Research Articles

Denney KA*, Wu MV*, Sun SD, Moon S, Tollkuhn J. Comparative analysis of gonadal hormone receptor expression in the postnatal house mouse, meadow vole, and prairie vole brain. Horm Behav 2024 Feb:158:105463. doi: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2023.105463.

Gegenhuber B, Wu MV, Bronstein R, Tollkuhn J. Gene regulation by gonadal hormone receptors underlies brain sex differences. Nature 2022 Jun;606(7912):153-159. doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04686-1.

Wu MV, Tollkuhn, J Estrogen receptor alpha is required in GABAergic, but not glutamatergic, neurons to masculinize behavior. Horm Behav. 2017 Sep 20;95:3-12. doi: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2017.07.001.

Reviews, Perspectives, and Book Chapters

Tollkuhn J, Breedlove SM. Express yourself. Science. 2026 Apr 16;392(6795):251-252. doi: 10.1126/science.aeh0064. PMID: 41990187.

Sun SED, Tollkuhn J. Sex Hormone Control of Neurophysiology and Behavior. Annu Rev Neurosci. 2026 Mar 20. doi: 10.1146/annurev-neuro-102124-031128. Online ahead of print. PMID: 41861109.

Adam N, Tollkuhn J. Development of the social behavior network. Curr Opin Neurobiol. 2026 Feb;96:103159. doi: 10.1016/j.conb.2025.103159. Epub 2025 Dec 20. PMID: 41422764.

Colonna M, Konopka G, Liddelow SA, Nowakowski T, Awatramani R, Bateup HS, Cadwell CR, Caglayan E, Chen JL, Gillis J, Kampmann M, Krienen F, Marsh SE, Monje M, O'Dea MR, Patani R, Pollen AA, Quintana FJ, Scavuzzo M, Schmitz M, Sloan SA, Tesar PJ, Tollkuhn J, Tosches MA, Urbanek ME, Werner JM, Bayraktar OA, Gokce O, Habib N.  Implementation and validation of single-cell genomics experiments in neuroscience Nat Neurosci. 2024 Dec;27(12):2310-2325. PMID: 39627589

Tollkuhn J Nuclear receptors: studying genes to understand hormones Nat Rev Genet. 2024 Sep;25(9):602. PMID: 38750200 

Tollkuhn J Parental care puzzle solved by thinking outside of the brain. Nature (News and Views) 2024 May;629(8014):1006-1008. PMID: 38750200

Aguado BA, Jeffries DL, Jordan-Young R, Klein SL, Lett E, Stachenfeld N, Tollkuhn J, Xu X. The future of sex and gender in research Cell. 2024 Mar 14;187(6):1354-1357. PMID: 38490178

Regulation of gene expression in the brain by sex hormones Sun SED, Tollkuhn J. Principles of Gender-Specific Medicine, 4th Edition. (2023).

Gegenhuber B, Tollkuhn J. Epigenetic Mechanisms of Brain Sexual Differentiation 2022 Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol. 2022 Jul 11:a039099. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a039099.

Ruiz-Ortiz J,  Tollkuhn J. Specificity in sociogenomics: Identifying causal relationships between genes and behavior.  Horm Behav. 2021 Jan;127:104882.

Gegenhuber B, Tollkuhn J. Signatures of sex: Sex differences in gene expression in the vertebrate brain. 2020 Wiley Interdiscip Rev Dev Biol. 2020 Jan;9(1):e348.

Gegenhuber B, Tollkuhn J.  Sex Differences in the Epigenome: A Cause or Consequence of Sexual Differentiation of the Brain? Genes. 2019 Jun 7;10(6):432.

Manoli DS, Tollkuhn J. Gene regulatory mechanisms underlying sex differences in brain development and psychiatric disease. . Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2018 May;1420(1):26-45.

Collaborations

Abuelanin M, Kaya G, Lake JA, Lambert C, Wu MV, Berendzen KM, Krasheninnikova K, Wood JMD, Solomon NG, Donaldson ZR, Bales KL, Howe K, Korlach J, Manoli D, Tollkuhn J, Dennis MY. Single-library chromosome-scale diploid assemblies of vole genomes resolve a species-specific duplication implicated in pair bonding. bioRxiv [Preprint]. 2026 Mar 17:2026.03.13.711624. doi: 10.64898/2026.03.13.711624. PMID: 41890060.

Ciccone MF, Anandan D, Chatterjee D, Chen C, Trousdell MC, Anderson R, Lewis SM, Callaway MK, Zhao CZ, Hanasoge Somasundara AV, Russo S, Yang ST, Zhao Y, Ostrander J, Wilkinson JE, Pomerantz WCK, Siepel A, Spector DL, Tollkuhn J, Dos Santos CO. Loss of BPTF restores estrogen response and suppresses metastasis of mammary tumors. Nat Commun. 2025 Oct 15;16(1):9168. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-64255-8. PMID: 41093864.

Sun Q, van de Lisdonk D, Ferrer M, Gegenhuber B, Wu MV, Park Y, Tuveson DA, Tollkuhn J, Janowitz T, Li B. Area postrema neurons mediate interleukin-6 function in cancer cachexia. Nat Commun 2024. Jun 1;15(1):4682. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-48971-1

Degroat TJ, Wiersielis K, Denney K, Kodali S, Daisey S, Tollkuhn J, Samuels BA, Roepke TA. Chronic stress and its effects on behavior, RNA expression of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and the M-current of NPY neurons. Psychoneuroendocrinology 2024 Mar:161:106920. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2023.106920.

Luo PX, Zakharenkov HC, Torres LY, Rios RA, Gegenhuber B, Black AM, Xu CK, Minie VA, Tran AM, Tollkuhn J, Trainor BC. Oxytocin receptor behavioral effects and cell types in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. Horm Behav 2022 Jul;143:105203. doi: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2022.105203.

Krause WC, Rodriguez R, Gegenhuber B, Matharu N, Rodriguez AN, Padilla AM, Herber, CB, Correa SM, Ahituv N, Tollkuhn J*, Ingraham HA*. Estrogen engages brain MC4R signalling to drive physical activity in female mice. Nature 2021 Nov;599(7883):131-135. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-04010-3*co-corresponding authors

Li S, Kendall J, Park S, Wang Z, Alexander J, Moffitt A, Ranade N, Danyko C, Gegenhuber B, Fischer S, Robinson BD, Lepor H, Tollkuhn J, Gillis J, Brouzes E, Krasnitz A, Levy D, Wigler M. Copolymerization of single-cell nucleic acids into balls of acrylamide gel Genome Res. 2020 Jan;30(1):49-61. doi: 10.1101/gr.253047.119

Ahrens S, Wu MV, Furlan A, Hwang GR, Paik R, Li H, Penzo MA, Tollkuhn J, Li B. A Central Extended Amygdala Circuit That Modulates Anxiety J Neurosci. 2018 Jun 13;38(24):5567-5583 doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0705-18.2018