Developmental alcohol & memory circuits
How third-trimester-equivalent alcohol exposure alters anterior thalamic, hippocampal, and contextual fear networks, and what that means for spatial encoding and memory in FASD.
Mitchell D. Morningstar, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow · Department of Neurosciences
University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center
I study how alcohol changes the way the brain computes. Using large-scale in vivo electrophysiology in behaving rodents, I ask how acute intoxication and developmental alcohol exposure reshape the neural circuits that support decision making, memory, and spatial navigation.
I am a postdoctoral fellow with David Linsenbardt and Fernando Valenzuela at UNM, where I record from the anterior thalamus, hippocampus, and surrounding regions in mouse models of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. I completed my PhD in Addiction Neuroscience with Christopher Lapish at IUPUI, studying how ethanol alters prefrontal cortex population dynamics. Much of my work sits where experiments meet analysis: high-channel-count recordings, spike-sorting pipelines, and dimensionality-reduction approaches to neural population activity.
- 11
- peer-reviewed papers
- 6
- first-author
- 117
- citations
- 6
- h-index
Research
Acute alcohol & prefrontal dynamics
Ethanol changes the variability, not just the rate, of prefrontal firing. I use state-space and population-level analyses to describe how intoxication reshapes cortical computation.
Decision making & cognitive control
Neural signatures of proactive versus reactive control, delay discounting, and compulsion-like drinking in the prefrontal, cingulate, and insular cortices.
Methods for large-scale ephys
Neuropixels and silicon-probe recordings, reproducible spike-sorting pipelines (SpikeInterface, Kilosort), Bonsai workflows for synchronised data streams, and NWB.
Publications
Updated automatically from OpenAlex ·
Bold = me · † = co-first author
2026
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Large-scale in vivo electrophysiology analysis reveals opposing thalamic and hippocampal excitability after third-trimester-equivalent alcohol exposure in mice
2025
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Acute alcohol in prefrontal cortex is characterized by enhanced inhibition that transitions to excitation
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Repeated alcohol drinking in mice is associated with bidirectional alterations in corticostriatal coherence
2024
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Connectivity of the neuronal network for contextual fear memory is disrupted in a mouse model of third‐trimester binge‐like ethanol exposure
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Impulsive Choices Emerge When the Anterior Cingulate Cortex Fails to Encode Deliberative Strategies
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PreprintNeural basis of cognitive control signals in anterior cingulate cortex during delay discounting
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Proactive Versus Reactive Control Strategies Differentially Mediate Alcohol Drinking in Male Wistars and P Rats
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Neural activity in anterior insula at drinking onset and licking relates to compulsion-like alcohol consumption
2021
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Understanding ethanol's acute effects on medial prefrontal cortex neural activity using state-space approaches
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Impaired cognitive flexibility and heightened urgency are associated with increased alcohol consumption in rodent models of excessive drinking
2020
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Ethanol Alters Variability, But Not Rate, of Firing in Medial Prefrontal Cortex Neurons of Awake‐Behaving Rats
2019
2018
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Social isolation reduces serotonergic fiber density in the inferior colliculus of female, but not male, mice
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Talks & presentations
- 2024
Third trimester equivalent prenatal alcohol exposure leads to impaired contextual conditioning paralleled by blunted activity of the anteroventral thalamus.
CBRR Preclinical Core User Meeting, UNM Health Sciences Center · Albuquerque, NM
- 2024
Third trimester equivalent prenatal alcohol exposure leads to impaired contextual conditioning paralleled by blunted activity of the anteroventral thalamus.
Research Society on Alcohol · Minneapolis, MN
- 2022
Low-dimensional neural features are critical intermediaries for understanding alcohol intoxication.
UNM Health Sciences Center · Albuquerque, NM
- 2021
Ethanol alters variability, but not rate, of firing in medial prefrontal cortex neurons of awake-behaving rats.
Alcohol Research Center Trainee Day · virtual
Recent conference posters
- 2025
Unsupervised phenotyping reveals disrupted neural firing characteristics in the anterior thalamus and surrounding brain regions following third-trimester equivalent alcohol exposure in mice.
Society for Neuroscience
- 2025
Developmental alcohol exposure disrupts allocentric cue encoding by anterior thalamus neural activity and modulation of open field behavior.
Research Society on Alcohol · Brain & Behavioral Health Institute
- 2024
Third trimester equivalent prenatal alcohol exposure leads to impaired contextual conditioning paralleled by blunted activity of the anteroventral thalamus.
Research Society on Alcohol · Gordon Research Conference: Alcohol and the Nervous System
- 2023
Proactive versus reactive control strategies differentially mediate alcohol drinking in Wistar and P rats.
Research Society on Alcohol
- 2022
Rodents deploy flexible strategies in a Pavlovian conditioned alcohol seeking task.
Gordon Research Conference: Alcohol and the Nervous System · Research Society on Alcohol
- 2020
Differential effects of ethanol on neural activity in medial prefrontal cortex of behaving versus anesthetized rats.
Research Society on Alcohol
- 2019
Impact of acute ethanol injections on medial prefrontal cortex neural activity.
Society for Neuroscience
Full list in the CV.
Experience
- 2023–now
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center
Mentors: David Linsenbardt, PhD & Fernando Valenzuela, PhD
- 2017–2023
Graduate Researcher, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis
Mentor: Christopher Lapish, PhD · T32 Training Grant on Genetic Aspects of Alcoholism (AA007462)
- 2016–2017
Lab Manager, Indiana University
PI: Laura Hurley, PhD
- 2013–2016
Undergraduate Researcher, Indiana University
PI: George Rebec, PhD
Education
- 2023
PhD, Addiction Neuroscience, IUPUI
- 2019
MS, Psychology, IUPUI
- 2016
BS, Neuroscience (Honors) & BA, Cognitive Science, Indiana University
Methods
Honors & funding
- Paul J. McKinley Award, IUPUI 2022
- NIAAA T32 Trainee (AA007462) 2020–23
- RSA Student Merit Award 2019
- Honors in Neuroscience, IU 2016
Service & teaching
- Organizer, UNM in vivo ephys journal club 2024–
- New Mexico Brain Bee 2025–
- Workshop lead, Spike sorting with SpikeInterface 2024
- Instructor, Statistics Lab, IUPUI 2019
Code
- spikeAnalysis · functions for spike-train analysis
- 2cap_cognitivecontrol · MATLAB analysis code for Morningstar et al., eNeuro 2024
- More on GitHub →
Contact
I'm always happy to talk about electrophysiology, analysis pipelines, or collaborations.
MMorningstar [at] salud [dot] unm [dot] edu
Department of Neurosciences, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center · Albuquerque, NM
Documents: Curriculum vitae (PDF) · NIH Biosketch (PDF) · ResearchGate