Title: Amygdala projections to the pons promote motor programs of ingestionSpeaker Andrew Lutas, PhD Stadtman Investigator Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Obesity Branch, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health,Abstract Overconsumption of energy-dense, palatable food leads to obesity. We investigated neural circuit mechanisms that allow for the overconsumption of food despite visceral satiety signals. Hypothalamic and amygdala inhibitory circuits targeting the hindbrain can drive motor programs of ingestion. Here we focused on a projection from the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) to the pons region of the hindbrain, where CeA targets the parabrachial nucleus (PBN) that relays visceral sensory signals as well as the nearby premotor circuits that control orofacial behaviors. Using fiber photometry and two-photon microscopy, we recorded the activity of CeA GABAergic axons within the pons. These axons were highly active during bouts of ingestion, with activity levels correlated to the duration of each bout and did not dependent on physiological state or palatability, suggesting that this pathway modulates consummatory behaviors. Optogenetic activation of CeA to pons axons in head-fixed animals triggered distinct orofacial motor behaviors, including licking and biting, as well as excessive drinking of any available liquid, regardless of palatability. In freely moving, ad libitum-fed mice, photostimulation induced biting, chewing, and swallowing which led to overconsumption of food when the stimulation occurred nearby, but not away from, food. Recordings of dopaminergic input to the CeA suggest a role for dopamine in modulating these consumption-correlated neural activity. Together, these findings support a model that CeAàPons photostimulation enables a state of orofacial behavioral disinhibition that remains controlled by external and internal contextual cues.Bio Dr. Lutas is a Stadtman tenure-track investigator at NIH since 2022 where he is a member of the Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Obesity Branch and the acting chief of the Neuromodulation and Motivation Section. He received his PhD in Neurobiology from Harvard University, conducting his research with Dr. Gary Yellen. There he investigated the regulation of ion channels and neuronal excitability by cellular metabolism and found that the sodium leak channel NaLCN is regulated by glycolysis to control intrinsic spontaneous firing rates. For his postdoc research, he joined Dr. Mark Anderman at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center where he focused on amygdala cellular and circuit mechanisms for associative learning finding a role for unsigned dopamine signaling in learning salience. In the process, he helped develop new optical and behavioral approaches to study G Protein-Coupled Receptor signaling via the cAMP pathway. His lab at NIH now uses these molecular and system neuroscience tools to study amygdala and hindbrain circuits controlling ingestion.

Speakers: Deb Hughes Hallet (Harvard Kennedy School and University of Arizona)Title: Fostering engagement through interdisciplinary projects, collaborative teams, and scaffolded autonomy: Making math for everyone (and especially for engineers)Abstract: How do we approach students who do not see mathematics as useful? Who are afraid of it? This talk will describe how to we can engage them in quantitative thinking by “teaching backward”. Using examples, I will show how starting with stories, we can often get students to grab onto the mathematics. Then they may surprise themselves by how far they get.For more information on OLSUME: https://olsume.org/ Zoom link: https://cornell.zoom.us/j/92415199317, passcode olsume

Want to get exercise mid-day but don’t want to go outside? Join the tunnel walk for a 30-minute walk led by a volunteer through MIT’s famous tunnel system. This walk may include stairs/inclines. Wear comfortable shoes. Free.Location details: Meet in the lobby with the big mirror, right inside the Collier Memorial entrance to Stata. Location photo below.Tunnel Walk Leaders will have a white flag they will raise at the meeting spot for you to find them.Prize Drawing: Attend a walk and scan a QR code from the walk leaders to be entered into a drawing for a getfit tote bag at the end of the getfit challenge. The more walks you attend, the more entries you get. Winner will be drawn and notified at the end of April. Winner does not need to be a getfit participant.Disclaimer: Tunnel walks are led by volunteers. In the rare occasion when a volunteer isn’t able to make it, we will do our best to notify participants. In the event we are unable to notify participants and a walk leader does not show up, we encourage you to walk as much as you feel comfortable doing so. We recommend checking this calendar just before you head out! [As of Feb 12, this calendar is defaulting to the year 1899. Click "today" to be brought to the current month.]Getfit is a 12-week fitness challenge for the entire MIT community. These tunnel walks are open to the entire MIT community and you do not need to be a current getfit participant to join.

Speaker Noah Nathan will be presenting joint research conducted with Paige Bollen (Ohio State University).Abstract: The physical structures in which urban life occurs are an underappreciated determinant of how grassroots urban politics unfolds. In many rapidly growing cities, housing scarcity forces residents into multifamily buildings that create daily exposures to neighbors. We argue that these exposures affect political behavior by shaping residents’ access to political information and capacity for collective action. We focus on the informal, vernacular architecture of West Africa’s dominant urban housing form — the compound house. Compound house residents in urban Ghana participate more in politics than similar residents of other housing types. Leveraging an original survey, including novel measures of tenants’ spatial network centrality within their residential buildings, we suggest that key mechanisms for this relationship emerge from the effects of architectural design on visibility and social ties among co-tenants. Ultimately, built environments must be studied alongside demographic environments to best understand contextual effects on political behavior.Lunch will be available from 12:15pm. Please RSVP here.Speaker:Noah Nathan is an Associate Professor of Political Science at MIT. His research focuses on electoral politics, political economy, and urban politics in Africa. His most recent book, The Scarce State: Inequality and Political Power in the Hinterland (Cambridge University Press, 2023), explores long-term effects of state-building in the rural periphery on economic inequality, elite capture, clientelism, and violence. His first book, Electoral Politics and Africa’s Urban Transition: Class and Ethnicity in Ghana (Cambridge University Press, 2019), examined urbanization's impacts on ethnicity, clientelism, and the emergence of programmatic politics. Other research has been published in the American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, Annual Review of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, and World Politics. He received his PhD in Government at Harvard in 2016.Contact Kate Danahy at kdanahy@mit.edu with any questions.Join our mailing list here to learn about upcoming CIS Global Research & Policy Seminars.

MIT Free English Class is for international students, sholars, spouses. Twenty seven years ago we created a community to welcome the nations to MIT and assist with language and friendship. Join our Tuesday/Thursday conversation classes around tables inside W11-190.

The Chaplains invite you to take a brief pause for refreshments and conversation as you cross campus this month. Find us in the Stata Street on Tuesday afternoons. Look for the rocking chairs!