Hello everyone!
I wanted to share a quick update on the dopamine project.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve had several discussions with collaborators and researchers involved in the RR-1 mission to better understand the available datasets and define the project’s direction. Based on those conversations, we’ve decided to slightly refine our focus.
Our initial plan was to investigate dopaminergic markers. However, after exploring the datasets currently available through OSDR, we decided to broaden our approach. Our current goal is to investigate the relationship between behavior (particularly the circling phenotype observed during the SpaceX-4 mission), neuroinflammation (inflammasome-related pathways), and the spaceflight/radiation environment. We’re also exploring how these findings might eventually connect with available human datasets.
We’ll be starting monthly project meetings very soon to discuss the datasets, plan analyses, review the literature, and coordinate tasks.
If you’re interested in:
- behavioral neuroscience,
- neuroinflammation,
- radiation biology,
- computational analysis,
- bioinformatics,
- or simply learning more about the project,
we’d be very happy to have you join us!
Feel free to reply here or send me a message or an email claracarrrias@gmail.com if you’d like to participate or receive the meeting invitation.
Looking forward to collaborating with everyone!
@BrainAWG
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Hi Maria Clara, this seems like a really cool project. I’d love to learn how to get involved!
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Hi Matthew,
Thank you so much! I’m really glad to hear that! We’d be very happy to have you involved!
If you’re interested, could you please send me a direct message here or share your email address? That way I can send you the meeting invitation and keep you updated on future meetings!!
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Thanks for posting the sub-group project @ClaraCarrias
What expertise and inputs from AWG members are you looking for on this project?
Previous reading links, or examples?
Hi Ryan,
Thank you for your question! At this stage, we’re especially looking for people interested in:
- behavioral neuroscience and behavioral analysis;
- neuroinflammation and inflammasome biology;
- radiation biology and spaceflight physiology;
- bioinformatics and multi-omics data analysis;
- computational modeling and statistics.
Since we’re still in the early stages, we’re also very interested in relevant papers, review articles, or examples of similar approaches that could help us refine the project.
Some of the key papers guiding our current discussions are:
More broadly, we’re looking for collaborators who enjoy brainstorming ideas and would like to help shape the direction of the project. Different backgrounds and perspectives are always welcome!
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Hi Maria Clara,
I saw your post about the Behavior and Neuroinflammation project — really interesting direction! I’d love to get involved, especially on the computational modeling and data analysis side. My background is in full-stack development and ML engineering.
Could you send me the meeting invitation? Happy to start by reading through the papers you shared to get up to speed.
Here’s my email: reinhartrobert23@gmail.com
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Hi Reinhart!
Absolutely!! We’d be delighted to have you join us. I’ll send you the Meeting invitation shortly!! If you have any questions before the meeting, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
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Hi Maria Clara! I am interested in participating.
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Hi Michelle! That’s great! Would you mind sharing your email address (or sending me a direct message with it)? So I can send u the invitation!
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@ClaraCarrias Hi Maria Clara, @BrainAWG
I would also suggest you and the group to mine the data from OSD-952 https://osdr.nasa.gov/bio/repo/data/studies/OSD-952 which comes from the recent pre-print Kiffer et al 2026.
That paper has figure 6, which has strong results from the behavior of mice aboard Rodent Research-1 @fredkiffer
And those data are in OSD-952
You could look at any-all CNS omics or physiological data across RR-1 in OSDR (here is an API call I believe calling all RR1 datasets), plus the radiation and environmental telemetry (CO2, relative humidity, temperature) the rodents we’re experiencing during the mission. Here is RR-1 environemtnal and radiation data in OSDR’s Environemtnal Data App, you also could find RR1 in RadLab. All Rodent Research missions are flown in the “U.S. Lab” module of the ISS
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Ryan, I just added Fredrico to the OSDR space site, but he might need help joining. @ClaraCarrias Fredrico (Kiffer et al) will be interested in joining the project and will be of great help!
Good luck!
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Yay!! Hi Ryan,
Thank you so much! This is incredibly helpful! Integrating these different data sources could add a lot to the project!! Thank you again
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This is absolutely amazing! I actually just sent him an email a few minutes ago. Thank you so much for connecting us, Dr. Ali!
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@fredkiffer has been part of the AWG for a long time, but he’s new to the @BrainAWG 
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Hi Clara,
I’d be very interested in joining the project and participating in the monthly meetings. My background is in biomedicine, and I have strong experience and interest in behavioral neuroscience, neuroinflammation, as well as bioinformatics. I would be happy to contribute
Marina Freitas (marinacorreafreitas27@gmail.com | marinafreitas@liastra.com | mcfreitas@ua.pt)
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Hi Marina! Thats great!! I’ll send you the monthly meeting link! Please reach out if you have any question!
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Hi everyone!
Just a quick reminder that our first Behavior & Neuroinflammation subgroup meeting is tomorrow! I’m really looking forward to meeting everyone and discussing the project together.
Also, there has been an update to the contact email listed in the original post. The current email is:
[claracarrrias@gmail.com]
If you’ve tried contacting me before or have anything you’d like to send, please use this email (or resend your message if needed).
See you all tomorrow! @BrainAWG
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Can you send the invite link to the meeting please?
Absolutely! What’s your e-mail?