R. Brian Roome
rbrianroome.bsky.social
R. Brian Roome
@rbrianroome.bsky.social
Research associate, Kania lab, IRCM. Investigating formation and function of spinal cord sensory and ascending circuits. Avid balcony gardener and amateur musician. Views are my own.
Reposted by R. Brian Roome
Want to come do a postdoc with us?

We’re interested in how sensorimotor function is carried out by the cells and circuits of the spinal cord. We have an awesome team, lots of cool techniques, and we’re open to new ideas/approaches/connections. Get in touch!
February 4, 2026 at 1:00 AM
Reposted by R. Brian Roome
This is Alex Pretti.

This morning he was murdered by ICE. Six ICE agents held him down and shot him at point blank range. Alex was a nurse and researcher at the VA.

Our thoughts are with his loved ones and we stand united in action calling for the abolishment of ICE.

#ScientistsAgainstICE
January 24, 2026 at 8:03 PM
Reposted by R. Brian Roome
America is in dangerous territory.

The combination of a masked federal paramilitary force being used against civilians, the intentional spread of extremist ideology, and the censorship and use of “science” by the state to harm specific groups of people has never ended well.

#ScientistsAgainstICE
January 24, 2026 at 5:27 PM
Reposted by R. Brian Roome
ICE’s actions tear families apart, intimidate communities, & undermine the conditions that make education, research, healthcare, & public trust possible.

We’re calling on scientists to join the general anti-ICE strike in Minnesota on January 23rd.
January 19, 2026 at 10:22 PM
Reposted by R. Brian Roome
Not all pain is created equal: stepping on a nail feels different from a stomachache. We know there are many nociceptor types, but a key question remains: how is mechanical pain encoded across the body by those sensory neurons? Our new work helps answer this. 1/8
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Hierarchical organization of mechano-nociceptive pathways revealed by activity labeling
Noxious mechanical stimuli give rise to distinct percepts, from sharp cutaneous pain to diffuse visceral discomfort, yet the nociceptor ensembles that underlie these differences remain poorly defined....
www.biorxiv.org
December 14, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Reposted by R. Brian Roome
The BIG DRG paper is now up on @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... so many people worked so hard to make this happen. Props to the whole PRECISION Human Pain Network.
A Reference Atlas of the Human Dorsal Root Ganglion
Somatosensory perception largely emerges from diverse peripheral sensory neurons whose cell bodies reside in dorsal root ganglia (DRG). Damage or dysfunction of DRG neurons is a major cause of chronic...
www.biorxiv.org
November 7, 2025 at 11:16 AM
Reposted by R. Brian Roome
An absolutely lovely paper, if I may say so... Joint effort from @tuanbuilab.bsky.social, Turgay Akay, and the Beatostone lab, aka Rob Brownstone's lab and mine
Do comparator modules exist within spinal circuits? Here, we show that spinal dI3 neurons integrate multimodal sensory feedback, receive direct efference copy from Renshaw cells, and mediate corrections of ongoing movements. Thank you so much to everyone involved!!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Evidence of spinal cord comparator modules for rapid corrections of movements
Successful movement requires continuous adjustments in response to changes in internal and external environments. To do so, neural circuits continuously compare efference copies of motor commands with sensory input to respond to sensory prediction errors. Some responses need to be very fast and, for limbs, likely occur in as yet undefined spinal cord circuits. Here, we describe spinal circuits involving dI3 neurons, showing that they receive multimodal sensory inputs and direct efferent copies from both Renshaw cells and motor neurons. We further show that they form connections to motor pools, including diverging connections to antagonist motor nuclei. Reducing dI3 neuronal activity diminished stumbling responses, as did disrupting Renshaw cell circuits, providing evidence for a comparator role of dI3 neurons for online corrections. Together, our findings reveal a pivotal role for dI3 neurons functioning as comparators of internal predictions and external sensory feedback to mediate rapid corrections of ongoing movements. ### Competing Interest Statement Robert M. Brownstone is a co-founder and director of Sania Therapeutics Inc. Wellcome Trust, https://ror.org/029chgv08, 221610/Z/20/Z, 227433/Z/23/Z, 225674/Z/22/Z Royal Society, NIF\R1\192316 Canadian Institutes of Health Research, https://ror.org/01gavpb45, PJT 180556, PJT 162357 Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, BB/S005943/1
www.biorxiv.org
September 2, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Reposted by R. Brian Roome
A Neural Circuit for Modular Gating of Organ Somatosensation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.27.672386v1
September 1, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Check out my postdoc work at Ariel Levine’s lab, hot and fresh, describing how you build a dorsal horn!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
March 17, 2025 at 4:16 PM