Tim Viney

Great to read about this - I always enjoyed talking with Tarje at college and how enthusiastic he can be. Delighted that this project has resulted in such an important programme

Over a pint in Oxford, we may have stumbled upon the holy grail of agriculture | George Monbiot I knew that a revolution in our understanding of soil could change the world. Then came a eureka moment – and the birth of the Earth Rover Program, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

1. Some good news at last. This week’s column is about the amazing thing a couple of us stumbled into three years ago, which we’ve now developed into a global research programme. It doesn’t change everything, of course, but it could help change quite a lot. + 🧵 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Moon halo (22°) tonight in UK. Apparently this illusion is created by millions of hexagonal ice crystals in upper atmosphere

We conclude that selective accumulation of ptau in the anterodorsal thalamic nucleus disrupts head direction signaling, leading a change in orienting behaviour during initial spatial learning.

Dysfunction of thalamic head direction cells may be a 'preclinical' cognitive biomarker of dementia

We expressed mutant human tau in the anterodorsal nucleus of the mouse thalamus, which contains a high density of head direction cells.

These mice exhibited spatial disorientation during initial spatial learning, which could be explained by lower directionality of cells recorded in this nucleus

Early and selective localization of tau filaments to glutamatergic subcellular domains within the human anterodorsal thalamus - Acta Neuropathologica Widespread cortical accumulation of misfolded pathological tau proteins (ptau) in the form of paired helical filaments is a major hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease. Subcellular localization of ptau at v...

Spatial disorientation is an early sign of dementia. What neural circuit mechanism explains this?

We previously found that the human anterodorsal nucleus of the thalamus is highly vulnerable to pathological tau (ptau), even before ptau spreads across the cortex.

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

Title page of our paper

***Publication alert***

"Pathological tau alters head direction signaling and induces spatial orientation"

www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Reposting some comments via the Science Media Centre on the UK government's ambition of phasing out animal testing in the UK.
I think it is important for scientists to explain to policymakers and the public about pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics - complex interactions between drugs and the body

Molecular profiling of brain endothelial cell to astrocyte endfoot communication in mouse and human - Nature Communications Deciphering body-brain communication pathways is key to a deeper understanding of brain physiology and pathology. Here, the authors define the astrocyte endfoot proteome and show dynamic vascular-to-a...

#astrocytes #endothelium #cerebrovascular 😱🤩🤩

This is really interesting. These bacteria form biofilms, which are essentially amyloids

New blogpost on my concerns about Wellcome LEAP new $50m program on autism/microbiome links. deevybee.blogspot.com/2025/10/a-le...
#autism #microbiome #biomarkers #diagnostic

This is a strange and surprising finding. Need to study the electron micrographs in the suppl material carefully (without the colourful shading) to learn more. Note that neurons can have cilia, I wonder if this is what they have detected e.g. recent review here:
doi.org/10.1016/j.tc...

After many months of work on the revision, we have a paper accepted today (pending minor revisions). Also had a paper rejected at the same time (but going to ignore this email for today!)

Jane Goodall, world-renowned primatologist, dies aged 91 Jane Goodall Institute says ‘tireless advocate’ for natural world died in California during US speaking tour The world-renowned primatologist Jane Goodall has died at the age of 91, her institute has said. The Jane Goodall Institute announced that she had passed away of natural causes while in California as part of a US speaking tour. Continue reading...

Jane Goodall, world-renowned primatologist, dies aged 91

BBC Inside Science - The science behind autism - BBC Sounds What do we know about the causes of autism?

What do we know about the causes of #autism? @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social Professor Laura Andreae speaks with BBC Radio 4's Inside Science about the genetic factors behind autism, particularly around twin studies.

🔊 Listen now: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

This is incredible news!
It is also a good example of why it is so important to identify and define the most vulnerable brain regions and cell types for a given disease. In this case it is medium spiny neurons of the striatum.

PDB101: Molecule of the Month: Amyloids Alzheimer's disease and prion diseases are linked to unnatural aggregation of proteins into amyloid fibrils.

September 21 is #WorldAlzheimersDay
Alzheimer's disease and prion diseases are linked to unnatural aggregation of proteins into amyloid fibrils.

Thanks Abhilasha! And still using the same amplifiers. ADn HD cells also have a distinctive sound that is different from neurons in AV, DG, LD, etc.

Coherent dynamics of thalamic head-direction neurons irrespective of input While the thalamus is known to relay and modulate sensory signals to the cortex, whether it also participates in active computation and intrinsic signal generation remains unresolved. The anterodorsal...

🚨New preprint alert!

The thalamus has long been seen as a relay of sensory signals to cortex.
But could it also generate its own structured activity?
Our study explores this question in the head-direction (HD) system.

Some explanation 🧵👇 1/13

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

We suggest this ‘HD hub’ consists of different cell types and circuits, acting as ‘parallel channels’ coordinating sensory-modulated updates of the head direction for spatial navigation.

11/11

Type III HD cells were highly unusual as they avoided the TRN and projected ventrally to the cortex. These cells had distinctive twisted dendrites, were CR+, and were located in the dorsomedial ADn.

10/11

We found 3 types of projection patterns: type I HD cells formed collaterals in the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN) and cortex, projecting via the striatum and cingulum bundle. Type II HD cells additionally innervated the dorsomedial striatum.

9/11

We found a mediolateral gradient of calretinin (CR)-expressing HD cells, with CR+ cells tending to have narrower HD tuning widths, lower firing rates, and produced fewer spikes during rebound bursts compared to CR- cells.

8/11

We confirmed that HD cells could respond to sound stimuli, but found that not all cells were responsive, suggesting cell-type-specificity. Also, some sound-responsive cells were ‘boosted’ by muscle twitches. Other HD cells strongly increased or decreased firing during running periods.

7/11

We recorded HD cells with a range of short-latency responses to light pulses e.g. ‘ON inhibition OFF excitation’, or ‘ON excitation’. We suggest these patterns could help anchor various allocentric cues.

6/11

We used single neuron extracellular recordings and juxtacellular labelling to define the firing patterns, neurochemical profiles, and connectivity of individual HD cells in the ADn of awake mice.

5/11

Interestingly, some but not all HD cells stop firing when the animal is held by the experimenter (Taube, J Neurosci 1995) and others increase firing in response to sensory stimuli (Blanco-Hernandez et al, Nat Neuro 2024). This hints at some diversity of thalamic HD cells.

4/11

A high density of HD cells are found in the anterodorsal nucleus of the thalamus (ADn). The central dogma is that they act as a single functional unit for routing HD signals to the cortex.

3/11

Have you ever wondered how you know which direction you are facing? This is to do with specialised neurons in the brain known as head direction (HD) cells, which are fundamental for spatial navigation.

(Image from Taube 2024 doi.org/10.1002/hipo...)

2/11

Granularity of thalamic head direction cells Head direction signaling is fundamental for spatial orientation and navigation. The anterodorsal nucleus of the thalamus (ADn) contains a high density of head direction (HD) cells that process sensori...

*New preprint from the lab* – “Granularity of thalamic head direction cells”
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
🧠📈 🧪
1/11