Reviewer Spotlight: Brian Trainor

The quality of eNeuro depends on the effort that is generously contributed by our reviewers, who lend their expertise and time helping to ensure we publish great science. This Reviewer Recognition series introduces the research of selected reviewers, as well as their strategies for approaching peer review of a paper. Dr. Brian Trainor is currently a behavioral neuroscientist and professor at University of California, Davis. Trainor’s research explores how social stress alters brain circuits controlling social behaviors in male and female California mice.

“Treat the manuscript like you would hope reviewers would treat yours. That doesn’t mean being easy, just fair and constructive.”

Brian Trainor, PhD

Tell us about your work.  

We study how social stress alters brain circuits controlling social behaviors in male and female California mice. One line of work studies how oxytocin acting in different parts of the brain drives social approach or avoidance. For many years it’s been known that oxytocin can promote affiliative interactions and sometimes increase social avoidance. Our studies provide insights into how this can occur by showing that oxytocin acting in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis promotes social avoidance. A complementary line of work is investigating how androgen receptors program sex differences in adulthood. We’re following up on this in a grant the lab has with Jessica Tollkuhn to determine how androgen receptors regulate gene expression in the brain.

Any exciting recent findings you'd like to share?  

After years of working together we finally published our paper with my friend and collaborator AJ Robison. Audrey Chrisman led studies examining how oxytocin produced in different parts of the hypothalamus promote either social approach or avoidance. Chiho Sugimoto and Andrew Eagle from AJ’s group showed that oxytocin neurons in the anterior paraventricular nucleus had electrophysiological properties that closely resembled oxytocin neurons in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. This is exciting because oxytocin produced in these areas drive social avoidance.

How did you become interested in this line of research?  

It was a bit of an accident. When I started the lab in 2007 I was studying male aggression in California mice. I told the first two lab members, Katie Crean and Andrea Silva, that we wouldn’t be studying females. They thought that was crazy and that we should do the same studies in females. This is before the “sex as a biological variable” days, and I didn’t think this was a great idea. Even though they were undergraduates, they were persuasive. We did the female studies.

Later I had trouble getting my main projects funded and thought that we needed a new direction. In 2010 NIMH was asking for applications on sex differences and women’s mental health. Social defeat was starting to become a more widely used approach after Olivier Berton and Eric Nestler’s 2006 paper in Science. Our data suggested that female California mice had stronger stress responses than males after winning an aggressive encounter. That’s where I got the idea to try social defeat in California mice. Sixteen years later we’re still using this approach. My lab is lucky that Katie and Andrea didn’t give up on the idea to study females.

What do you do when not in the lab?

I like finding new places to go hiking in Northern California using the Alltrails app and going back to favorite places in the Adirondack Mountains in New York. Being outside helps me unplug from all the crazy things happening in this world.

“I like the eNeuro approach because if a reviewer makes a big demand, it has to be justified to colleagues.”

What advice would you share with new reviewers?

Treat the manuscript like you would hope reviewers would treat yours. That doesn’t mean being easy, just fair and constructive. The biggest thing that I focus on is whether the conclusions are supported by the data. I am reluctant to ask the authors to do another experiment, but if I think the authors could do another analysis with data on hand, I will suggest it. I don’t sign my reviews, but I always write them in a way that if they became public (with my name on it) I would stand behind my comments. I focus on the big picture results and figures, it’s up to the authors to make sure they copyedit their manuscript.

What is your experience as a reviewer with eNeuro's consultation review process?

It’s an interesting approach. In the manuscripts I’ve reviewed at eNeuro, we’ve all been in agreement, so it went quickly. Once, I had a manuscript where one reviewer wanted us to redo a whole series of experiments whereas the other reviewers were fine with what we had done. It was at a society-level journal and the student had graduated. We were not going to redo these experiments. It was a battle of multiple resubmissions and multiple editors reading the manuscript. I like the eNeuro approach because if a reviewer makes a big demand, it has to be justified to colleagues.

Brian Trainor, PhD
UC Davis
Trainorlab.ucdavis.edu
@briantrainor.bsky.social

Learn more:

eNeuro offers authors the choice to receive double-blind review.  Additionally, the Reviewing Editor and two reviewers will consult to reach a consensus on the decision and to draft a synthesis of the reviewers' comments explaining the decision. These review syntheses are published alongside each accepted paper.  Learn more about eNeuro's Review Process.