Proteomic Characterization of Striatal Neurabin Interactome and Its Sex Specific Impact on Motor Behavior The striatum serves as the primary input nucleus of the basal ganglia. Reversible protein phosphorylation in the post synaptic density (PSD) of medium spiny neurons (MSNs) modulates inputs from striatal afferents. The context dependent regulation of PSD protein phosphorylation in direct-pathway medium spiny neurons (dMSNs) and indirect-pathway medium spiny neurons (iMSNs) works to differentially and synergistically impact striatal physiology and the execution of motor programs. An important regulator of PSD protein phosphorylation is protein phosphatase 1 (PP1), which obtains substrate specificity through the action of PP1 targeting proteins. While prior work has demonstrated the global and cell type-specific impact of the PP1 targeting protein, spinophilin, on striatal motor behaviors like the accelerating rotarod task and amphetamine sensitization, the role of its homologue, neurabin, is yet to be elucidated. Using proteomics approaches, we determined that striatal neurabin associates with pre and postsynaptic proteins that mediate glutamatergic synapse function. Moreover, we found that global loss of neurabin enhanced rotarod motor learning but had no impact on amphetamine sensitization. Interestingly, using novel conditional neurabin knockout mouse lines, we found that loss of neurabin in dMSNs, but not iMSNs, enhanced performance on the accelerating rotarod task and that these effects were specific for male mice. These data highlight neurabin’s particular importance to the striatal glutamatergic synapse and uncover a sex and cell type specific role for this synaptic protein in uniquely limiting skill motor learning but not psychomotor sensitization.

Excited to share publication news for the lab. Our latest work describing a novel conditional neurabin knockout mouse line is available ASAP in ACS Chemical Neuroscience. Open Access version can be found here: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/....

Just make sure to add a plaque with wizard of oz quote “No one gets to see the wizard, no way, no how” whilst wearing it

Status of grant is "competitive - not discussed"

for those in my boat, the designation has changed on my grant from yesterday to this new pergatory

Grant reviewed on Wednesday updated from Not Discussed to "Competitive-not discussed". I think in top half, but not top ~30%. A0 submission, so that is something. Hope that comments are addressable when I get summary statement. Looks like others like @nanopharmnc.bsky.social are in a similar boat

It is a weird time to try to stay afloat as a scientist especially since now we can only submit 6 NIH grants a year.

Now have to wait for summary statements to contact the PO for my 28th percentile and also to figure out which path is best moving forward on the other NDs. I do have 1 for next cycle to be reviewed and one I am working on for a February submission.

The 4th of my 4 grants this review round got a not discussed today. Glad I got at least 1 that got a 28th percentile, and will see how that goes, but I thought that at least one of my others would also have been discussed.

Ugh. I had 3 NDs this cycle. I did have my A1 to NIGMS get a 28th percentile, so that is something. But have to see if they are interested in funding it as I don’t know their interests as well as the neuro institutes

I’m sorry Zoe, that sucks. I totally feel ya. I just got another ND (MCNP). Also you never know if your ND would have been discussed if they had the full 2 days. It’s such a frustrating time.

Had 2 grants reviewed this week. One ND and one 28th percentile. At least one was discussed and it was at NIGMS With the new system and given that NIGMS didn’t exclusively use percentiles previously anyway, will see if it has any chance. One more grant getting reviewed this week.

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Also, with the new formatting of no paylines and with institutes being able to take what they want, if I do get a good score, who knows about funding. The uncertainty makes things even more difficult and it felt near impossible before. Wish me luck.

Two grants getting reviewed this week and one next week. I have had to wait almost a year for some of these to get reviewed as they were submitted as part of an at risk mechanism, which was removed when they were sent. I hope to get a good score, or at least discussed, but who knows.

Striatal spinophilin enhances D2R interaction with cytosolic proteins to mediate persistent D2R agonist-induced locomotor suppression Loss of dopamine neurons in Parkinson disease (PD) leads to motor deficits. Dopamine D2 receptor (D2R) agonists treat PD-associated motor deficits by acting on postsynaptic receptors located within th...

jpet.aspetjournals.org/article/S002...

Excited to share our work on spinophilin and the dopamine D2 receptor is in press at the Journal for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. Great work by Basant Hens and @fireinlab.bsky.social and Whitney Smith-Kinneman in the proteomics core. Support from #SNRI and #BMBP at #IUSM

Just saw my grant in commons that was supposed to be reviewed a month ago was rescheduled to December. Hopefully it is in the top 30% or whatever that gets
Discussed. It is listed as a 2 day study section but I thought some study sections are going down to 1 day which is why they change triage line?

I got an email about my study section as well but didn’t say anything about different cutoff. However mine is a fellowship study section so may be different.

Chair of Pharmacology and Toxicology - Salt Lake City, Utah job with The University of Utah | 37914733 The University of Utah seeks a Chair of Pharmacology and Toxicology

After 10 years, I am stepping down as chair of our department and we have an active search going on! Utah is a phenomenal place to live and work and it's been the honor of a lifetime chairing the department founded by Lou Goodman. #MedSky #Neuroskyence Repost!

jobs.chronicle.com/job/37914733...

Congrats Karen, I know you will be missed as chair. Best of luck in whatever your future endeavors are.

Me too. MCNP. Sigh. I’m supposed to chair F03B in early November. We will see if/when that happens

The newest preprint from the Baucum lab is out. Check it out :).

It was great seeing you Zoe, even if only briefly.

Striatal spinophilin enhances D2R interaction with cytosolic proteins to mediate persistent D2R agonist-induced locomotor suppression. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.09.675136v1

Excited to share our new preprint led by Basant Hens. Great thanks to co-authors @fireinlab.bsky.social and Whitney Smith-Kinnaman.

I got another ND on my NIH grant. While it’s hard to be too frustrated with the current state of things, this one was super frustrating as scored last time and thought the idea was much stronger and addressed the critiques well from the last round.

Congratulations.

Nice. I have some homemade pastrami in my freezer I brought in for you. Gave one to Travis today.

Looks EXCELLENT. But why not two of them (twins)

👇🏻👇🏻

3 of 4 R01s in limbo as pulled from study section and the one that was actually reviewed was not discussed. Sigh.