Josh Johansen
Japan based neuroscientist, Team Director at RIKEN Center for Brain Science, studying the neural basis of emotional learning & memory, adventure cyclist
- Reposted by Josh Johansen1/n. I agree w/ Josh's emphasis on computationally grounded approaches, coordinated x-species work, and skepticism that emotion only encompasses constructed feelings. As he notes, hierarchical frameworks can encompass multiple levels of processing,
- My perspective in @thetransmitter.bsky.social on why emotion research feels stuck and how we might move forward—by focusing on how the brain uses internal brain models to shape emotional processing across species. www.thetransmitter.org/emotion/why-...
- My perspective in @thetransmitter.bsky.social on why emotion research feels stuck and how we might move forward—by focusing on how the brain uses internal brain models to shape emotional processing across species. www.thetransmitter.org/emotion/why-...
- Grateful to @emilysingerneuro.bsky.social for excellent editorial guidance on this piece.
- Reposted by Josh JohansenOur new paper is out in Science Advances! We found that dendritic compartment-specific spine “formation” during adolescence is critical for cortical development. We also found that schizophrenia-related genes are important in this process. (1/6) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
- Reposted by Josh Johansen🎉 Great news! IBRO is pleased to introduce the Scientific Program Committee for the IBRO 2027 World Congress, led by Drs. Sheena Josselyn and Thiruma V. Arumugam 🔗 Discover the full committee & read the announcement: ow.ly/p37U50XTXqN
- New paper from @ykneurores.bsky.social in our lab 📢 We show body size predicts defensive behavioral strategy; smaller animals adopt active avoidance, larger ones favor freezing, while sex and age don’t drive the effect. A clear demonstration that traits matter. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Reposted by Josh JohansenExcited to be working with colleagues around the world (including @drjkhokhar.bsky.social @jojolab.bsky.social and CHAIR @sjo09.bsky.social) on the @ibroorg.bsky.social World Congress in Cape Town, 2027! ibro.org/ibro-announc...
- Reposted by Josh JohansenThrilled this is out, led by former PD Cameron Ogg (now with her own lab at @rhodescollege.bsky.social!). It was a driven by a desire to see, in real-time, how LC activity/NE release influences downstream targets in behaving animals. SO hard to do, but Cameron did it! www.cell.com/cell-reports...
- Reposted by Josh JohansenA growing list of medications—such as zuranolone for postpartum depression, suzetrigine for pain, and the gepants class of migraine medicines—exist because of insights from basic research, writes @alexkwan.bsky.social. www.thetransmitter.org/drug-develop... #neuroskyence
- If you're at @sfn.org check out @ykneurores.bsky.social's poster on Tuesday Nov 18th morning! EE4 - A functional input-output organization in the amygdala for emotional learning and memory
- Next Tuesday!:🧠📷 Join us for the Japan Neuroscience Global Soirée-#SfN2025 Social! 📷7–9 PM 📷 Protector Brewery: San Diego craft beer, food (free while supplies last) & lively discussions! 📷 RSVP (optional): evite.me/pAvuVkpqbK 🍻
- 🧠🍺 Join us for the Japan Neuroscience Global Soirée-#SfN2025 Social! 📅 Tue, Nov 18 | 🕖 7–9 PM 📍 Protector Brewery: maps.app.goo.gl/Z4hmQnLSDjwZ... San Diego craft beer, great food (free while supplies last) & lively discussions! 🔗 RSVP (optional): evite.me/pAvuVkpqbK All welcome—spread the word! 🍻
- Reposted by Josh JohansenExcited to share the latest from the lab on the molecular mechanisms of silencing and un-silencing a hippocampal engram ensemble. Was fun using a variant of the EPSILON technique developed by Adam Cohen's lab. (1/2) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Reposted by Josh JohansenNew paper from the lab 🚨 Led by Ali Golbabaei, this study explores the how the composition of prefrontal cortical engrams changes with memory age: authors.elsevier.com/a/1lzT-3BtfH...
- Congrats Jun!!
- Just out in Nature! “The astrocytic ensemble acts as a multiday trace to stabilize memory.” We identified astrocytic ensembles that link experiences across days to stabilize memory nature.com/articles/s41.... New astrocyte tools are openly available at Addgene: addgene.org/Jun_Nagai/. 1/8
- A fascinating paper from Hokto Kazama's lab draws upon the fly connectome and large scale recordings to show how olfactory valence is encoded in distinct neurons in the lateral horn (drosophila amygdala) through labeled lines and biased feedforward inhibition www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Reposted by Josh JohansenExcited to share that I landed my dream job!🎉🎉🎉 The Pennington Lab will be opening at the University of British Columbia in January 2026! @ubcpsych.bsky.social @dmcbrainhealth.bsky.social
- Reposted by Josh JohansenA spatially resolved transcriptomic atlas of the primate amygdala (human, macaque, and baboon) now out in Science Advances (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...). The amygdala contains 32 types of neurons with many neuron types specific to particular subdivisions. Lots of updates from the preprint!
- Reposted by Josh JohansenExcited to share our latest paper - now out in @science.org - we showed how oxytocin modulates maternally-directed behavior in young mice (P15).
- Reposted by Josh JohansenMy new essay for @thetransmitter.bsky.social. Why is understanding emotion so challenging? The debates around what counts as an "emotion" shed insight. These disputes are multidimensional, principled and fascinating. Here, I unpack them. www.thetransmitter.org/the-big-pict...
- Reposted by Josh JohansenPlease RP. We are thrilled to announce that our lab’s first preprint is out! ”Whole-genome single-cell multimodal history tracing to reveal cell identity transition” We report HisTrac-seq, a multiomic single-cell molecular recording platform. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reposted by Josh JohansenFinally it's out! www.nature.com/articles/s41... How flexible are essential innate behaviours and their underlying neural circuits? @felixbaier.bsky.social & I, with Hopi Hoekstra and @farrowlab.bsky.social, addressed this by studying the #evolution of threat avoidance in Peromyscus mice.
- Reposted by Josh JohansenWe have an open position for a Scientist I at the Allen Institute for Neural Dynamics. Come join our exciting research environment @alleninstitute.org. Please share! alleninstitute.org/careers/jobs...
- Reposted by Josh Johansen(more news) New paper just published! Prefrontal representations of social and emotional information generalize across contexts (even though ensembles for socioemotional + contextual information are highly overlapping): www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Josh JohansenNoradrenaline and microglia maintain plasticity-rigidity balance to safeguard rapid emotional learning in the prefrontal cortex biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
- Reposted by Josh JohansenOur work with Pablo Tano, @hyunggoo-kim.bsky.social Athar Malik, Alexandre Pouget and @naoshigeuchida.bsky.social exploring how dopamine neurons could enable multi-timescale reinforcement learning in the brain is out in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Josh JohansenCongratulations to our Human Neural Circuitry team; bit.ly/4dEyX7Z publishes today in Science! This was the hardest challenge of my career, but one of the most rewarding, after years of rebuilding– & expanding my inpatient neuropsychiatry in the service of basic discovery bsky.app/profile/deis...
- Reposted by Josh Johansen📣 #SfN25 abstract submission is now open! Share your research with the global neuroscience community. Start now to avoid the last-minute rush! 🔗 bit.ly/3G5vEde #NeuroSky #AcademicChatter
- Reposted by Josh JohansenSharing a new paper from the lab. This paper, led by Sangyoon Ko, represents a merging of two longstanding research themes in the lab-- adult neurogenesis and systems consolidation. rdcu.be/el18q A short thread follows for those interested. 1/n
- I’m excited to share a new paper from the lab. The study led by Xiaowei Gu reveals how the mPFC encodes complex emotional memories, using an internal model to infer emotional associations and memories via projections to the amygdala. a🧵(1/8) rdcu.be/el19t
- Emotions are rich and complex, often arising from internal brain models which evaluate situations in the context of our life experience. While we understand simple forms of emotional learning involving areas like amygdala, the mechanisms of complex emotions are unclear. (2/8)
- We used longitudinal miniscope calcium imaging and optogenetics to examine whether and, if so, how prelimbic mPFC neurons encode internal models of emotion which reflect sensory-sensory associations and their direct or indirect relationship with an aversive experience (3/8)
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View full threadThese findings reveal a neural coding and circuit-based mechanism for model-based emotional processing in dmPFC, opening a new path for emotion research and establishing a conceptual framework for studying the brain mechanisms of higher order emotions in health and disease. (8/8)
- Reposted by Josh JohansenOur paper is out in Nature. By examining various inputs to the motor cortex during learning, we found that thalamic inputs learn to activate the cortical neurons encoding the movement being learned. Tour de force by Assaf in collab with Felix and Marcus. Congrats! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Josh JohansenPleased to share the final published version of @glopez.bsky.social's work in @currentbiology.bsky.social! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... "Region-specific nucleus accumbens dopamine signals encode distinct aspects of avoidance learning" Congrats, Gaby!!!
- Reposted by Josh JohansenOur new paper is out in Science. What is the synaptic plasticity rule in the brain, we asked. It turns out there are multiple, even within individual neurons. Congrats Jake! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
- Reposted by Josh JohansenThanks to all who contributed to the special issue of Cerebral Cortex honoring my career academic.oup.com/cercor/issue...
- Reposted by Josh JohansenHow do we associate the flavors we experience during a meal 🍽️😋 with postingestive effects like food poisoning 🤢🤮 that arise much later? Our answer in @nature.com this week: Illness signals from the gut reactivate and strengthen flavor representations in the amygdala. 📄: nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Josh JohansenOur new paper. Prospective contingency explains behavior and dopamine signals during associative learning. Collaboration with @neurovenki.bsky.social , @gershbrain.bsky.social rdcu.be/ed1na
- Reposted by Josh Johansenwww.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... "Advances in neurotechnologies... are transforming neuroscience... A recent meeting highlighted the resulting challenges in global collaboration ... emphasizing the need for ... diagnosing and treating brain disorders." - co-authored by yours truly 🧠📈 🧠💻
- Check out a new lab paper from Mayumi Watanabe's thesis work showing how different subregions of medial prefrontal cortex differentially regulate extinction of aversive memories through projections to the locus-coeruleus-noradrenaline system: doi.org/10.1038/s413...
- The first paper from Akira Uematsu's lab (first author @moon240.bsky.social)!: molecularbrain.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.... And check out his lab website: www.uematsu-lab.com/research/
- Reposted by Josh JohansenGroundbreaking work by Dr. Soohyun Lee from the National Institute of Mental Health at NIH The brilliant young scientist faces termination. Science like this leads to discoveries that can revolutionize how we understand the brain. doi.org/10.1038/s415... #neuroscience #neuroskyence
- Reposted by Josh JohansenCalling all amygdaloids!!! The #AmygdalaGRC is coming up this summer in Barcelona. We’ve got talks, posters, networking, power hour, and tons of fun planned. 👀 the program 👇🏻 We’re accepting folks on a rolling basis, apply soon to make sure you get a spot: www.grc.org/amygdala-fun...
- Reposted by Josh Johansen🚨📃New Wassum Lab Paper📃🚨 Out today, @jackiegio.bsky.social discovered brain pathways that support agency and habit and how chronic stress disrupts them to rob of us our agency and cause us to form rigid habits 🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41... Free full text: rdcu.be/eaxEv
- Reposted by Josh JohansenJapan can be a science heavyweight once more — if it rethinks funding Research leaders call for an end to substantial underfunding of interdisciplinary research in Japan. On my current visit to 🇯🇵 I can see the country is ready for a change #japan #academicSky 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...
- We are happy to have contributed to this exciting paper from Yoshi Saito and Masa Murayama on a distributed circuit mechanism for emotional enhancement of perceptual memory www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
- Reposted by Josh JohansenAn interesting review proposing a model in which amygdala intercalated cells form a key system for integrating divergent inputs and orchestrating brain-wide circuits to generate behavioral states attuned to current environmental circumstances and internal needs. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Josh JohansenI'm struck by how grad students in psych and neuro programs aren't generally expected to know basic facts about animal learning. For the psychologists, it has an odor of behaviorism, and for the neuroscientists it has an odor of psychology. Yet it's so fundamental (in my view).
- Check out our pre-print from Xiaowei Gu! It shows how the medial prefrontal cortex encodes an internal model of emotional associations which can be used for inference biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
