Tomás Ryan

YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Stay free

Fintan O'Toole: If Trump goes after Ireland, he will also destroy a lot of US wealth We’ve made ourselves dependent on American capitalism but for America it’s a hugely lucrative dependency

Fintan O'Toole: If Trump goes after Ireland, he will also destroy a lot of US wealth

A cartoon showing a middle-aged mouse at an office desk, remembering (in a thought bubble) a childhood birthday, with his parent bringing him a cake with a single candle; cartoon glial cells are controlling a cable that links to his early memories. Infantile amnesia is the global loss of episodic and contextual memories formed in early life. Image credit: Birte Doludda

Infantile #amnesia limits our recall of early-life memories, but what is its cellular basis? @tjryan.bsky.social &co reveal that transient #microglial activity during postnatal development regulates infant #memory persistence & retrieval in mice @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4a0SoGH

A cartoon showing a middle-aged mouse at an office desk, remembering (in a thought bubble) a childhood birthday, with his parent bringing him a cake with a single candle; cartoon glial cells are controlling a cable that links to his early memories. Infantile amnesia is the global loss of episodic and contextual memories formed in early life. Image credit: Birte Doludda

Infantile #amnesia limits our recall of early-life memories, but what is its cellular basis? @tjryan.bsky.social &co reveal that transient #microglial activity during postnatal development regulates infant #memory persistence & retrieval in mice @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4a0SoGH

Why emotion research is stuck—and how to move it forward Studying how organisms infer indirect threats and understand changing contexts can establish a common framework that bridges species and levels of analysis.

My perspective in @thetransmitter.bsky.social on why emotion research feels stuck and how we might move forward—by focusing on how the brain uses internal brain models to shape emotional processing across species. www.thetransmitter.org/emotion/why-...

Video of the Minneapolis shooting on Reddit shows a group of ICE agents beating a man on the ground. One of the ICE agents then steps back and shoots the victim multiple times.

A nearby witness says “they killed the guy.”

If you have read even a single history of fascism, you are already aware that one thing that its rise has in common in every case is an opposition party that refuses to intervene for fear of looking weak or putting the left into power

Just spoke to The Hill about how the dismantling of the NIH is impacting science in America. We still face a cliff of unfathomable heights, w easily 1000+ labs poised to close in the next year due to funding ending. A generation of young scientists lost because there is nowhere for them to train.

Blocking immune cells in the brain can prevent infantile amnesia Scientists have found that blocking microglia (specialist immune cells in the brain) prevents infant forgetting ("infantile amnesia") and improves memory in mice, suggesting that microglia may actively manage memory formation and dictate what, and when, we forget.

Blocking microglia activity in young mice prevents infantile amnesia and enhances memory, indicating these brain immune cells play a key role in early memory formation and forgetting. doi.org/hbkphs

Title slide for Dr. Power's talk

Last week, Sarah Power (@sarahdpower.bsky.social) dazzled us with her unique research. Her research program is one of a kind: she combines precise mouse neuroscience with bold toddler behavioral methods to study infantile amnesia. Hire her!

One of the great speeches of history.

CARNEY: "The middle powers must act together because if we're not at the table, we're on the menu."

The president
-Is occupying a major city with armed paramilitiaries
-Is blackmailing treaty allies to hand over their sovereign territory
-Is trying to set himself up as chairman for life of a UN rival with $1B fees for permanent membership
-Is talking about canceling elections

talking about AI as a bubble doesn't make sense. AI/tech has become integrated into critical social/financial infrastructure means fall of AI = fall of these institutions. just like govnt's bailed banks during the financial crisis, they will do same with AI so long as AI remains social infrastrctr

Happy to see this! This is indeed a mission statement for us, so I am pleased to see we lived up to it.

Congratulations on very nice work @tjryan.bsky.social and all of the team

Reporter: Renee Good was shot in the head and killed by an ICE Agent.

Leavitt: Why was she killed?

Reporter: Because an ICE agent acted recklessly and killed her unjustifiably

Leavitt: You’re a left-wing hack. You’re not a reporter.

Step into a Europe-wide community of neuroscience leaders. Junior & mid-career group leaders: apply by 30 Jan to become a FENS-Kavli Network Scholar and connect, collaborate, and contribute to shaping neuroscience in Europe. rb.gy/havqur

🌟 The Call for 2026–2030 #FENS-Kavli Scholars is open!

Join a community of engaged #neuroscientists shaping the future of research in Europe. 🧠

🗓️ Deadline: 30 Jan 2026
👉 buff.ly/Byeo6Qu

Denmark and allies boost Greenland military footprint as Trump ramps up pressure The deployment comes as U.S. President Donald Trump intensifies talk of taking over the Arctic island.

Denmark and allied countries said today they will increase their military presence in Greenland as part of expanded exercises, amid intensifying pressure from Washington over the Arctic island’s sovereignty.

The great, visionary, and intellectual David Bowie warned back in 2002 about two rising forces in America: a culture where “dumb is cool” and the “America First” mindset. Together, they became the perfect storm that would one day make Trump possible.

YouTube video by BRAIN PONDERINGS podcast with Dr. Mark Mattson Tomás Ryan: Competition Between Memory Engrams and The Importance of Forgetting

#ListerFellow @tjryan.bsky.social on his fascinating research into memory engrams and the importance of forgetting 👇

🧠 Recommended easy listening for a long, winter walk (but hurry before that snow hits ❄️⛄️)

Youtube: youtu.be/F7E9U55kxyE
Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/2mPB...

Extinction and subsequent updating of innate fear responses to a visual looming stimulus rely on hippocampus-dependent mechanisms How does the brain balance innate responses with adaptive learning when reacting to threats? This study shows that repeated exposure to looming stimuli reduces innate defensive responses via hippocamp...

Starting 2026 with a thread a very recent manuscripts at Ryan Lab @tcddublin.bsky.social @tbsi-tcd.bsky.social

"Extinction and subsequent updating of innate fear responses to a visual looming stimulus rely on hippocampus-dependent mechanisms"
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

@PLOSBiology

Erratum:
"Starting 2026 with a thread on a very recent manuscript from the Ryan Lab"

(Bluesky does not allowing posts to be edited).

Lastly, many thanks to the Editors at @plosbiology.org for a serious, efficient, and scholarly approach to peer review. My first time submitting to this journal, and I was very impressed.

The study was conducted at @tbsi-tcd.bsky.social in @tcddublin.bsky.social

Special thanks to our funders, especially AFOSR🇺🇸 who enabled this project. This work was also supported by CIFAR🇨🇦, the Irish Research Council (IRC) 🇮🇪, @researchireland.ie (SFI)🇮🇪 , & @erc.europa.eu🇪🇺

Many thanks for the resilient efforts of all contributing authors in the broader Ryan Lab, and our collaborators.

#scienceisglobal
🇮🇪🇮🇹🇬🇹🇫🇷🇸🇬🇺🇸🇺🇸🇪🇸🇦🇺🇬🇧🇮🇹🇮🇪🇪🇺

This project represents a large portion of Paul Conway's PhD thesis at @tcddublin.bsky.social
.
Paul has since moved to the lab of Jonny Kohl at @crick.ac.uk crick in London for his Postdoctoral career.

Hugely looking forward to seeing what he does next!

bsky.app/profile/tjry...

Paul first presented this work at @fens.org Forum 2022 in Paris, and again at @sfn.org 2023 in Washington DC. It has improved hugely with useful feedback from colleagues:

After years of effort and many challenges, false starts, and blind alley ways - this work was first published in December 2024:

bsky.app/profile/tjry...

Memory and Instinct as a Continuum of Information Storage

Future work will interrogate evolutionary aspects of ingram formation, asking whether learning and evolution find similar or different solutions to the same environmental challenges.

direct.mit.edu/books/edited...