Rachel Essner

Rachel Essner

@rachelessner.bsky.social

Neuroscientist 🧠. Runner 🏃🏻‍♀️. PhD from Harvard PiN. Williams College '16

61 followers30 following8 posts

Rachel Essner
@rachelessner.bsky.social

I'm thrilled to share the published version of our paper, now officially out in Neuron! Read it here: authors.elsevier.com/c/1no8J3BtfH... One updated highlight: with new analyses we now show how functionally-defined groups of neurons putatively overlap with molecular cell types in LPBN

Rachel Essner@rachelessner.bsky.social

I’m so excited to share our preprint on how brainstem neurons sense and integrate multiple body signals during food consumption. We imaged 1000s of neurons across the lateral parabrachial nucleus (LPBN) in behaving mice. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

biorxiv.orgBrainstem sensing of multiple body signals during food consumptionStudies of body-to-brain communication often examine one stimulus or organ at a time, yet the brain must integrate many body signals during behavior. For example, food consumption generates diverse or...
Rachel Essner
@rachelessner.bsky.social

3/ Indeed, by imaging the same neurons across days, we found that Late Ensure neurons are sensitive to stomach stretch, malaise, and satiety signals. These Early vs. Late Ensure neurons were also spatially organized within LPBN.

Rachel Essner
@rachelessner.bsky.social

4/ Other spatially clustered LPBN neurons were sensitive to arousal and body movement. Together, our results define functional specialization in LPBN and highlight a platform for studying interoception during behavior. Check out the full manuscript for many other cool findings!

Rachel Essner
@rachelessner.bsky.social

2/ We coined neurons that became active at the onset of consumption as “Early Ensure neurons” and those that became active 1-3 s later as “Late Ensure neurons.” We suggest that Early Ensure neurons are sensitive to oral signals, while Late Ensure neurons are sensitive to post-ingestive signals.

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