Congratulations to Professor Paul Forlano of the Biology Department, who received a three-year NIH R15 grant for his work titled “Hormonal and acoustic regulation of the dopaminergic auditory efferent system: improving detection of social acoustic signals at the level of the inner ear.” This award is for $462,160 and runs from May 2022 through April 2025. In addition to his new grant, Professor Forlano published three peer-reviewed manuscripts and presented his group’s work at four conferences during the 2021–22 academic year (listed below). His publications and presentations frequently involve the participation of high school, undergraduate and graduate students. In terms of service, Forlano has also served on the Editorial Board of Brain, Behavior and Evolution (2022–) and as a review panelist for the NSF IOS-Neural Systems. Finally, his undergraduate research assistant—biology major Rivkah Hornbacher—was accepted into a number of top Ph.D. programs in neuroscience and is currently a Ph.D. student student at Brown University. Congratulations to Professor Forlano! Publications Perelmuter, J.T. (Ph.D.), Hom, K.N. (Ph.D.), Mohr, R.A., Demis, L. (UG), Kim, S.D. (UG), Chernenko, A. (UG), Timothy, M., Middleton, M., Sisneros, J.A., Forlano, P.M. 2021. “Testosterone treatment mimics seasonal downregulation of dopamine innervation in the auditory system of female midshipman fish.” Integrative and Comparative Biology. 61:269–282. doi: 10.1093/icb/icab0702. Chagnaud, B.P., Perelmuter, J.T. (Ph.D.), Forlano, P.M., and Bass, A.H. 2021. “Gap junction-mediated glycinergic inhibition ensures precise temporal patterning in vocal behavior.” eLife. 10:e59390. doi:10.7554/eLife.59390. Ghahramani, Z.N. (Ph.D.), Perelmuter, J.T. (Ph.D.), Varughese, J. (UG), Kyaw, P. (UG), Palmer, W.C., Sisneros, J.A., and Forlano, P.M. 2022. “Activation of noradrenergic locus coeruleus and social behavior network nuclei varies with duration of male midshipman advertisement calls.” Behavioural Brain Research. 423:113745. doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2022.113745. Conferences Perelmuter, J.T. (Ph.D.), Sisneros, J.A., and Forlano, P.M. 2021. “Dopamine seasonally modulates adaptive sensitivity of the inner ear for reproductive communication in a vocal fish.” Invited speaker for Symposium: Sending and Receiving Signals: Endocrine Modulation of Social Communication, Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, Virtual. Perelmuter, J.T. (Ph.D.), Ali, H.(UG), Zerner, C. (HS), Izraelov, Y. (UG), Etouni, A. (UG), and Forlano, P.M. 2022. “Seasonal synaptic changes in the inner ear and auditory efferent system of a vocal fish.” Association for Research in Otolaryngology MidWinter Meeting, Virtual. Forlano, P.M. 2022. “Dopaminergic auditory efferents: a role for enhanced detection of social acoustic signals at the level of the inner ear.” Invited speaker, Auditory Systems Gordon Research Conference, Smithfield, Rhode Island. Hom, K.N. (Ph.D.), Hornbacher, R. (UG), Arshad, A. (UG), Lawrence, A. (UG), and Forlano, P.M. 2022. “Anthropogenic ship noise alters dopamine synthesis in the auditory efferent system of Opsanus tau (Oyster toadfish). Conference on Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life, Berlin.
