Arianna Maffei  ( Maffei lab) on their publication in eLife, " LTD at amygdalocortical synapses as a novel mechanism for hedonic learning," as highlighted in   SBU News. (11/10/2020)

  Congratulations to Postdoc   Eric Prager, PhD student   Zachary Hobel, PhD student   Jeffrey Malgady, and PI   Joshua Plotkin   ( Plotkin lab) on their publication in Neuron, " Dopamine Oppositely Modulates State Transitions in Striosome and Matrix Direct Pathway Striatal Spiny Neurons. " (10/19/2020)

  Postdoc   Christina Joselevitch ( Wollmuth Lab) highlighted in article in local Times Beacon Record article, " SBU's Christina Joselevitch contributes 'invaluable' work to neuroscience studies" (10/11/2020)

  October 8, 2020 is Stony Brook Giving Day, a 24-hr crowdfunding initiative. Consider giving to our Fund for Excellence at   bit.ly/NeurobioGivingDay

  Congratulations to Postdoc  Christina Joselevitch  ( Wollmuth Lab) on her publication in The Journal of Neuroscience, " Direct Observation of Vesicle Transport on the Synaptic Ribbon Provides Evidence That Vesicles Are Mobilized and Prepared Rapidly for Release ." (9/23/2020)

  Congratulations to Graduate Student   Meagan Conner  & Undergraduate Student   Doyeon Jang  ( Kritzer Lab) on their publication " Biological Sex and Sex Hormone Impacts on Deficits in Episodic-Like Memory in a Rat Model of Early, Pre-motor Stages of Parkinson's Disease ," in Frontiers in Neurology. (9/17/2020)

  Welcome to our new Assistant Professor   Markus Reissland ! (9/1/2020)

• Congratulations to PhD graduate Jinelle Wint (Advisor, Howard Sirotkin) for her publication in the Journal of Neuroscience Research, "Lrrk2 modulation of Wnt signaling during zebrafish development." (7/5/2020)
• Welcome to our incoming class of Master of Science in Neuroscience students! (7/6/2020)
• Congratulations to PhD student Mohanlall Narine (Advisor, Holly Colognato) for winning a Center for Inclusive Education Turner Dissertation Fellowship Award for 2020. (7/3/2020)
• Congratulations to the Center for Neural Circuit Dynamics on its receipt a $3.6 million U01 grant from the NIH BRAIN Initiative to study how large ensembles of neurons organize to form coherent patterns of neural activity. Center members include Neurobiology and Behavior Professor and Chair Alfredo Fontanini, Associate Professor and Center Director Arianna Maffei, Associate Professor Giancarlo La Camera, Assistant Professors Braden Brinkman and Memming Park, and Department of Chemistry Professor Jin Wang. Read the SBU News article. (5/28/2020)
• Congratulations to our Spring 2020 Graduates! (5/21/2020)

• Congratulations to the Sirotkin & Wollmuth labs on their paper on NMDARs in early development in the Journal of Neuroscience, "A Model to Study NMDA Receptors in Early Nervous System Development" (5/1/2020)
• Congratulations to Postdoc Joanna Szczurkowska and Graduate Student Alan Guo (Shelly lab) on their publication in Cell Reports, "A Localized Scaffold for cGMP Increase Is Required for Apical Dendrite Development" (4/24/2020)
• Congratulations to MD/PhD students Greg Kirschen, Raja Pillai, and Nick Schwartz for receiving awards as part of the annual Renaissance School of Medicine Class Awards Celebration (4/6/2020)
  
   
  
   
• Congratulations to PhD Student Priscilla Yevoo (Maffei lab) for receiving an Honorable Mention in the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program competition! (3/31/2020)
• Congratulations to graduate student Afrinash Ahamad (Ge lab) on her recent publication in Frontiers in Neuroscience, "Early Dendritic Morphogenesis of Adult-Born Dentate Granule Cells Is Regulated by FHL2" (3/24/2020)
• Congratulations to Meagan Conner, PhD candidate in the Kritzer lab, on her paper accepted in European Journal of Neuroscience: “Domain-Specific Contributions of Biological Sex and Sex Hormones to What, Where, and When Components of Episodic-Like Memory in Adult Rats." doi.org/10.1111/ejn.14676 (1/16/20)
  
  

  
  
  2019

• Congratulations to Postdoctoral Associate Hillary Schiff (Maffei lab) on receiving an NIH Postdoctoral National Research Service Award for her research on “Maturation of inhibitory circuits in the gustatory cortex and expression of taste preferences.” (12/12/2019)
• Congratulations to Postdoctoral Associate Hillary Schiff (Maffei lab) who tied for 2nd place for her talk, "You Are What You Ate" at the Postdoc Spotlight event on Nov. 14, hosted by the Stony Brook University Office of Postdoctoral Affairs. (11/15/2019)
• Congratulations to Kelvin Chan (Wollmuth/Hsieh Lab), MSTP, Graduate Program in Neuroscience for receiving a Student Achievement Award from the Rheumatology Research Foundation. “Lupus auto-antibodies act as positive allosteric modulators at GluN2A-containing NMDA receptors to induce excitotoxicity and spatial memory deficits” will be presented at American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting in November, 2019. (9/30/2019)
• Congratulations to Assistant Professor Memming Park for securing a Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation. (8/23/2019)
• Congratulations to the Ge-Xiong lab for their recent paper in Nature Communications.  Former postdoc Jia Wang used live imaging methods to show that adjacent new neurons coordinate lateral dispersion, which is important for circuit integration (7/25/2019)
• Congratulations to Jia Shen (Ge and Xiong labs) for her recent paper in Neuron uncovering a neurovascular coupling network that regulates experience-induced neurogenesis in the adult brain (6/27/2019)
• Congratulations to Kelvin Chan (Wollmuth lab) for winning the outstanding poster award at the Gordon Research Conference on Excitatory synapses and brain function (6/14/2019)
• Congratulations to Dr.  Alfredo Fontanini for being promoted to the rank of Professor with Tenure in the School of Medicine (4/30/2019)
• Congratulations to Prof. Memming Park for winning the 2019 Discovery Prize Competition! (4/23/2019)  → Read more
• Congratulations to Olivia Swanson (Maffei lab) for winning the 3 Minute Thesis competition (4/16/2019)
• Congratulations to Prof. Maya Shelly for receiving a 2019 Godfrey Excellence in Teaching Award (4/8/2019)
• Congratulations to Allen Chen (Ge and Xiong labs) for being awarded an NIH/NIMH NRSA F30 Fellowship to study dopaminergic modulation in auditory decision-making. (4/3/2019)
• Congratulations to Luca Mazzucato, Giancarlo La Camera and Alfredo Fontanini for their recent paper in Nat Neurosci proposing a new model of general expectation in gustatory cortex (4/1/2019) →  Read more: SBU news - Quanta article
• On April 1, 2019 the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior has hosted the Swartz Mind Brain lecture featuring Giulio Tononi (4/1/2019)
• Congratulations to Prof. Giancarlo La Camera for being awarded an international Human Frontiers Science Program Grant to study the mechanisms of decentralized vision in the sea-urchin (3/19/2019) → Read more
  
  
  
  

2018

• Congratulations to Prof. Mary Kritzer for being named a SUNY Distinguished Service Professor (11/2018)
• Congratulations to Chris Infantino (Colognato lab) for receiving the Chuck Boone Leadership and Excellence Award. Read more about Chris here (11/2018)
• Congratulations to Lindsey Czarnecki (Fontanini lab) for winning 1st prize at the SBU Postdoc Spotlight 2018 (11/2018)
• Congratulations and welcome to our new chair, Prof. Alfredo Fontanini! (9/2018)
• Congratulations to Prof. Erin Vasudevan for being named a Scientific Teaching Fellow for the 2018-2019 academic year (8/2018)
• Congratulation to Tiffany Kim (McKinnon Lab) for being awarded an American Heart Association Founders Affiliate Undergraduate Student Summer Fellowship (Summer 2018)
• Congratulations to Rachel Kery (Ge and Xiong labs) for being awarded an NIH/NIMH NRSA F30 Fellowship (with perfect score!) to develop and apply a novel genetic tool for studying neural circuits. Expected start date 09/20/2018.
• Congratulations to Jia Shen (Ge and Xiong labs) for being awarded a predoctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association to investigate functional neurovascular coupling during animal behavior (6/1/2018).
• Congratulations to Program in Neuroscience Alumnus, Dr. Lyl Tomlinson (Colognato Lab) for being awarded the prestigious AAAS Science Policy Fellowship (06/2018)
• Congratulations to Melissa Haley (Maffei lab) for being awarded a Polak Young Investigator Award from the Association for Chemoreception Sciences (04/2018)
• Congratulations to Roberto Vincis (Fontanini lab) for being awarded a Polak Young Investigator Award from the Association for Chemoreception Sciences (04/2018)
• Congratulations to Roberto Vincis (Fontanini lab) for his new position as Assistant Professor at Florida State University (04/2018)
• On April 2, 2018 the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior has hosted the Swartz Mind Brain lecture featuring Adrienne Fairhall (4/2/2018)
• Welcome to our new faculty member, Erin Vasudevan (04/2018)
• Ricardo Raudales (Huang lab) received the NIH/NIMH NRSA F31 Fellowship award (02/16/2018)
• Welcome to our new faculty member, Braden Brinkman (01/2018)
• Congratulations to Howard Sirotkin for being named Associate Editor at BMC Neuroscience (01/2018)
• Kelly, S.M., He M./ Lee, J., Kim, Y., Gibb, L.G., Wu, P., Matho, K., Osten, P., Graybiel, A. M., and Huang, Z.J. (2018) Radial glial lineage progression and differential intermediate progenitor amplification underlie striatal compartments and circuit organization. Neuron. In Press
  • NSF Graduate Fellowship Awarded to Amalia Napoli, 2018
  • SBU Outstanding Undergraduate Biology Student Employee Award, 2018 Allen Chen (Ge lab)
  • Center for Inclusive Education Travel Award, 2018, Meagan Conner (Kritzer lab)
  • Society for Neuroscience Trainee Professional Development Award, 2018, Nicholas Gallo (Van Aelst lab)
  • NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service (NRSA) Predoctoral Fellowship, 2018, Nicholas Gallo (Van Aelst lab)
  • 2018, Dr. Lyl Tomlinson (Colognato lab), named AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the National Institutes of Health 
  • Society for Neuroscience, Neuroscience Scholar Program, 2018 , Sheed Itaman (Enikolopov lab)
  • SBU Department of Anesthesiology Academic Research Event Poster Award, 2018 Sheed Itaman (Enikolopov lab)
  • GSO Travel award, 2018, Mala Ananth (Role/Parsey labs)
  • GSO Travel award, 2018, Olivia Swanson (Maffei lab)
    
    
    
    

2017

• Congratulations to Arianna Maffei for being named Associated Editor of the Journal of Neuroscience (2017)
• Congratulations to Arianna Maffei for being named named as the Neurobiology & Behavior member of the Editorial Board of iScience, Cell Press' first interdisciplinary journal. (12/01/2017)
• Congratulations to Roberto Vincis (Fontanini lab) for his NIH award on the role of the mediodorsal thalamus in taste processing (10/30/2017)
• Congratulations to Luca Mazzucato (La Camera and Fontanini labs) for his new position as Assistant Professor at the University of Oregon (10/16/2017)
• 8th Annual Meeting of the Minds Symposium - STROKE was held on October 20, 2017 at the Charles B Wang Center. See Agenda and Speaker Bios.
• Kelvin Chan (Wollmuth Lab) awarded a NIH/NIMH NRSA F30 Fellowship (09/20/2017).
• Kelvin Chan (Wollmuth Lab) accepted into the FENS/CAJAL Advanced Neuroscience Training Programme in Bordeaux, France for "Ion Channels in the Brain in Health and Disease", September 4 - 22, 2017.
• Kelvin Chan (Wollmuth Lab) awarded a travel grant from Boehringer Ingelheim to attend the CAJAL training program in Bordeaux, France.
• Congratulations to Il Memming Park on his NSF award "NCS-FO: Connecting Spikes to Cognitive Algorithms" (8/10/2017)
• We were honored that Prof. Eve Marder, winner of the 2016 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience presented her recent work entitled: "Understanding Why Animals Show Variable Responses to Climate Change" for the 2017 MIND BRAIN LECTURE
• Our Celebration of Gary G. Matthews and His Science Symposium, June 2, 2017. 
  
  
  
  

2016

• The Department mourns the loss of colleague and friend, Leading Professor Gary G. Matthews (12/16/2016). Our tribute to Gary.  
• The 7th annual Meeting of the Minds symposium was held at the Charles B. Wang Center Theater at Stony Brook University on October 14, 2016 from 8 am to 1 pm on the topic of "Epilepsy". The keynote speaker was Jeffrey Noebels, MD, PhD, of Baylor College of Medicine who spoke on the role of genetics and alterations in brain circuitry on epilepsy. For further information on the Meeting of the Minds series please visit https://neuro.stonybrookmedicine.edu/motm.
• Congratulations to the Fontanini lab for their recent paper on cross-modal representations in gustatory cortex published in eLife (9/20/2016). Learn more.
• Congratulations to Gregory Kirschen (Ge Lab) for being awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein Individual Predoctoral NRSA F30 fellowship from NIH (9/9/2016)
• Congratulations to Raja Pillai (Parsey lab) for being awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein Individual Predoctoral NRSA F30 fellowship from NIMH (6/7/2016)
• Prof. Lorna Role has been named SUNY Distinguished Professor (5/10/2016)
• Lyl Tomlinson (Colognato lab), for being featured on an article of the Society for Neuroscience website focusing on their diversity efforts titled: Building and Expanding Networks for Young Scientists (5/6/2016) 
• Congratulations to Lorna Role and David Talmage's labs for the publication of their recent study published in Neuron on the role of cholinergic signaling on conditioned fear behavior and memory formation (5/5/2016). Learn more.
• Prof. Mary Kritzerhas been recognized by the School of Medicine for outstanding service to the students and faculty of the School of Medicine (5/2/2016)
• The Dept. of Neurobiology and Behavior hosted the 20th Anniversary Celebration of the Swartz Mind Brain Lecture featuring Alan Alda, Eric Kandel, and Jim Simons in a conversation on "Melding the Mind & Math: Brain Science, Past & Future"  (4/4/2016) - watch the video of the lecture.
• Congratulations to the Matthews lab for their recent paper on nanoscale dynamics of synaptic vesicle trafficking at the presynaptic active zone (eLife, 2/11/2016)
• Congratulations to Intel STS Semifinalists Matthew Sun (Thomas Jefferson HS for Science & Technology) & Michael Li (James M. Bennett High School; Park Lab) (1/2016)
• Luisa Le Donne (La Camera lab) has been accepted at the 2016 Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience Summer School, CHS-Asia, NYU-Shanghai campus, Shanghai, China 
• He.M.,  Tucciarone,J., Lee,S., Nigro, M.J., Kim, Y., Levine, J.M., Kelly, S.M., Krugikov, I., Wu, P., Chen, Y., et al (2016) Strategies and Tools for Combinatorial Targeting of GABAergic Neurons in Mouse Cerebral Cortex. Neuron 91,1228-1243
  
  

2015

• Lyl Tomlinson (Colognato Lab) has been awarded the NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service (NRSA) Predoctoral Fellowship, $98,788/3 years (2015-2017) from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
• Luisa Le Donne (La Camera lab) has been accepted at the 2016 Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience Summer School, CHS-Asia, NYU-Shanghai campus, Shanghai, China 
• Ikue Kusumoto-Yoshida, Haixin Liu, Billy T. Chen, Alfredo Fontanini, Antonello Bonci. Central role for the insular cortex in mediating conditioned responses to anticipatory cues. PNAS 112(4):1190-1195 (2015)
• Penzo M.A.R., Tucciarone V., De Bundel J., Wang D., Van Aelst M., Darvas L., Parada M., Palmiter L.F., He R.D., Huang M., Josh Z., and Li B. The paraventricular thalamus controls a central amygdala fear circuit. Nature (in press, 2015)
• Welcome to our new faculty member, Qiaojie Xiong (9/16/2015)
• Congratulations to Jesse Levine (Huang Lab) for being awarded an NIH Individual Fellowship for the 2015-2016 year (9/15/15)
• Congratulations to Prof. Lorne Mendell for being named a Fellow of the Americal Physiological Society Inaugural Class (9/1/2015)
• Congratulations to Prof. Josh Plotkin for being awarded the NARSAD Young Investigator Grant from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (8/3/2015)
• Welcome to our new faculty member, Joshua Plotkin (5/1/2015)
• Prof. Lorne Mendell has been appointed as Senior Editor for Neuroplasticity for the Oxford University Press Research Encyclopedia in Neuroscience (2015)
• Congratulations to Ashleigh Lussenden (Talmage Role Lab) for being awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (3/31/2015)
• Dr. Luca Mazzucato (La Camera-Fontanini labs) has received a travel award to present his work at the Computational and Systems Neuroscience Meeting (COSYNE*15) held annually in Salt Lake City (1/29/2015)
• Welcome to our new faculty member, Il Memming Park (1/21/2015)
• Congratulations to Jason Tucciarone (Huang Lab) for his published paper in Nature. More info here (1/21/2015)
• Scott Massa from Commack High School was chosen as Intel Finalist. Scott worked with Professors Lorna Role and David Talmage (read more) (1/20/2015)
  
  
  
  

2014

• Lyl Tomlinson has been accepted into the Society for Neuroscience's Neuroscience Scholar's Program (2014-2016) which provides free travel and housing for SfN meetings, as well as $1500 of enrichment funding each year.
• Ballinger, E., Cordeiro, L., Chavez, A., Hagerman, R. and Hessl, D. (2014) Emotion Potentiated Startle in Fragile X Syndrome. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 44(10), 2536-46.
• Congratulations to Haixin Liu (Fontanini lab) for his paper published in PNAS (12/12/2014)
• Prof. Lorna Role has been named a Reviewing Editor of eNEURO (11/1/2014)
• Prof. Lorne Mendell has been appointed to the International Science Advisory Council of Brain Canada (2014)
• Dr. Chad Samuelsen (Fontanini lab) has been awarded an R03 mentored award from NIH/NIDCD (10/1/2014)
• Dr. Luca Mazzucato (La Camera-Fontanini labs) has been awarded a K25 mentored award from NIH/NIDCD (7/14/2014)
• The Department of Neurobiology and Behavior launches a Master's Program in Neuroscience. With Prof. Howard Sirotkin as its first Director, the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior has launched the Neuroscience Master's Program. With research skills at the center of the program, the Master's is meant to integrate the existing Graduate Program in Neuroscience and offers wide flexibility to suit individual students' needs and career ambitions. (5/2014)
• Congratulations to Rashek Kazi (Wollmuth lab) for his paper published in Nature Neuroscience (5/25/2014)
• Congratulations to Thirumalini Vaithianathan and Gary Matthews for their recent paper on vesicle turnover and pool refilling at presynaptic active zones of ribbon synapses (PNAS, 4/24/2014)
• Dr. Chad Samuelsen (Fontanini lab) has been awarded the Polak Young Investigator Award by the Association for Chemoreception Sciences (AChemS) (4/2014)
• Congratulations to Lyl Tomlinson (Colognato lab) has won the National Famelab USA competition (4/2014)
• Eric Szelenyi (Osten Lab) for being awarded the 2014 President's Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student.
• Sneha Rao (Shelly Lab) has won the Best Poster Award for her work on "The Role of LKB1/STRAD in the Development of Adult Newborn Neurons in the Hippocampus" presented at the International Conference on: "Adult Neurogenesis - from Stem Cells to Therapies" held in Mumbai, India (2014).
• Lyl Tomlinson (Colognato lab) has won the National Famelab USA competition (April 2014).
• Ashleigh Lussenden (Talmage/Role Lab) for being awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (3/31/2015)
• Ariel Negron has been awarded an AGEP-T FRAME Research Grant Award (4/2015) 
• Ariel Negron selected an oral presentation at ENDO 2015 and received an Outstanding Abstract Award from the Endocrine Society (2015) 
• Ariel Negron (Acosta Martinez Lab) has been awarded the Turner Conference Travel Award to support his participation in the ENDO Conference (3/05/2015)
• Lyl Tomlinson (Colognato Lab) has received an AGEP-T FRAME Research Grant for his research project entitled "The Effect of Aerobic Exercise on Oligodendrocyte Precursor Development" (2014).
• Elizabeth Ballinger (Role Lab) has been awarded an NRSA, F30 from NIMH (01/09/2014)
  
  

2013

• Camilo Ferrer's paper in the December 12 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience selected for cover illustration (work with Enrico Nasi)
• Sean Kelly (Huang lab) has been awarded the NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service (NRSA) Predoctoral Fellowship, $140,346/3 years (2013-2016) from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
• Quan 'Alfred' Gan has been awarded the AHA Predoctoral Fellowship
• Jiook Cha was just selected to receive GSO's Distinguished Student Award for Spring 2013.
• Fu F, Tucciarone JM, Espinosa S, Sheng N, Darcy D, Nicoll RA, Huang ZJ, Stryker MP. A cortical circuit for gain control by behavioral state. Cell 156:1139-1152 (2013)
• JM Carlson, J Cha, E Harmon-Jones, LR Mujica-Parodi, G Hajcak, (2013) Influence of the BDNF Genotype on Amygdalo-Prefrontal White Matter Microstructure is Linked to Nonconscious Attention Bias to Threat. Cerebral Cortex [Epub ahead of print] Featured Article
• Griffen, T.C., Wang, L., Fontanini, A. & Maffei, A. (2013) Developmental regulation of spatio-temporal patterns of cortical ciruit activation. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience. 6:65. doi: 10.3389/fncel.2012.00065.
• Prof. Arianna Maffei has received a Whitehall Foundation Award (2013)
• Prof. Lorne Mendell has been re-appointed Chair of the New York Spinal Cord Injury Research Board  (Yearly Budget about $8M) (2013)
• Prof. Lorna Role has been invited to serve on the Steering Committee of the Simons Foundation Autism Emerging Concepts Lecture Series (2013)
• The Department of Neurobiology and Behavior opens the Thomas Hartman Center for Parkinson's Research. A substantial gift from the Thomas Hartman Foundation for Parkinson Research, that will be matched by the Simons Foundation, will fund an endowment in perpetuity to Name the Thomas Harman Center for Parkinson Research. "The Thomas Hartman Center in Parkinson Research will be housed in the University's nationally ranked Department of Neurobiology and Behavior. It will be a research intensive center in a Tier 1 Research institution and have the University's collaborative support and resources. The Thomas Hartman Center for Parkinson's Research will be dedicated solely to Parkinson's Research" (6/24/2013)
• Prof. Howard Sirotkin was named as a National Academies Education Fellow in the Life Sciences for the 2013-2014 academic year (6/2013)
• Dr. Ahmad Jezzini (Fontanini lab) has been awarded the Polak Young Investigator Award by the Association for Chemoreception Sciences (AChemS) (4/2013)
  
  
  
  

2012

• Schneider, A., Ballinger, E., Cordeiro, L., Chavez, A., Olichney, J., Niese, A., Hagerman, R., Hessl, D. (2012) Prepulse Inhibition in patients with Fragile X related Tremor and Ataxia. Neurobiology of Aging, 33(6), 1045-53.
• Prof. Lorne Mendell was selected to give the History of Neuroscience plenary lecture at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. The title of the lecture was: "The Emergence of Contemporary Pain Neuroscience" (10/2012)
• Prof. Giancarlo La Camera was named as a National Academies Education Fellow in the Life Sciences for the 2012-2013 academic year (6/2012)
  
  
  
  

2011

• Prof. Lorna Role was the organizer & Chair of the panel "Optogenetic dissection of cortico limbic functions and dysfunctions" at the 50^th anniversary meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) in Waikoloa, Hawaii (12/2011). Speakers: K. Diesseroth, L. Role, S. Ge and A. Graybiel. 
• Prof. Lorna Role was elected a Fellow of the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for her distinguished contributions in the field of Synaptic Neuroscience (2011)
• Prof. Lorna Role was the co-organizer with J. Fowler & S. Gary of the BNL, CSHL and SBU Symposium on Recent Advances in Neuroscience Research  (2011), a full day symposium at Stony Brook University with 250 attendees)
  
  
  
  

2010

• Prof. Paul Adams has been named Associate Editor for Frontiers in Neural Circuits (2010)
• Prof. Alfredo Fontanini was awarded the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2010 » more
• Prof. Lorna Role has been awarded the prestigious NIH Director's Pioneer Award for 2010-2015 » more
  
  
  
  

2009

• Prof. Alfredo Fontanini was awarded the Ajinomoto Award for Young Investigators in Gustation. The Award is awarded annually to an outstanding junior scientist who is an emerging leader in the field of gustation (2009)
• Prof. Gary Matthews received the Sixth Annual Sir Bernard Katz Award for Excellence in Research in Exocytosis and Endocytosis at the Biophysical Society meeting in Boston on February 28, 2009. His award lecture was entitled “Synaptic vesicle exocytosis and endocytosis at ribbon synapses.”  The Katz Award was named in honor of Sir Bernard Katz who observed (with Paul Fatt) spontaneous miniature synaptic currents and developed the “quantum hypothesis” that is the basis for our current understanding of neurotransmitter release as exocytosis, and for which he received the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology (with von Euler and Axelrod) in 1970. (2009)
• Prof. Arianna Maffei was Chair and spoke at the panel “A look into long term potential of GABAergic synapses” at the 2009 Winter Conference on Brain Research in Colorado from January 24 – 30.
• Prof. Alfredo Fontanini was Chair and spoke at the panel “Cognitive modulation of sensory processing” at the 2009 Winter Conference on Brain Research in Colorado from January 24 – 30.
• Prof. Lorna Role has been elected to serve on the Editorial Board of The Journal of Neuroscience (2009-2014)
• Prof. Lorna Role has been promoted to Fellow status in the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology for both her expanding scientific reputation and contributions to the College through committee work and involvement in the Annual Meeting (2009)
• Prof. Lorna Role has been invited to serve on the Scientific Review Board of the Simons Foundation for Autism Research (2009)
• Prof. Lorna Role has been invited to lecture as the 2009 Bauer Visiting Professor in Neuroscience at Brandeis University (1 week of lectures and guest teaching) (2009)
• Prof. Lorne Mendell has been appointed to serve on the Board of Directors of the Craig H. Neilsen Foundation. This Foundation has an endowment between $450 and $500M and awards about $25M annually for an array of projects related to spinal cord injury (2009)
• Prof. Lorna Role has been elected to serve on the Editorial Board of Frontiers in Neuroscience (2009)
• Prof. Lorna Role has been invited to give the 2009 Grass Lecture at the Vermont Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience (2009)
• Prof. Mary Kritzer was chosen as a "2009 Top Reviewer" for her exceptional contribution to the quality of the Journal Hormones and Behavior (2009)
• Prof. Alfredo Fontanini received a Klingenstein Fellowship Award (2009)
• Prof. Lorne Mendell has been appointed to serve on the London (UK) Pain Consortium Advisory Board (2009- 2014).
• Prof. Lorne Mendell, Chair of the Department from 1988 to 2006, for an international symposium held to honor his scientific contributions (6/2009) » more
  
  
  
  

2008

• Prof. Gary Matthews was awarded the 2008 Brian Boycott Prize at the July 2008 FASEB Conference on Retinal Neurobiology and Visual Processing (2008). He shared the prize with Masao Tachibana of the University of Tokyo. The Boycott Prize is awarded at this biennial conference to researchers who have made significant contributions to understanding the function of the retina, and it was given to Drs. Matthews and Tachibana for their work on synaptic processing by retinal bipolar neurons. The Boycott Prize is named in honor of Brian B. Boycott, FRS, who was a major figure in retinal research. Brian was a professor at University College, London for many years and also directed the famed MRC Biophysics Unit at King's College (succeeding Maurice Wilkins as director). Brian was an avid participant in the FASEB conference until his death in 2000.