Professor Been was awarded an R15 AREA Grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. This award will fund experiments that seek to identify the mechanism by which postpartum estrogen withdrawal impacts mesolimbic brain circuitry and motivated behaviors. We are particularly excited to bring a new technique, fast scan cyclic voltammetry, to the lab! Big thanks to the many previous Been Lab students who generated the preliminary data for this grant, and to our collaborators Dr. Eric Nestler (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai) and Dr. Rodrigo España (Drexel College of Medicine). Read more about it here: https://hav.to/8fn
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Congratulations Been Lab Class of 2021!
Congratulations to the five Class of 2021 graduating seniors: Eliza Koren, Nicole Swisher, Kagan Harris, Mari Horton, and Hailey Morris! We are so proud of the excellent work you did in the Been Lab, and the amazing theses you wrote! 
Left: Nicole Swisher and Eliza Koren, whose thesis research examined the role of perceived autonomy on neuroscience content retention and growth mindset outcomes in an online neuroscience education outreach program in 5th graders; Right: Hailey Morris, Mari Horton, and Kagan Harris, whose thesis research examined the impact of peripartum estrogen fluctuations on sleep actigraphy and plasticity in dorsal raphe serotonin neurons in Syrian hamsters.
New Publication: “Estrogen withdrawal increases postpartum anxiety via oxytocin plasticity in the paraventricular hypothalamus and dorsal raphe nucleus”
Check out our new publication “Estrogen withdrawal increases postpartum anxiety via oxytocin plasticity in the paraventricular hypothalamus and dorsal raphe nucleus,” which is in press at Biological Psychiatry! Congratulations to the 12 Haverford student co-authors!
Congratulations to our 2020 Been Lab Graduates!
Congratulations to our graduating seniors, Abiola Irvine and Maeve Gaffney! Although they spent the last part of their senior year working remotely because of Covid-19, they still completed outstanding theses and showed tremendous resilience in the face of difficult circumstances.
When seniors turn in their theses, we usually celebrate with champagne and sign where the cork hits the ceiling. Abiola and Maeve couldn’t be on campus, so we celebrated together on Zoom and earmarked their ceiling tile for when they return. Congratulations, Abiola and Maeve!!
New Publication: “Glutamate afferents from the medial prefrontal cortex mediate nucleus accumbens activation by female sexual behavior”
Check out our new publication, “Glutamate afferents from the medial prefrontal cortex mediate nucleus accumbens activation by female sexual behavior,” out now in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience! Congratulations to student author Rose Glass (Been Lab Alum ’17, now pursuing PhD in Neuroscience at University of North Carolina) for her outstanding contributions! Read it here!
New Publication: “Dopamine” in the Encyclopedia of Sexuality and Gender
Laura Been and Robert Meisel have published a chapter, “Dopamine,” in the Encyclopedia of Sexuality and Gender (Amy Lykins, Ed, Springer). Read it here!
Congratulations Been Lab Class of 2019!
Congratulations to the 8 students to completed their senior theses in the Been Lab this year!
Two Been Lab members honored at Ambler Award Dinner
Congratulations to Allie Gibbons and Natalie Pisch who were both honored at the Haverford College Ambler Award Dinner. This event celebrates the senior student athletes with the 15 highest GPAs in the entire college. The Been Lab was well represented! Excellent job, Allie and Natalie!!
New Publication: “Sex experience increases delta FosB in male and female hamsters, but facilitates sex behavior only in females”
New work out of the Been lab has been published in Behavioral Neuroscience! This paper is the culmination of senior theses by Been Lab alums, Luis Acaba, David Sidibe, Jack Thygesen, and Harry Van der Kloot. Congratulations and thank you for your hard work!!
READ “Sex experience increases delta FosB in male and female hamsters, but facilitates sex behavior only in females” here!
New Publication: “Towards a Neurobiology of Female Aggression”
A new review from the Been Lab, “Towards a Neurobiology of Female Aggression,” has been published in Neuropharmacology. Excellent contributions by student author Allie Gibbons. Thanks for your hard work, Allie! Read it here!
