Ian W. Keesey

A bowhead whale's DNA offers clues to fight cancer — NPR Scientists searching for new ways to combat cancer think they may have uncovered a promising new lead in the DNA of the bowhead whale.

Bowhead whales live twice as long as humans, and have a unique DNA repair mechanism to avoid cancer. Novel research w U Rochester in collaboration with the Inuit in Alaska.

🧪#cancer
apple.news/Ag-kaIoQ2QSG...

Incorporating open connectomics data into teaching neuroscience Learn to analyze open neuroscience data and introduce dry lab modules into your existing classes at the Incorporating Open Connectomics data into...

I will be co-teaching a summer course at Allen Institute on connectomics education please apply. Travel support, new connectomics data sets and learning directly from the scientists who built these datasets. Details here: alleninstitute.org/events/incor...

Dual roles of Drosophila reward-encoding dopamine neurons in regulating innate and learned behaviors Neuroscience; Behavioral neuroscience

Our paper on the counterintuitive effects of activating dopamine "reward" neurons is out now!

Props to all the trainees, especially Fio Lozada-Perdomo and Yuzhen Chen who did most of the work. Yuzhen is applying for PhD programs now and you'd be lucky to get her!

www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Shades of blue and red in a slice through an immuno stained brain showing some deliciously lovely looking mushroom body lobes - ripe for investigation during a funded PhD - and the central complex. Image credit: Dr Max Farnworth

🚨RA/PhD position available in evolutionary neurobiology 🚨

Working on a deep dive into circuit changes during mushroom body expansion in Heliconius butterflies @camzoology.bsky.social

- employment benefits
- 4 years funding
- 1000% fun

Deadline: 14/1/2026

Details:
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc...

1/n We have discovered that bees can keep track of time duration!
Bees can discriminate long 🟡🟡 vs short🟡 flashes, a bit like the "dash" and "dot" of the Morse code.
Check our new paper royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... and videoclip youtu.be/hsGxU65OMQk?... @preparedmindslab.bsky.social

From neurons to novelty: Circuit mechanisms shaping courtship evolution The vast diversity of animal behaviors has long inspired ethologists and neuroscientists, but circuit mechanisms driving this variation remain elusive…

@rorycoleman.bsky.social and I wrote an opinion piece called

'From neurons to novelty: Circuit mechanisms shaping courtship evolution'

We argue that now is a great time for neuro-evo research

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The sensory ecology of caterpillars - Journal of Comparative Physiology A Caterpillars (larval Lepidoptera) are one of the most ecologically and evolutionarily significant taxa on Earth. As both feeders and food, they shape the dynamics of enumerate ecosystems on land. Key ...

Do you work (/want to work) with caterpillars? Or sensory systems? Or BOTH?! Well good golly do we have the paper for you! We explain the senses that caterpillars have, what they use them for, and how anthropogenic sensory pollution might be messing it all up 🐛 doi.org/10.1007/s003...

The diversity of lepidopteran spatial orientation strategies – neuronal mechanisms and emerging challenges in a changing world - Journal of Comparative Physiology A The Lepidoptera, butterflies and moths, display an astonishing diversity of spatial orientation strategies essential for survival, reproduction, and ecological success. These spatial orientation strat...

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

@ebablab.bsky.social and I helped a bit in this really informative article by Robin Grob in the el Jundi lab on spatial orientation strategies in Lepidoptera. Have a read :-)

Sensory processing reformats odor coding around valence and dynamics Extracting relevant features of a complex sensory signal typically involves sequential processing through multiple brain regions. However, identifying the logic and mechanisms of these transformations...

Excited to share my most recent postdoctoral work in the Jeanne lab @yaleneuro.bsky.social !

“Sensory processing reformats odor coding around valence and dynamics”
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We ask: how is a sensory code transformed across multiple stages of processing to inform behavior?

Lineage-resolved atlas of the developing human cortex - Nature Lineage tracing in human tissue samples from gestational weeks 16 to 24 provides insight into lineage relationships between cortical cell types and shows a switch in progenitor output from glutamaterg...

Lineage-resolved atlas of the developing human cortex www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is figure 5, which shows CIRBP overexpression extends lifespan and enhances DNA damage resistance in Drosophila.

The remarkably long lifespan of bowhead whales could be due to an increased ability to repair DNA mutations, according to research in Nature. go.nature.com/4hzvDN7 🌏 🧪

Convergent evolution of a conserved molecular network underlies parenting and sociality - Nature Reviews Genetics Kay et al. review evidence that parental care, and more complex social behaviour based on parental care, evolved in multiple species through the repeated co-option of members of a pleiotropic molecula...

Parental care, and more complex cooperative systems of care, have independently evolved in hundreds of animal lineages. In an article published today, we explore how these behaviors evolve 𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭l shorturl.at/g5OPw /1

1/ Hello Drosophila-philists and braino-maniacs! 👋🪰🧠🧪

The Caron lab has a new preprint, and it is about 🥁🥁🥁 democracy!

Neuro-democracy, to be precise. So: drop EVERYTHING and listen up — a 🧶!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A single-nucleus transcriptomic atlas of the adult Aedes aegypti mosquito A comprehensive single-nucleus RNA-seq atlas of >367,000 nuclei from male and female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes reveals sexual dimorphism in sensory systems and brain cell types and widespread co-expres...

Excited to announce the final version of the Mosquito Cell Atlas is out now in @cellpress.bsky.social!! 🦟🩸

There is SO much left to find & investigate in this dataset (& the rich biology of the Aedes aegypti mosquito)! We hope this helps scientists in many fields!
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Do flies feel pain?

Spooky new preprint from our lab on the cells and circuits that mediate nociceptive behaviors in adult Drosophila, led by graduate student (and newly minted PhD!) @jonesjes.bsky.social.

🪰⚡👻🎃

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

When #HHMIJanelia released the #Drosophila hemibrain in 2020, rendering all cell types at once with full shading/shadows was too hard, so the video showed them region by region. Technology has since advanced, and I went back and rendered them all together. I like how it shows the internal structure.

The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins and their changing roles in different organisms across evolution Nature Reviews Neuroscience - Recent studies have shed further light on the evolutionary origins of chemical synapses, In this Review, Colgren and Burkhardt explore how ancient proteins were...

First neurons didn’t appear overnight. We trace their roots to ancient secretory cells - showing how lifestyle & behavior shaped the evolution of first synapses.🧠🌊 #Evolution #Neuroscience

Our latest in @natrevneuro.nature.com
Link: rdcu.be/eMX3E

@jeffcolgren.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social

From cognition in the body to the body in cognition Carlos Ribeiro and Albino Oliveira-Maia propose how brain–body interactions may inform the study of ‘higher’ cognitive functions such as learning and memory across model systems.

New essay in @currentbiology.bsky.social special brain-body issue! Fly lab meets psychiatrist: how bodily signals shape cognition and mental health. Great collaboration with Albino Oliveira-Maia showing @champalimaudf.bsky.social discovery ↔️ clinic at its best. www.cell.com/current-biol...

a group of Drosophila erecta fruit flies on a small food patch. flies on white background

Excited to share our new #biorxivpreprint

We discovered that the fruit fly #drosophila erecta requires food odor to mate and arousal is further enhanced by social group motion.

Cross-species analysis of brain activity reveals a novel gate evolved from within a conserved circuit

shorturl.at/gGYm7

Research Assistant opening The Kaun Lab is hiring new full-time Research Assistants!The position is ideal for someone interested in investigating how changes in gene regulation impact individual variation in addictive substance...

The lab is hiring Research Assistants to look at how changes in gene regulation impact motivation for addictive stimulants. www.kaunlab.com/post/researc...

I'm looking to recruit a post-doc to help push forward our growing interests in insect ecotoxicology.
Apply here by Nov 30th!
(thanks for reposting)

career5.successfactors.eu/sfcareer/job...

Excited to share our new #biorxivpreprint:
“Sexual dimorphism in the complete connectome of the Drosophila male central nervous system” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We describe the #connectomics reconstruction and analysis of an entire adult #maleCNS #drosophila central nervous system. 1/10

How did host plant specialization evolve in insect herbivores 🌱🐛🦋? If this is a question that bugs you, we have the perfect PhD-position to offer:
www.wur.nl/en/vacancy/p...

The connectome of the entire male Drosophila central nervous system is out!! Acquired using FIB-SEM @ 8x8x8nm, we aligned 7.5 mio 2D images aligned into one seamless 3D volume, which was used to segment & proofread neurons and synapses. @hhmijanelia.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Evolution of the olfactory system during the radiation of Heliconiini butterflies Abstract. Sensory system evolution plays a crucial role in shaping species’ interactions with their environment, yet the extent to which olfactory system d

New paper out! A nice collaboration.
We explore how olfactory brain structures and receptors evolved across this remarkable group, Heliconiini butterflies.

And here's the official announcement from our Janelia collaborators with a fantastic visualisation from @philiphubbard.bsky.social. See more at male-cns.janelia.org/media. Downloads are humming and we have solved the first data access queries. Happy exploring! #drosophila #connectomics #malecns.

Male CNS Connectome A team of researchers has unveiled the complete connectome of a male fruit fly central nervous system —a seamless map of all the neurons in the brain and nerve cord of a single male fruit fly and the ...

Exciting news for #drosophila #connectomics and #neuroscience enthusiasts: the Drosophila male central nervous system connectome is now live for exploration. Find out more at the landing page hosted by our Janelia FlyEM collaborators www.janelia.org/project-team....

Insect spatial memory is thought to be based on panoramic snapshots that are modelled as retinotopic images. This idea won't allow a distinction of landmarks from the scene. Unexpectedly, our data suggest that 🐝 learn 3D-objects as individual landmarks. #neuroethology
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Genomic plasticity drives olfactory adaptation in a pest fly Preference shifts in insects are often driven by changes in the olfactory system, yet the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. The worldwide pest Drosophila suzukii, which oviposits in ripe rather th...

Our first big preprint, led by the great Dr. Qi Xue
@Qi_Xue_94
. We discovered three mechanisms for olfactory adaptation in the fruit pest Drosophila suzukii, two of which are novel .Well Done Qi; you will be a great professor. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

new pape from our lab, led by the indefatigable @chrisjdallmann.bsky.social. i am very proud of this one.