News, Updates, and Upcoming Events


Future Meetings and Seminars

  • Barbara will be attending SfN in Chicago, IL. Reach out if you would like to discuss research opportunities in the lab.

  • Barbara will be presenting the lab's work "Sexually Divergent Behavioral and Activation Profiles of Midbrain Dopamine Neurons after Fentanyl Exposure" during Monday's poster session.

Past Meetings and Seminars

  • Krystal Flores-Felix presented her work, “Effects of fentanyl on VTA dopamine neurons and in opioid associative learning using conditioned place preference in mice “ at INRC in Ann Arbor, MI! . Find out more about the meeting here.

  • Barbara helped co-organize the next IDARS conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Find out more about the exciting schedule here.

  • Barbara visited Penn State College of Medicine to present the lab’s work: “Mechanisms of dopamine neuron activity regulation for reward processing”.

  • Barbara attended the Cure Addiction Now Foundation’s Spring Symposium and For min Los Angeles, California. Find out more here: https://cureaddictionnow.org/forum/

  • Barbara talked about her scientific journey as an underrepresented minority and her lab’s work “Determining the neural circuit basis of opioid use disorders” as part of the Perspectives n Neuroscience Seminar Series and theSeminar Outreach for Minority Advocacy (SOMA) Seminar Series

  • Barbara described her lab’s work on “Determining the neural circuit basis of opioid use disorders”.

  • Barbara gave a talk on the ab’s work, “Determining the neural circuit basis of opioid use disorders”

  • Barbara presented a poster on the lab’s work “Dissecting Ventral Midbrain Dopamine Neuron Heterogeneity to Opioid Reward”.

  • Barbara presented about CRISPR strategies to investigate neural circuit function as part of the SfN minisymposium “Current Status and Future Strategies for Advancing Functional Circuit Mapping In Vivo”.

  • Barbara presented her work at the Neuroscience Seminar Series at Michigan State University.

  • Barbara will be presenting her findings during the Cure Addiction Now Fall Symposium and speaking on the Forum. Find out more about the goals of this foundation here.

  • Barbara presented her work on ion channel regulation of cellular excitability and reinforcement learning at the GRC Catecholamines meeting in Barcelona, Spain.

  • Barbara presented her work, “Dissecting physiology and function of the parabrachial nucleus during opioid withdrawal“ at the Annual INRC meeting in Atlanta, GA.

  • Barbara presented her work, “Gene-editing Approaches to Understand Neurophysiological Function and Behavior ” at UMB’s NAPPS series.

  • Barbara was selected to present her research “Determining Parabrachial Nucleus Physiology and Function During Naloxone-Precipitated Opioid Withdrawal” at ACNP. Find out more about the meeting here: ACNP Annual Meeting 2022

    This work was funded by the Cure Addiction Now Young Investigator Award.

  • Barbara presented a poster, “Dissecting opioid-sensitivity of ventral tegmental area dopamine subpopulations “, at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego, CA. Find out more about the meeting here: Society for Neuroscience Meeting 2022

  • Barbara spoke at the Gordon Research Conference on Alcohol and the Nervous System in the Panel on “Gene-editing Approaches to Understand Neuronal and Circuit Function.” Find out more here: Neurobiology of Alcohol Use Disorder and CNS Comorbidities

  • Barbara spoke in a panel about her research on how subpopulations of midbrain dopamine neurons respond to opioids “VTA dopamine neuron heterogeneity and morphine”. Find out more here: IDARS 2022 Meeting

  • Barbara will be presented her current findings “Resolving the complexity of dopamine-mediated behaviors and activity states” for the Mount Sinai Neuroscience Seminar Postdoctoral Seminar Series in New York City.

  • Barbara presented a poster and talk entitled “Leveraging CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technologies to determine the regulators of dopamine physiology and behavior“ at the Dopamine Society conference in Montreal.