Jackie Birnbaum

Dynamic engagement of the motor cortex in controlling movement Neural circuits do not contribute equally or continuously to behavior. In mice, the motor cortex can be essential or dispensable for movement in different contexts, but how it is dynamically recruited...

Very excited to share a new preprint - my first paper in the @mikeeconomo.bsky.social lab where we asked when and why the motor cortex is recruited for movement control:🧠👇https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.13.699314v1

A scalable, all-optical method for mapping synaptic connectivity with cell-type specificity https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.25.661552v1

Congrats @mvickymoya.bsky.social!! Can’t wait to see how this will be used in the future

a woman in a judge 's robe is saying earth is a mess y 'all . Alt: The Good Place judge: "earth is a mess y'all ."

Mood after catching up on news:

It is a beautiful and amazing thing that a team of scientists can work for years on some intricate detailed exploration, and with just a little pdf thousands of other scientist can know and debate and discuss what they learned.

Honored for our recent work to be featured on the cover of Nature Neuroscience this month!
(@mikeeconomo.bsky.social and Bluesky-less Munib Hasnain)

If you’ve ever wondered about the relationship between cognitive processes and movement, check out our paper 👀

A person in a mask holding a painting that says “hands off my transgenic mice”

At @standupforscience.bsky.social and the signs are statistically significantly excellent

Boston, MA Location: Massachusetts State House 24 Beacon St, Boston, MA, United States Address: 24 Beacon St., Boston, MA, 02133 Time: 12-4 PM Important information: Please do not fully block the sidewalk, st…

Stand up for Science, on March 7th, in Boston. Please help spread this widely.

Trump Administration Stalls Scientific Research Despite Court Ruling (Gift Article) Using an arcane law, officials have effectively delayed funding from the National Institutes of Health, leaving medical studies in jeopardy.

New York Times article now up on Federal Register stuff.

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/s...

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Federal Register hold makes ‘end run’ around court pause on NIH funding freeze NIH-related updates to the Federal Register, which are required for the scheduling of study sections and advisory councils, are on hold indefinitely, according to an email reviewed by <i>The Transmitt...

A large portion of grants awarded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health cannot be funded for the foreseeable future because of an indefinite hold on submissions to the Federal Register, according to an email reviewed by The Transmitter.

By @avaskham.bsky.social

bit.ly/3X8ngz8

A huge thanks to the Bluesky-less Mike Economo for guiding Munib and I through this super fun, yet complicated project. And thanks to the rest of the team, our lab for input/advice, and to the reviewers who helped make this work better!
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GitHub - economolab/subspaceID: MATLAB and Python code to identify null and potent subspaces on single trials MATLAB and Python code to identify null and potent subspaces on single trials - economolab/subspaceID

If you want to try out our code on your own data, here’s the link: github.com/economolab/s...
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We think that this work highlights the need to carefully consider the relationship between cognitive processes and movements on a case by case basis, as the relationship likely varies depending on the cognitive process and brain region of interest 4/n

In contrast, we found that the cognitive process of urgency/timing was largely inseparable from ongoing movements! 3/n

By adapting an analytical method (the idea of null and potent subspaces) we found that some cognitive processes (motor planning and contextual encoding) are separable from correlated ongoing movements. And that these related cognitive and motor dynamics are encoded by separate neural populations 2/n

Separating cognitive and motor processes in the behaving mouse Nature Neuroscience - Using a novel method for isolating cognitive and motor neural dynamics, the authors show that dynamics often attributed to cognitive processes were corrupted by movements and...

Really proud and excited to share the final version of our paper, co-led by the Bluesky-less Munib Hasnain!!

We asked whether cognitive and motor neural dynamics can be isolated from one another, or whether they’re driven by common neural mechanisms 1/n

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

The entire website for the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH) is very nearly stripped bare. This is so, so devastating. orwh.od.nih.gov/research/fun...

YouTube video by Kempner Institute at Harvard University Rethinking Brain Mechanisms in the Light of Evolution with Paul Cisek

Rethinking Brain Mechanisms in the Light of Evolution with Paul Cisek youtu.be/CnT7jaQX4X8?... - if you want to understand what brains are for (and their functional organisation), this is the way... 👍👏

Slow-motion videos reveal tree frogs making some of the most dramatic landings in nature.

Learn more: scim.ag/4gTAurn

A little challenge for neuro/cog sci (/psych/comp-sci/bio/philosophy!) blueys:

How would you define "cognition"?

Can the motor system use sensory expectations to prepare for unexpected events?

Excited to share my latest work with @andpru.bsky.social – where we establish that sensory expectations shape neural population dynamics in motor circuits!

🧵 and paper below
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