Horst Obenhaus

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...

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How can the brain create countless unique memories using a single, universal metric of space? We’ve been waiting for the answer to this for two decades!
Read it here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Wow wow wow, congratulations @clykken.bsky.social and team!!! This is cool.

8x8 grid depicting the approach to stimulus creation. Feature pairs are on the axes and images are in the cells. The x-axis represents the high-level feature pairs: setting (green) and object (teal). For example, the first column of images all depict “truck” (object) in “field” (setting) rendered in various textures and patterns. The y-axis represents low-level feature pairs: texture (blue) and pattern (purple). For example, the first row of images all depict different objects and settings rendered as if drawn with crayon (texture) and containing large horizontal edges (pattern).

Excited to release the SPOT grid: a new image set that factorially crosses scene-object & texture-pattern pairings.

We hope these stimuli will be useful to researchers aiming to (partially) disentangle the contributions of lower- and higher-level visual features to behavior & brain activity.

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The curtain test! ((:

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...

Thanks, May-Britt!!

Grass Fellowship application flyer

Come to the MBL in Woods Hole @mblscience.bsky.social for a GRASS FELLOWSHIP @grassfoundation.bsky.social 🦑 🐙🐛
There are two application deadlines this year: Oct 15, 2025 (submit by then to receive feedback on your application!), and Dec 1, 2025 (final deadline). grassfoundation.org/application-...

Flyer advertising the BonnBrain Conference 2026, "From Genes to Circuits and Behavior".

Application is open! Come join us and our fantastic line-up of speakers next year in March in Bonn!

We just published our third major funding application, including the evaluation it received, for the benefit of future applicants 🙌

Because #OpenScience is also about sharing ideas and examples that others can learn from 🌟

www.ogrants.org/grants/jacob...

Check our new preprint where we examine how enriched experiences alter synaptic connectivity and coding sparsity across the neocortex.

Impressive design!! Repeatability and precision are shown in sample microscopy stage and by laser->fiber coupling. Check it out.

Open Source Motorized XYZ Micro-Manipulator - Affordable sub µm Motion Control
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgQb...

Github: github.com/0x23/MicroMa...

Goal-directed hippocampal theta sweeps during memory-guided navigation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.26.672489v1

MARBLE: interpretable representations of neural population dynamics using geometric deep learning - Nature Methods MARBLE uses geometric deep learning to map dynamics such as neural activity into a latent representation, which can then be used to decode the neural activity or compare it across systems.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Great question, and exactly what I’m interested in. Stay tuned for further news (:

Jumping spiders, octopuses, who's next! 🤗

My pleasure 💙💙💙!

☺️

Tap tap tap !

Beautiful (:
And great question! Octopuses sleep in dens in the wild, but still: Given how conspicuously it disrupts camouflage, there must be huge (evolutionary) benefit to conserving this sleep phase!

One of the “golden videos” that I took during my Grass Fellowship @grassfoundation.bsky.social - active sleep in these little guys is so obvious and flamboyant! @mblscience.bsky.social

Yeah!! So cool!

Yep, they drew (sucked?) me back!

Welcome back!

As for the bar coding: does that idea not generalise beyond discrete event boundaries if, as you describe, various clocks intermingle and thereby produce not repeatable states over time?

Beautiful, CONGRATS for having this out there!

Our new paper out now in Science explores how neural activity in the lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC) *drifts* over time - and *jumps* at key boundaries - to help organize events in memory.

🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Here's a quick summary of what we found 🧵👇

📯We, the Poirazi Lab at IMBB-FORTH, are thrilled to announce an open PhD Student position!

🗝️Key Research Areas: AI, Machine Learning, Brain-Inspired Computing, Neuronal Circuits.

📅Application Deadline: July 7, 2025.

Find out more about the position on our webpage: dendrites.gr?p=2825

New blog post with a review of interesting papers on VIP interneurons in cortex and hippocampus: gcamp6f.com/2025/06/23/i...
Covering work from @koenvervaeke.bsky.social's lab with @mateneubrandt.bsky.social, Yoav Adam's lab and Bernardo Rudy's lab.

Brightly labelled pyramidal cells in the mouse retrosplenial cortex. Blood vessels are visible of various thicknesses in darker colours.

#neuroskyence folks: as my postdoc grant is running out soon, I am looking for new opportunities in systems neuroscience!

Keywords: patch clamp ephys, opto, mouse behavior, (in vivo) voltage imaging. Would love to return to the Basal Ganglia.

Sharing appreciated, and happy #FluorescenceFriday !