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Endocannabinoids facilitate transitory reward engagement through retrograde gain-control

College of Medicine - Phoenix, Department of Translational Neurosciences

When

March 30, 2026, 10 – 11 a.m.

Where

Health Sciences Education Building (HSEB), Room B402
435 N. Fifth St., Phoenix, AZ 85004

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Event Description

In this Department of Translational Neurosciences guest seminar, David Marcus, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Washington, will deliver a talk titled "Endocannabinoids Facilitate Transitory Reward Engagement Through Retrograde Gain-Control."

This seminar is hybrid.

Presenter Details

David Marcus, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Anesthesiology
University of Washington in the lab of Dr. Michael Bruchas

Dr. Marcus’ primary research focus is to understand how neuromodulatory signaling systems adjust the gain of limbic circuits to influence motivated behavior. He has principally investigated the endogenous cannabinoid signaling system, the most widely expressed neuromodulatory system in the brain. Dr. Marcus’ primary postdoctoral work revealed that eCBs exert retrograde gain control at an excitatory thalamo-striatal circuit to facilitate engagement in reward-seeking behaviors. Looking forward, he aims to establish parallel research programs to test the theory that endocannabinoids encode permissive states (rather than instructive states) by gating information flow in limbic circuits.