Ben de Bivort

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Big week your lab, Wei! Congrats!!

It was a privilege to play a part of this epic field-scale collaboration. A new connectome of the brain and ventral nerve cord!

Schematic example of subsumption architecture. This example has two local loops (behavior 1 and behavior 2), corresponding e.g. the control of individual legs. Behavior 3 is positioned to take control of both local loops (subsumption), contingent on some input from both sensors. Behavior 4 is positioned to subsume all other behaviors, based on some other input from both sensors.

Our data support an architecture of distributed, parallelized, and embodied control, reminiscent of “subsumption architectures” from autonomous robotics, where behavior-centric feedback loops are organized s that they can be combined or subsumed to generate complex or resolve competing behaviors.

Strongest links between CNS networks. The size of each arrow represents the number of postsynaptic cells in that link.

* Brain regions involved in learning and navigation supervise these circuits.

Summary of the strongest adjusted influences between behavioral modules as a network graph.

* Long-range pathways are organized to permit coordination within and across modules to fine-tune, prioritize, resolve conflicts, and link related behaviors in sequences. This may offer structural substrates for behavioral compositionality.

* Long-range ascending and descending neurons can combine local loops into behavioral modules.

bsky.app/profile/mott...

(left) Schematic of body parts associated with annotated effector cells in the BANC. (middle) Heatmap of mean adjusted influence of sensory cells (columns) on effector cells. Sensory and effector cells are pooled by body part. Each row is minmax normalized to the same range (0-1). (right) Schematic of an example local loop (top) that is also linked to specific sensors via long-range connections (bottom).

Using the this influence metric, we find:
* Local sensorimotor loops linking matched sensors and effectors are basic building blocks of behavioral control.

Cartoon of directed network graph and schematic depicting the influence of source cells on target cells is estimated via linear dynamical modeling.

Moreover, Zaki Ajabi developed a computationally efficient method for quantifying the “influence” any neuron has on any other neuron in the CNS. We applied this method to estimate the pairwise interactions between all cells in the CNS, amounting to more than 20 billion influence scores.

The dataset includes ~160,000 cells, segmented nuclei and mitochondria, synapses and neurotransmitter predictions, and annotations linking the CNS to peripheral sensory, motor, and visceral systems.

Info: banc.community
Data: codex.flywire.ai?dataset=banc
Viewer: ng.banc.community/view

The BANC is the first connectome that explicitly links the brain to the nerve cord, & through it, to the body. It offers a new “embodied” perspective for connectomes, one that changes how we think about neural networks for control, behavior, & even artificial intelligence.
bsky.app/profile/mott...

How is the nervous system organized to coordinate behavior? To approach this massive question, a team led by @asbates.bsky.social, @jasper-tms.bsky.social, @mindyisminsu.bsky.social, & Helen Yang present the BANC: a Brain and Nerve Cord connectome.

Preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

🧪#Neuroskyence

Recurrent connectivity supports carbon dioxide sensitivity in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes The mosquito Aedes aegypti′s human host-seeking behavior depends on the integration of multiple sensory cues. One of these cues, carbon dioxide (CO2), gates odorant and heat pathways and activates hos...

New preprint from @darbly.bsky.social‬ @briandepasquale.bsky.social‬ and my labs! If you love (or hate) mosquitoes, have a look:

doi.org/10.1101/2025...

We used TEM to describe the circuitry used for CO2 detection by mosquitoes. As usual with mosquitoes, nothing is as expected! 🌬️🦟

A massive community effort, centred on @harvardmed.bsky.social‬
@princetonneuro.bsky.social‬. EM data from @darbly.bsky.social‬ lab, collected by @jasper-tms.bsky.social‬
‪@mindyisminsu.bsky.social‬.

Public access to the first fly connectome that spans the whole CNS - BANC!: codex.flywire.ai?dataset=banc

Different from prior connectomes - it is brain + cord (think spinal cord)

We use it to ‘embody’ the system and find it resembles ‘subsumption architecture’ doi.org/10.1101/2025...

The first full central nervous system connectome dataset of an adult fly, with the most comprehensive annotation of sensory and motor neurons to date.

A heroic effort with contributions from many groups, a product of the collaborative spirit of the Drosophila neuroscience community.

I think the "embodiment" of this connectome is going to be such a hit: For instance take the interactive "body part" maps on Codex, where you can simply click on your favorite external or visceral part and it will show you all of the neurons associated it! codex.flywire.ai/app/body_par...

a man with a mustache in a blue suit says tiny celebration in front of a group of people ALT: a man with a mustache in a blue suit says tiny celebration in front of a group of people

Happy Friday! The female adult fly brain-and-nerve-cord (BANC) connectome is now LIVE!

Explore the data here: codex.flywire.ai?dataset=banc

Check out the preprint here: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

looks like it. A distinctive character of that species is a detachable ring/annulus that you can move up and down the stipe/stem.

Of course, take your time with ID, and cross check for Chlorophyllum molybdites look alike if you're considering eating.

Peruphasma schultei "Cordillera del Condor" are extremely popular phasmids due to their bright red wings and contrasting black velvet like body. Found in Northern Peru, this species can spray quite a strong defensive chemical from behind the head. #bugsky #stickbug #sticking #phasmid #nature #exotic

Check out our paper in Evolution Letters!

We used D. melanogaster pigmentation as a focal trait to explore parallelism in phenotypic and genomic responses to environmental change - read more at the link below 👇

fingers also crossed on what the house does with it ...

The NIH budget will INCREASE by $400 million — not slashed by 40%, as Trump proposed — according to a proposal by Senate appropriators, says Sen Murray.

"Some have asked if there will even be an NIH by [2029]. The commmittee's resounding message is yes—Congress has your back", she says.

From left to right, Dr. Albert Mulenga, William Tae Heung Kim, Dr. Thu Thuy Nguyen, Dr. Alex Kiarie Gaithuma, Dr Hassan Hakimi and Emily Bencosme Cuevas. Kim is a Texas A&M researcher who was detained in San Francisco last Monday despite being a permanent resident of the United States and a green card holder. COURTESY OF TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

I NEED to tell you the story of Tae Heung “William” Kim.

He's a graduate student at Texas A&M where he's working on a vaccine for Lyme disease.

He's a *legal permanent resident* of the United States.

And he's been in ICE detention for 12 days & counting, transferred Tuesday to South Texas.

That anybody would be treating a "deal" between private institutions and the Trump regime as a "win" shows you just how far down the path to authoritarianism we have already traveled.

The government is imposing ideology on you through extortion. It is not compatible with a free society.

My take would be that renewals were accelerating from Feb to May, but then settled into a lower, linear pace. Does that align to anything we know to be happening internally?

The important subtext of this is that they don't have enough manpower to carry out their fascist agenda.

If/when they hold recruitment events in your area, you should be prepared to show up and get loud.

Folks have already done this in California and elsewhere.

A quick update re NIH and NSF terminated grant tracking:

Grant Watch has a new name!

We're now called **Grant Witness**

You can find us at grant-witness.us

Please update your bookmarks and spread the word! 🙏

(And no, this wasn't our preference, but trademarks are a thing. 🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️)

witness. us we will ride eternal, shiny and chrome!

worst political crisis since the Civil War, arguably worse than that, and fuckin Harvard is like "uhh umm well maybe if we pay him 500 million dollars it will all go away"