William M. McCallum

Neural manifolds that orchestrate walking and stopping https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.08.687367v1

A Reference Atlas of the Human Dorsal Root Ganglion Somatosensory perception largely emerges from diverse peripheral sensory neurons whose cell bodies reside in dorsal root ganglia (DRG). Damage or dysfunction of DRG neurons is a major cause of chronic...

The BIG DRG paper is now up on @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... so many people worked so hard to make this happen. Props to the whole PRECISION Human Pain Network.

Whole-cortex in situ sequencing reveals input-dependent area identity - Nature BARseq interrogates the expression of 104 cell-type marker genes in 10.3 million cells over nine mouse forebrain hemispheres to reveal the role of peripheral inputs on cortical area development.

Still think brain regions don’t exist? That everything is everywhere? That cell types don’t matter and that everything is a dynamical phase portrait?

Wrong.

Interconnected brain modules exist at the level of fine grained transcriptomics. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Sensory expectations shape neural population dynamics in motor circuits Nature - Experiments with human volunteers and macaques show that expectations produced by probabilistic cueing of future sensory inputs shape motor circuit dynamics in order to increase the...

Thrilled that our paper is out today in Nature!
www.nature.com/articles/s4...

🧠🌟🐭 Excited to share some of my postdoc work on the evolution of dexterity!

We compared deer mice evolved in forest vs prairie habitats. We found that forest mice have:
(1) more corticospinal neurons (CSNs)
(2) better hand dexterity
(3) more dexterous climbing, which is linked to CSN number🧵

Evolutionary expansion of the corticospinal system is linked to dexterity in Peromyscus mice https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.16.682851v1

New questions around motor neurons and plasticity A researcher’s theory hangs muscle degeneration on a broken neural circuit.

Results showed it was possible to “effectively rescue motor neuron function,” and George Mentis and his team think their results are coalescing into a theory, even if they don’t fully understand it yet.

By David Adam

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/neurodegener...

Labelled axons of calb1+ spinal projection neurons innervate multiple brain targets associated with cold sensation and thermoregulation. Darkfield images of different brain areas including the postal parabrachial and periaqueductal grey are shown with axons of ascending cells in yellow.

New preprint from the spinal cord group at Glasgow. Anatomical and functional characterisation of spinal circuits for cold, from sensory neurons to the brain…..https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.03.680240v1

My department at Emory is a hiring a tenure-track neuroscientist!

Anyone who's talked to me in the last 4 years knows I cannot say enough good things about my dept and the neuroscience community here. My colleagues are so wonderfully supportive. Postdocs, please apply!

apply.interfolio.com/174371

A neural geometry for forelimb proprioception in the cervical spinal cord https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.26.678887v1

New preprint out from the lab. We identified three critical windows over which sensorimotor behaviours can be shaped. Altered early experience over these windows changes somatosensory and motor outcomes for life. Tour de force experiments by Laura Andreoli. @medresfdn.bsky.social @uclnpp.bsky.social

A neural entero-pancreatic pathway that regulatesinsulin secretion and glucose tolerance https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.14.670343v1

Differential kinematic coding in sensorimotor striatum across behavioral domains reflects different contributions to movement - Nature Neuroscience Hardcastle and Marshall et al. show that striatal function is domain specific, required for task-related but not spontaneously expressed movements. This functional distinction is reflected in starkly ...

Excited to announce that my first postdoc paper is now online!

Links:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
rdcu.be/eAcN7

In it, we examine the perennial question: what changes in the brain when learning a new motor skill?

Read more below to find out 👇

1/N
How do neural dynamics in motor cortex interact with those in subcortical networks to flexibly control movement? I’m beyond thrilled to share our work on this problem, led by Eric Kirk @eric-kirk.bsky.social with help from Kangjia Cai!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The American people were lied to about Vietnam, with tragic consequences.

The American people were lied to about Iraq, with tragic consequences.

The American people are being lied to again today. We cannot allow history to repeat itself.

Cephalopods, vision’s next frontier For decades, scientists have been teased by the strange but inaccessible cephalopod visual system. Now, thanks to a technological breakthrough from a lab in Oregon, data are finally coming straight…

The octopus brain has teased researchers since the 1960s, but recording from it seemed impossible. Cris Niell and his team’s calcium imaging experiments finally “showed that this brain could be studied,” says Sam Reiter.

By @callimcflurry.bsky.social

www.thetransmitter.org/vision/cepha...

New preprint out! We developed a behavioural platform for the kinematic analysis of skilled whole body behaviour. Very fun collaboration with Christopher Black, @liamebrowne.bsky.social and Rob Brownstone.

Why we study shrimp on treadmills: The case for curiosity-driven research “If we cut or limit funding for curiosity-driven research, we risk shutting down the pipeline of future innovation,” writes Carole LaBonne of Northwestern.

My ode to Curiosity Driven Research

www.statnews.com/2025/04/03/b...

Uranus emits more heat than previously thought Uranus radiates more energy than it gets from the sun, two new studies find — just as Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune do.

New observations from space- and ground-based telescopes reveal that Uranus radiates more energy than sunlight provides, two research teams report in work submitted to arXiv.org in late February.

I am very proud to announce that my PhD paper finally came out in Cell! In this *very* collaborative study, we develop and release a deep-learning approach to predict neuron type identity from their electrical signature. doi.org/10.1016/j.ce... 1/16 🧵

My cat Lulu us here for us all

We were able to get a clip of the video to upload from the "turtle dance" research paper. 🧪

This is figure 4, which shows sensory analysis evaluation.

A paper in Communications Engineering presents a new method to optimally cook both the yolk and white of a boiled chicken egg. "Periodic cooking” yields an evenly-cooked egg with a higher nutritional content than shell-on eggs cooked by conventional methods. https://go.nature.com/4hJWNzU 🧪

How a Canadian scientist and a venomous lizard helped pave the way for Ozempic - National | Globalnews.ca In 1984, Dr. Daniel Drucker, an endocrinologist from the University of Toronto, discovered a hormone that helped pave the way for popular diabetes drugs such as Ozempic.

This is the most relevant article to NIH and research cuts I’ve seen.

Imagine if this was today , how many people would be saying “Why are we studying Gila Monsters and their impact on diabetes ? That’s wasted money !”

globalnews.ca/news/9793403...

Regenerative failure of sympathetic axons contributes to deficits in functional recovery after nerve injury https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.08.631956v1

This week's sensorimotor superlab reading list is out @andpru.bsky.social @diedrichsenjorn.bsky.social @paulgribble.bsky.social #neuroskyence #psychscisky #Sensorimotor https://superlab.ca/posts/2025-01-10-list277.html

Neural circuit basis of placebo pain relief - Nature Analgesia from the expectation of pain relief is mediated by rostral anterior cingulate cortex neurons that project to the pontine nucleus.

We’ve all heard about the placebo effect. This year, UNC_CBP researcher Gregory Scherrer unearthed the neural circuitry underlying this phenomenon for the first time. Read the peer-nominated Publication of the Year from CBP, published in @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The spinal premotor network driving scratching flexor and extensor alternation Rhythmic motor behaviors are generated by neural networks termed central pattern generators (CPGs). Although locomotor CPGs have been extensively characterized, it remains unknown how the neuronal pop...

Our new preprint on how excitatory V2a and inhibitory V1 and V2b neurons cooperate to drive scratching rhythm, with a new neuromechanical model showing how CPG perturbations affect rhythm and phase of motoneuron firing and frequency of joint oscillations
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Motor unit mechanisms of speed control in mouse locomotion https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.29.628022v1

Spinal V1 inhibitory interneuron clades differ in birthdate, projections to motoneurons, and heterogeneity Major differences among the main spinal V1 inhibitory interneuron subgroups were revealed based on neurogenesis, circuit placement, and motoneuron targeting, and Foxp2-V1 interneurons were identified ...

Brand new (10 years running…) work from the Alvarez Lab out today - its a neuroanatomy feast timed for the holidays. When I joined the lab, seeing this take its final form I knew I was in the right place. The whole team is legendary!! (and V1s are the coolest)

elifesciences.org/articles/951...