Results of a new study by neuroscientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst suggest that a new treatment approach is needed – and how this may be possible – to address adverse effects of aromatase inhibitors, drugs commonly prescribed to both men and women to prevent recurrence of estrogen-positive breast cancer.

Neuroscientists Agnès Lacreuse, Luke Remage-Healey and their graduate students at UMass Amherst, collaborator Jessica Mong at the University of Maryland and first author Nicole Gervais worked together on this research. Gervais, who conducted the experiments as a postdoctoral researcher at UMass Amherst, is now at the University of Toronto. The authors studied a small group of aged male and female marmosets, non-human primates whose brains are much like humans’ and which exhibit “complex behavior,” senior author Lacreuse explains. (Read more)

The Neuroscience and Behavior Graduate Program welcomes four new Assistant Professors. They epitomize the diversity of backgrounds and approaches in the Neurosciences. Two of the faculty members are in Biology, one in Psychological Brain Sciences, and one in Communication Disorders. Each of them is recruiting PhD students for the coming year.  Read More.

The 4-year, $2.4 million NIH grant will allow Bittman to determine the sequence of duper, a mutation that speeds up the circadian clock and dramatically reduces jet lag by affecting the function of a master pacemaker in the hypothalamus. Millions of Americans work shift schedules, and most of us have experienced the disorientation that occurs when we travel across multiple time zones. Such abrupt shifts of the biological clock aggravate many diseases. The new grant will allow the Bittman lab  to determine how the duper mutation alters the brain's clock. In addition, Bittman will use the duper mutant to determine whether phase shifts per se, or the internal desynchronization of multiple clocks throughout the body, are responsible for the adverse health effects of jet lag. The work is done in collaboration with John Hogenesch (Cincinnati Children's Hospital).

Rebecca Spencer of the Psychological and Brain Sciences Department  is investigating how Slow-wave sleep (SWS) may contribute to emotional memory processing in children, as was recently highlighted in an article in the BBC. Read more