Drew Fox 🦊

If we give up on the idea that there are discrete mental disorders as natural entities to be “discovered” and accept that we are dealing with a messy, dimensional landscape of psychopathology that can be mapped in many different ways, there is no problem at all with the idea that we can classify and map this landscape in different and better ways than the psychopathologists and nosologists of the past.

1/18: Well, after 23 years as faculty at Harvard and almost 15 years of amazing collaborations, collegiality and growth at McLean Hospital, today I officially start at @UCIrvine, where I will be the founding director of a new depression

Here's the thing. We have **NO IDEA** how to pick good graduate students. I served on admission committees for 10+ years, and chaired a few, and what I learned is that all the spreadsheets of grades and test scores and recommendations and essays and publications and interview rubrics are just an elaborate ruse to pretend we know what we're doing when we simply don't. Many of the most highly ranked applicants to our "top" program flamed out quickly, and tons of the students we summarily rejected have turned into amazing scientists. But in the name of creating meritocratic seeming rankings that are more about creating a workforce than great scientists (a system that anyone paying attention knows is bullshit), we've created a homogenous process adopted by nearly all institutions that has stamped out the one thing we should be striving for - given our lack of any clear understanding of what leads to success - a wide range of difference talents and experiences.

qPCR can measure expression of virtually any gene... in homogenized tissues. Here, we show an "in-vivo qPCR" equivalent, where we measure a sequence-specific transcript with synthetic serum markers and enzyme-based signal amplification. biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

Our new paper: Translational Insights From Cell Type Variation Across Amygdala Subnuclei in Rhesus Monkeys and Humans. (Summary to below; 1/6) psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/ap…

Finally, we searched for receptors that are enriched on these putative anxiety-related intercalated cells that lie along the border of the central nucleus of the amygdala. Excitingly, we found a receptor that might be explored for the development of new treatments: NPFFR2. 6/6

An examination of relative enrichment of genes that have been implicated in amygdala-related disorders in humans. We were somewhat surprised to identify intercalated cells as enriched for genes associated with neuroticism and anxiety disorders. 5/6

Link to paper: cpsyjournal.org/articles/10.53… Led by Dan Holley, with help from Erica Varga and @ErieBoorman

Check out our new paper on *why* uncertainty might make us anxious. ucdavis.edu/news/how-uncer…

April 19th/20th is Give Day at UC Davis! CNPRC is participating in this campus wide event to raise money for new research projects focused on women's health. Help us meet our challenge goal by donating here: lnkd.in/gcKize3b

@ajshackman @martinowk @PessoaBrain @superkash @The_Fadoktor @StephenMaren @AllenNeuroLab This sounds interesting. We’re working with snRNA-seq and rnascope in rhesus and human amygdala. Love to chat. 😊

So how are those plans to set up a Center to link rodent and human work on fear, threat, anxiety, depression, development and lots more? A Conte Center?? Just wondering how plans are going :-) @ajshackman @superkash @The_Fadoktor @StephenMaren @AllenNeuroLab @martinowk

Check this out! @EricJNestler and I co-edited this PNAS special issue: The Neurobiology of Stress: Vulnerability, Resilience, and Major Depression | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences pnas.org/topic/558

Riding the ACNP twitter wave, check out my new paper which includes the bulk of my thesis work in this amazing special issue. If you like nonhuman primate transcriptomics (including some single cell!), anxious temperament or me, this one is for you!

@CarlosEAlvare17 @ajshackman Could be. The utility will depend on the conservation of the underlying mechanism, and homology of the phenotype. It is most certainly a viable strategy that is worth pursuing. :-)

@ajshackman @foxdotdrew The goal is to reduce human suffering and ideally cure diseases. If we learn the associated physiology, great. My suggestion of dog breed translational models is akin to isolated human populations with common large-effect variations in shared physiology/pathways. No?

@ajshackman That may be true, but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Self-report will always have limitations, and we have no consensus on what behavioral phenotypes would lead to this level of success. My hunch is that we are further from that than you might think…