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Lewis Holt

@lewisholt.bsky.social
533 followers 235 following 39 posts

Post-doctoral scientist Laboratory of Behavioural Genetics EPFL, Lausanne 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇪🇺🇨🇭

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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
🚨🚨 New preprint from us at the LGC lab. Super excited to share this story since starting my post-doc! 🤩 If you are interested in astrocytes, mitochondria, and anxiety behaviour be sure to check it out!! Thanks to all the collaborators :)
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Carmen Sandi @carmensandi10.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Join us - Registration and abstracts submission EXTENDED till September 17th! & a few places available...
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Network Glia | European Glia Meeting @gliameeting.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Spotlight on Emerging Talent Congrats to Lewis Depaauw-Holt (Université de Montréal), a #GLIA2025 stipend winner! His research shows how #astrocytes regulate stress responses in a sex-specific manner by shaping orexin neuron activity and behaviour. #NetworkGlia #Astrocytes
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Carmen Sandi @carmensandi10.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Join us in Lausanne on 7 Oct for a 1-day Symposium We will bridge the field of stress & resilience with cognitive ageing and brain rejuvenation Outstanding keynotes, talks, posters & discussion Places first come first served Poster abstracts + registration by 7 Sept: www.epfl.ch/research/dom...
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
🚨🚨 just over 2-months until the Brain Resilience Symposium here at EPFL! Super excited to be sharing some of the work we've been doing here in the LGC lab 💪
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Beautiful location for the @gliameeting.bsky.social #FENSGLIA satellite event! Some great Glia talks 🤩🤩 #FENS
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Canadian Association for Neuroscience @canacn.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Research led by Lewis Depaauw-Holt shows brain cells called astrocytes play key roles in sex-specific changes in brain and behaviour caused by early-life stress - can-acn.org/brain-star-a...
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Honoured to be included in this years selection! Thank you CAN and CIHR-INMHA! 🙌
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Carmen Sandi @carmensandi10.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Hiring! Please share! Two postdoctoral researchers at EPFL, Lausanne, to join an SNSF-funded project on stress, motivation, immersive VR, physiology, multimodal sensing and translational biomarkers. Details & applications: www.fens.org/careers/job-... www.fens.org/careers/job-...
fens.org
Postdoctoral Researcher in Multimodal Human Sensing and Advanced Behavioral Data Analysis - Federation of European Neuroscience Societies
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Melissa Cooper, PhD @melcooperphd.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Astrocytes do so much more than any of us thought - they even communicate among specific brain regions across hemispheres! The journey to this paper spanned nearly a decade, but I'm most excited to see what everyone else does with the tools we've built. There's so much for all of us to explore!
nature.com
Astrocytes connect specific brain regions through plastic networks - Nature
Communication between distant brain regions is mediated by plastic networks of gap junction-coupled astrocytes.
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Global Stress and Resilience Network (GSRNet) @gsrnet.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
Heading to #FENS2026 in Barcelona? Join us on July 8 (6:45pm–8:15pm) for a casual networking aperitif 🥂 Great chance to meet, chat, and connect with fellow researchers. Free, but registration is required 👉 forms.gle/Fo2ym8csqWBP... Open to everyone, no GSRNet membership needed! Please share!
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Was great to play a part in this! Congrats to all on this stellar paper 🥳🥳
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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
“Based on astrocytic activity alone, you can tell whether a mouse is in its comfort zone,” a new study suggests. By Holly Barker www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/ast...
thetransmitter.org
Astrocytes in mouse amygdala encode emotional state
The glial cells’ activity reliably tracks with freezing, hesitancy and other behaviors reminiscent of anxiety.
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Ciaran Murphy-Royal @murphyroyallab.org · 24/03/2026
Incredibly proud of this paper led by @ossamaghenissa.bsky.social and @mathiasgua.bsky.social titled Basolateral 'Amygdala Astrocytes Encode Anxiety States'. www.cell.com/neuron/fullt... 🧵 below
cell.com
Basolateral amygdala astrocytes encode anxiety states
Ghenissa et al. provide evidence that basolateral amygdala astrocytes reliably encode anxiety states. Using simultaneous in vivo calcium recordings across an array of behavioral tasks, combined with g...
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
First ride of the post-doc!! Change is always hard but these views defo help! 😍
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Global Stress and Resilience Network (GSRNet) @gsrnet.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
🚨 Calls for Proposals are now open! Submit your ideas for: • Symposia • Panel discussions • Roundtables Be part of shaping the scientific program of GSRNet 2027. 📅 Deadline: April 15, 2026 🔗 Details: stress-and-resilience-meeting27.epfl.ch/call-for-pro... #GSRNet2027 #StressAndResilience
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
🚨Great science in a stunning location!🚨 (Can confirm both are true)
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Congrats Caroline and team! 🥳
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Ciaran Murphy-Royal @murphyroyallab.org · 08/01/2026
Delighted to share our first preprint of the year! A project that we're all really proud of in the lab led by @ossamaghenissa.bsky.social with @mathiasgua.bsky.social in which we set out to test the role of basolateral amygdala astrocytes in anxiety behaviour. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Astrocytic Encoding of Threat in the Basolateral Amygdala
The basolateral amygdala (BLA) has long been implicated in threat detection and the generation of anxiety states. While previous experiments have demonstrated the important role of BLA principal neuro...
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
Congrats 👏!
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Ciaran Murphy-Royal @murphyroyallab.org · 04/09/2025
Thanks Bruno Geoffroy @crchum.bsky.social for the nice write up on our recent publication with @lewisholt.bsky.social nouvelles.umontreal.ca/en/article/2...
nouvelles.umontreal.ca
After early-life stress, astrocytes affect behaviour
Canadian researchers show that stress modifies the morphology of brain cells in mice, directly influencing the rodents’ level of physical activity.
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
Congrats Silvia! Looks great 😊
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
Super psyched to help close out the #AstrocyteCafe on thursday!
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
Thanks! 😄 @joscience.bsky.social
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
This all came online while we were at @gliameeting.bsky.social 2025 meeting! I couldn't think of a better community to celebrate it with and in a better setting than the south of France!
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
I want to give a big shout out to all the people in the CMR lab that helped with this project over the past few years, including those not on the paper. 💙
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
10. Astrocytic glucocorticoid receptor deletion correct the excitability changes we saw after ELS in a sex specific manner! The remarkable thing was that these changes were sufficient enough to rescue the behavioural deficits caused by ELS back in Fig.1!
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
9. Given the changes in blood CORT, we questioned if all these changes in running activity, firing rates and morphology could be a result of stress signalling in astrocytes? To get at this we selectively delete glucocorticoid receptors in astrocytes.
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
8. In ELS female mice we observed deficits in lactate availability. We also used some cool intracellular sensors to look at lactate dynamics in LH neurons after ELS!
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
7. We then got into what was underlying the divergent effects on orexin neuron firing in male and female mice. – Males first. Long story short, we saw elevated P2X receptor signalling was driving the hyper-excitability after ELS.
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
6. By chemogenetically manipulating astrocyte activity, we could recapitulate the behavioural and cellular phenotypes we saw after ELS - see paper for all the data!
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
5. But what about astrocytes after ELS? We saw changes in GFAP and Cx43. But to look at astrocyte morphology we developed a sparse viral labeling technique, which gave beautiful reconstructions of astrocytes in the LH. ELS shrunk astrocytes with a pronounced effect on branching in females!
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
4. This behavioural phenotype was nicely reflected at the neuronal level in the lateral hypothalamus, where ELS male orexin neurons had increased firing rates and hyper-excitability and ELS female orexin neurons had reduced firing rates and hypo-excitability.
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
3. We next found that ELS had opposing effects on running wheel behaviour across the light-dark cycle. Males ran more in their light phase and females ran less in their dark phase!
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
2. Firstly, replicating the findings from previous work in the lab, we see mice that experience ELS (maternal separation 4hr / day + limited bedding) display much higher nadir levels of blood corticosterone, the primary stress hormone in rodents!
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
1. Globally, this work builds on the growing body of literature investigating the effects of Early-Life Stress (ELS) on astrocytes, neuronal excitability and behaviour. This time we focused on astrocytes in the lateral hypothalamus.
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Absolutely thrilled to share the first half of my PhD work! Super proud to see it finally out! www.nature.com/articles/s41... Thread below for a quick (10 point) recap of what we found! 🧵🧪🧠
nature.com
A divergent astrocytic response to stress alters activity patterns via distinct mechanisms in male and female mice - Nature Communications
Early-life stress has lifelong impacts on neuronal function and behavior. Here, the authors show that astrocytic glucocorticoid receptor signaling drives stress-induced neuronal and behavioral change ...
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Thanks!! @dibenedetto-lab.bsky.social
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Ciaran Murphy-Royal @murphyroyallab.org · 11/07/2025
Final leg of the Tour de France done with an excellent @gliameeting.bsky.social ! Amazing science in a great city, (despite some smoke!) and a nice travel award for @lewisholt.bsky.social 🥳 Going to make sure we come back to this meeting again next time! #glia2025
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
Have to get you an above-ground pool to finish off that QC aesthetic!
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Thanks @paulsheppard.bsky.social !
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Was great to present at @canglia.bsky.social today! Cool to see all the glial research happening across Canada!
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Alex Chen @alexbchen.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
Excited to share that the astrocyte-centered half of my thesis work is now out @science.org ! With @mishaahrens.bsky.social and @marcduque.bsky.social science.org/doi/10.1126/... 1/8
science.org
Norepinephrine changes behavioral state through astroglial purinergic signaling
Both neurons and glia communicate through diffusible neuromodulators; however, how neuron-glial interactions in such neuromodulatory networks influence circuit computation and behavior is unclear. Dur...
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Papouin Lab @ WashU @papouinlab.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
Thought this would be a nice way to enter the bsky community👇Delighted for Katie (now in Chris Dulla's lab at Tufts). Thank you to our collaborators, to the reviewers and to Cagla Eroglu for the highlight! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Norepinephrine signals through astrocytes to modulate synapses
Locus ceruleus (LC)–derived norepinephrine (NE) drives network and behavioral adaptations to environmental saliencies by reconfiguring circuit functional connectivity, but the underlying synapse-level...
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Indeed! It's something that appears across various brain "pathology states", arrested C-like mitoses and multinucleation. These two were 'joined at the hip', if astrocytes have hips...
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Super cool that these are finally out!! Check out some of the protocols we've been using to investigate the role of astrocytes in stress!
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Lewis Holt @lewisholt.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Multinucleated astrocytes always look so cool! #FluorescenceFriday
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