Congratulations to Kelly Runyon on her successful thesis defense and earning the title of Dr. Kelly Runyon! Her dissertation, Beyond the Relay: Mediodorsal Thalamic Regulation of Prefrontal Cortex in Cue Detection, advances our understanding of how thalamic-prefrontal brain circuits support attention and the detection of behaviorally relevant cues. This important work highlights the critical role of the mediodorsal thalamus in regulating prefrontal cortex function and offers new insight into neural mechanisms underlying cognition and attention.

Next, she will remain in the Howe Lab as a postdoctoral researcher, where she will continue advancing this impactful line of research.

See abstract below:
Many psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, involve disruptions in communication between the thalamus and prefrontal cortex: circuits that are essential for attention, decision-making, and behavioral flexibility. A key aspect of these processes is the ability to use environmental cues to guide behavior. My dissertation work focuses on the mediodorsal thalamus (MD), a central hub that is densely interconnected with multiple prefrontal regions, including the prelimbic (PRL), anterior cingulate (ACC), and orbitofrontal cortices (OFC). Because of this connectivity, MD is well positioned to coordinate how cue information is interpreted and translated into action. Using a combination of anatomical circuit mapping and neural recording techniques in mice, I examined how MD communicates with these different prefrontal areas. I found that MD projections are organized into distinct pathways targeting specific cortical regions, suggesting that information is routed through parallel channels. These pathways also show different patterns of activity during behavior. Signals to ACC change as animals learn and update cue-reward relationships, while signals to PRL remain more stable. In contrast, signals to OFC are especially sensitive to behavioral outcomes, tracking whether actions are successful, and linking those outcomes to future behavior. Together, this work shows that the mediodorsal thalamus is not simply a relay, but an active partner in guiding behavior. By coordinating multiple prefrontal regions through specialized pathways, it helps shape how cues are used to learn, decide, and act; processes that are often disrupted in psychiatric disease.