Scott Pluta

And maybe an espresso, too?

Pretty tired from a 12km loop yesterday from highland base camp to Hveradalir in Kerlingarfjöll. Worth the pain, though.

Full professor complaining to an assistant professor on how hard it is to get funding nowadays

There isn't a self-generated (optic flow coupled to locomotion) stimulus in these datasets, which I believe is the crux of the Keller lab argument. But, there are many studies showing enhanced activity to the oddball. I've not a fan of that approach. Sensory predictions are driven by movement, IMO.

NIH announces end to funding for animal-only studies - Drug Discovery and Development Drug Discovery and Development covers strategies and technologies related to pharmaceutical research and development and drug formulation.

This will devastate all of my colleagues that do neuroscience in mice. Drugs don't always translate from mouse to human, But 90% of our genes are shared. They allow recordings and manipulations that cannot be done in humans. We will cede discovery to Europe and China with this unnecessary handicap.

What are the needs of humanity?

Very interesting.

I was hoping you would say something about this impending manuscript, tho.

Manuscript? 👀

must be incredibly frustrating and disheartening to have federal funding that was promised to you for important work suddenly and arbitrarily ripped away

Converting percepts into actions in the visual cortex and superior colliculus. at University of Glasgow on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Converting percepts into actions in the visual cortex and superior colliculus. at University of Glasgow, listed on FindAPhD.com

UK neuroscience graduates! PhD opportunity here at Glasgow SPN: www.findaphd.com/phds/project... Closing date July 4

In late January, I said we were "still exploring" a cool thing we found in RN.

Well, we're back, and we've got movement kinematics (thanks to ‪@deeplabcut.bsky.social‬)!

(You can find all the details in our updated bioRxiv paper, linked below)

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

Neuroscience needs to empower early-career researchers, not fund moon shots Large-scale projects run the risk of stifling scientific independence. Instead, let’s explore alternative mechanisms of collaboration.

Large-scale projects run the risk of stifling scientific independence. Instead, let’s explore alternative mechanisms of collaboration, writes @neuralreckoning.bsky.social.

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/funding/neur...

There is no replacement (yet) for animal models in medical research The NIH is “reducing animal use in research.” But there is no replacement for animal models.

It is beyond disturbing when the NIH and HHS Directors do not understand that animal models are essential in research

www.statnews.com/2025/05/19/a...

Brain-wide presynaptic networks of functionally distinct cortical neurons - PubMed Revealing the connectivity of functionally identified individual neurons is necessary to understand how activity patterns emerge and support behaviour. Yet the brain-wide presynaptic wiring rules that...

Other great examples are in the whisker system where the sensory nerve is cut, but movement signals persist. Such as pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40011781/

Ideally, you eliminate sensory feedback during the movement, allowing you to observe the residual motor efference. The best example is in weakly electric fish. Nathan Sawtell and Curtis Bell is a place to look in that regard.

Excited to share my PhD paper! In it, we use targeted 2-photon optogenetic stimulation to determine how V1 activity is read-out in a detection task. We found that network influence, not visual coding properties, predicted the impact of ensembles on behavior - contradicting our expectations (1/5).

Bilateral integration in somatosensory cortex is controlled by behavioral relevance - Nature Neuroscience How sensory signals from both sides of the body are integrated into a single percept is not well understood. Park et al. show that callosal signaling supports the integration of bilateral tactile stim...

Bilateral integration in somatosensory cortex is controlled by behavioral relevance 🧠🧪

@scottrpluta.bsky.social

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

How is this not obvious to everyone but maybe a first year student?

The brain can hallucinate, but calling that hallucination information might be a stretch.

Bilateral integration in somatosensory cortex is controlled by behavioral relevance - Nature Neuroscience How sensory signals from both sides of the body are integrated into a single percept is not well understood. Park et al. show that callosal signaling supports the integration of bilateral tactile stim...

I'm really proud of my two graduate students, Hyein and Hayagreev, for getting this challenging and exciting project across the finish line. We reveal the state-dependent logic that underlies callosal signaling between the somatosensory cortices. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Positions Join the lab We are looking for curious, motivated, and talented people from all different backgrounds to join our team at all levels. Mentoring is simply one of the best parts of being an academic sc...

The Oldenburg lab is looking for another postdoc! If you want to use holographic optogenetics to answer questions about neural codes let me know. We like shooting lasers and thinking about movement.

We're located at Rutgers in Piscataway NJ (its like ~45 min from NYC).

oldenburglab.com/positions/

May 2021, shortly after we finished building automated boxes for training mice to perform bilateral discrimination using active touch. The first paper is finally dropping soon.

Our latest editorial in defense of vaccines and vaccination, introduces two Perspectives in this issue on priorities for outbreak vaccination, as well as the important successes of vaccines to date

Please read and spread the word 🙏🏻!

Evidence for an active handoff between cerebral hemispheres during target tracking The brain has somewhat separate cognitive resources for the left and right sides of our visual field. Despite this lateralization, we have a smooth and unified perception of our environment. This rais...

New results!
Evidence for an active handoff between cerebral hemispheres during target tracking
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#neuroscience

Thrilled that our paper has been published in @elife.bsky.social
doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

We ask: how can a neuron integrate information across multiple time scales?

Twist: This neuron has extreme properties that helps it work ~300x times faster than neurons in the hippocampus

Summary 🧵to follow

My lab @kinshiplab.bsky.social is recruiting a postdoc 🚨 with Sept start date

Preference for in-vivo ephys / circuits experience / interest in applying quantitative methods to natural social behaviour.

Funding & visa fees for 1-yr with possible extension. Send me your CV & visit kinshiplab.org

Distinct synaptic plasticity rules operate across dendritic compartments in vivo during learning Synaptic plasticity underlies learning by modifying specific synaptic inputs to reshape neural activity and behavior. However, the rules governing which synapses will undergo different forms of plasti...

Our new paper is out in Science.

What is the synaptic plasticity rule in the brain, we asked. It turns out there are multiple, even within individual neurons.

Congrats Jake!

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

(Plz repost)

I’ve been receiving some good news lately and will be hiring at all levels to expand the lab. Please get in contact if you are interested in reinforcement learning, neural plasticity, neural circuit dynamics, and/or hearing rehabilitation.

pierre.apostolides @ umich .edu

Tyvm

Reward integration in prefrontal-cortical and ventral-hippocampal nucleus accumbens inputs cooperatively modulates engagement - Nature Communications Neural circuit mechanisms underlying integrating information about reward across time are not fully understood. Here, the authors show that common outcome-integration signals from the medial...

Thrilled to see this part of my PhD work with @rcbagot.bsky.social now out in @natcomms.nature.com!
(1/14)

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

Whisking and locomotion are jointly represented in superior colliculus neurons To navigate the world, the brain needs to have internal models of self-motion, for example of whisker movement in mice. This study shows how neurons in the midbrain superior colliculus encode internal...

Neurons just keep mixing their selectivity.
Whisking and locomotion are jointly represented in superior colliculus neurons
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
#neuroscience

Basically, there are only downsides to cutting funding for science. Who would have thought...