Takayuki Yamashita

Stress-impaired reward pathway promotes distinct feeding behavior patterns

This study shows that psychosocial stress alters feeding behavior patterns in mice through disruptions in the mesolimbic dopamine system, suggesting these patterns could serve as biomarkers for stress and neuropsychiatric disorders.

NMDAR Phosphoproteome Controls Synaptic Growth and Learning

The paper identifies a phosphorylation pathway initiated by NMDARs that regulates synaptic growth and learning through a cascade involving CaMKII, ARHGEF2, Rho-kinase, and SHANK3.

Interareal synaptic inputs underlying whisking-related activity in the primary somatosensory barrel cortex

The paper inhibits interareal inputs to the whisker primary somatosensory cortex during whisking and finds that inputs from the thalamus and secondary somatosensory cortex, not the motor cortex, drive neuronal activity changes.

Neural mechanisms underlying uninstructed orofacial movements during reward-based learning behaviors.

This study identifies neural mechanisms for uninstructed orofacial movements during reward-based learning in mice, showing distinct roles of dopamine and motor cortex circuits.

Remote control of neural function by X-ray-induced scintillation

This paper demonstrates the use of X-ray-induced scintillation to remotely control neural function in mice, achieving bidirectional modulation of behavior through optogenetic activation and inhibition.