NERF

New work out today by a collaborative team including @ppjgoncalves.bsky.social! 🙌

Introducing #JAXLEY, a differentiable simulator that brings biophysically detailed neural models into the realm of large‑scale, machine‑learning‑powered optimization.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-025-02895-w

Super excited about this work led by the one and only @deismic.bsky.social!

One week left to apply for the NERF/VIB-KU Leuven Center For Brain & Disease Research international PhD Call 2026!

Learn more about the projects & teams and apply now: https://cbd.sites.vib.be/en/phdcall2026

Applications are now open for the NERF/VIB-KU Leuven Center For Brain & Disease Research joint PhD Call 2026!

📅 Application deadline: 20 November 2025
📍 Start date: Autumn 2026
🔗 Learn more about the projects & teams and apply now: https://cbd.sites.vib.be/en/phdcall2026

Which small midbrain structure plays a surprisingly central role in how animals see, decide, and act, and has been the star of multiple recent papers from @farrowlab.bsky.social and @boninlab.bsky.social?
That's right, the superior colliculus!
https://blog.vib.be/meet-the-superior-colliculus

Wat als een hersenscan even eenvoudig werd als een echo? Bij pasgeboren baby’s verlopen epileptische aanvallen vaak zó subtiel dat ze onopgemerkt blijven. Toch kunnen net die eerste aanvallen schade veroorzake...

What if... a brain scan would be as easy as an ultrassound?

The Urban lab's work on fUS is covered in EOS (in Dutch)!

Read it here 👇 https://www.eoswetenschap.eu/technologie/wat-als-een-hersenscan-even-eenvoudig-werd-als-een-echo

📢 New paper out in Nature!
The Hoekstra lab at Harvard and @farrowlab.bsky.social lab at NERF reveal how a brain switch is tuned by evolution to control freezing vs fleeing in two sister species of deer mice.

👏 Huge congratulations to the entire team
https://tinyurl.com/3at3zvby

New from the Urban Lab: PyfUS!

An open-source Python toolkit for analyzing whole-brain fUS data—now with single-voxel clustering for fine-scale insights. Just published in Neurocomputing.

🔗 Paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neucom.2025.130899
🛠️ Code: github.com/OpenfUS/PyfUS

Systems and circuit neuroscience need an evolutionary perspective To identify fundamental neuroscientific principles that generalize across species, neuroscientists must frame their research through an evolutionary lens.

In a new essay in The Transmitter,
@farrowlab.bsky.social and katjareinhard.bsky.social‬ make the case for evolutionary thinking in systems neuroscience. Comparative approaches = deeper insight into brain function.
tinyurl.com/33sebnf7

✨ Artwork by Eoin Ryan

We map brain-wide functions of awake mice at the single-voxel scale !

Introducing PyfUS our brand new, ground-setting, open-source software for analysing brain-wide functional ultrasound imaging datasets.

Now in #Neurocomputing
@sciencedirect.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...

Excited to see this out! 🎉 Congratulations to the fantastic
@nkkuhn.bsky.social for leading the way, with key contributions from Chen Li and
@boninlab.bsky.social. Thanks also to: @nerflabs.bsky.social, @fwovlaanderen.bsky.social, @viblifesciences.bsky.social, and KU Leuven.
tinyurl.com/3rfe6f2k

New research from the @farrowlab.bsky.social and @boninlab.bsky.social at NERF out in @currentbiology.bsky.social reveals how the intricate dendritic architecture of midbrain neurons helps detect and compute critical motion cues.
https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0960-9822(25)00820-6

Last piece of work by Urban lab @viblifesciences.bsky.social @cbdresearch.bsky.social @nerflabs.bsky.social

Latest paper from the @alanurban.bsky.social‬ lab shows functional ultrasound (fUS) imaging reliably tracks neuronal activity with good spatial precision! 🎯

Congrats to the team! 👏
https://direct.mit.edu/imag/article/doi/10.1162/IMAG.a.34/131016/Functional-ultrasound-imaging-and-neuronal

Last Friday, we celebrated Art & Neuroscience with great talks, posters, workshops, and lots of connection at the yearly NERF retreat.

Special thanks to the @boninlab.bsky.social‬ for organizing, and to everyone who joined in on the fun! 🧠✨

🎨 Painted faces
🐁 Tickling experiments
🙋🏻‍♀️ Thought-provoking questions

Where else but at the NERF retreat? 🤩

Exciting news: @boninlab.bsky.social‬ & @vanderhaeghenp2.bsky.social with ‪@franckp.bsky.social‬ receive SFARI funding to study how early synaptic development in SYNGAP1 mutants shapes brain circuits & behavior in autism. 👏
https://tinyurl.com/54ywzxm9

Hayden, Karthik & Nastya from the @ppjgoncalves.bsky.social lab joined the #SBI Hackathon in Tübingen in March, contributing to the open-source SBI package. Nastya gave a lightning talk on multifidelity inference for computationally expensive simulators. A great week of science & collaboration!

Congratulations to Dr. Simone Marcigaglia on defending his PhD today! 👏 🎓

Simone developed a novel microfluidic catheter aimed at bypassing the blood-brain barrier, an ambitious and much-needed approach that would fill an existing gap in the market for intracerebral infusions.

With beautiful illustration of calcium imaging of human cortical neurons in visual cortex of awake transplanted mice by @benvermaercke.bsky.social @boninlab.bsky.social

🎶 Throwback to Quiz Night two weeks ago! Our NERF delegation may not have made it to the podium, but team spirit (and Disney knowledge!) was strong 💪

Big thanks to the PhD Association for organizing such a fun night. We're already looking forward to the next edition!

In a series of recent studies, the Urban lab shows how it's pushing the boundaries of functional ultrasound (fUS), with:
👉 AI-powered navigation tools with micrometer precision
👉 3D vascular mapping
👉 ultra-sensitive activity analysis
https://blog.vib.be/peering-into-the-brain-with-ultrasound

Thus new review by Jennifer Hoy (University of Nevada) and Karl Farrow (NERF) takes a deep dive into the role of the superior colliculus.
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)00052-1

Beautifully illustrated by Pia Rachedi + open access

@farrowlab.bsky.social

New work co-led by @ppjgoncalves.bsky.social introduces a powerful new approach to model conditional distributions of neural and behavioral data using masked variational autoencoders.
Congratulations to @auschulz.bsky.social‬ et al.
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(25)00109-3

As part of #NEUROGATE, the Haesler lab is helping develop a holographic endoscope for high-resolution, deep-brain imaging. Supported by a €2.5M EIC grant, this ultra-thin fiber technology could transform neuroscience & neurotech.
nerf.be/en/news#/new...

Belated congratulations to our newest Dr. Lies Deceuninck! 🙌 🎓

Spatiotemporal Clustering of Functional Ultrasound Signals at the Single-Voxel Level Functional ultrasound (fUS) imaging is a well-established neuroimaging technology that offers high spatiotemporal resolution and a large field of view. Typical strategies for analysing fUS data compri...

🚀New from Urban Lab in #eNeuro @sfnjournals.bsky.social We used spatiotemporal clustering of single fUS voxels to map visual activity in awake mice. This high-resolution method precisely separates signals, revealing fine-grained activity patterns like never before🧠✨ tinyurl.com/47t27c7k

What a week for the @boninlab.bsky.social!
Celebrating the publication of two papers and now the news of an FWO project grant, enabling more exciting science over the next four years. Congratulations Vincent Bonin and Asli Ayaz. 👏

Two new studies from the @boninlab.bsky.social reveal the complexity of the brain’s visual processing network and how it adapts to different states of arousal and behavior. 👁️ 🧠

Congratulations to @xuhan87.bsky.social, Karolina Socha, and the rest of the team. 🙌

nerf.be/en/news#/new...

Very nice talk given today @nerflabs.bsky.social by Robert Olhendorf from @maxplanckcampus.bsky.social about brand new tools for whole-brain molecular hemodynamic imaging 🤩 Very exciting work !