As students, the environment in which we are expected to learn can often contribute to the stress of our everyday lives. Paradoxically, this stress actually makes it harder for us to learn. Specifically, an over-active stress response can make it such that the signaling which normally drives learning becomes impaired and improperly regulated. In more neuroscientific terms, this happens when CRH (corticotropin-releasing hormone, which sends the stress signal) is overactive in the striatum (a structure critical for learning). At the moment, it is unclear what this signaling pathway actually looks like and what part of the brain is sending too much CRH into the striatum when we are stressed. To learn more about this, the Witten Lab traced synaptic partners backwards out of the striatum using a red fluorescent dye, as if lighting up a trail of clues. This was done with the hopes of knowing more about the stress response, how it is regulated, and areas of the brain which therapeutic drugs could target to shift our stress response back to baseline.