News, Updates, and Upcoming Events


Future Meetings and Seminars

  • Krystal Flores-Felix will be presenting as part of a panel at the annual INRC meeting in Bologna, Italy. Find out more here

  • Bridget Asare-Owusu and Isaiah Williamson will be presenting posters at the 2025 Gordon Research Conference on Amygdala Function in Emotion, Cognition and Disease in Barcelona, Spain. Find out more here

Past Meetings and Seminars

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

  • Barbara attended SfN in Chicago, IL.

  • 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.