Dr. Susanne Hoffmann

Two weeks left to apply for our graduate school IMPRS-BI and join us as a PhD student! Find out more: imprs-bi.mpg.de

Very nice review of the neuroscience underlying bat #bioacoustics ⬇️

Illustration of female and male yellow warblers and their respective songs. On top, two duets are shown in spectrograms with male parts marked in red and female parts marked in yellow. On the left are three female songs and on the right are three different male songs. Illustrations are courtesy of Lena Gies.

Excited to share our new preprint!
Unlike the North American yellow warblers, females in Galápagos commonly sing and duet with their paired partners. Here, we tested possible functions with a playback experiment: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🌧️📱 rain calls 📱🌧️

Cool study in @behavecol.bsky.social from Framond et al. (Brumm lab, @mpiforbi.bsky.social) of a poorly understood chaffinch call type

Based on playbacks + field studies they conclude these are female-directed alarm calls

academic.oup.com/beheco/artic...

#prattle 💬
#bioacoustics

Pic taken last November in the South African Kalahari. Don't remember the specie's name 😬.

The ontogeny of decision-making in an eavesdropping predator: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... #ProcB #cognition #ethology

A male Northern Harrier in quartering flight with its beak pointed towards the ground so that it can listen for prey.

A figure from our paper showing: left: scatterplots of auditory nuclei size against brainstem volume for 9 species of hawks, including harriers. In both plots, the harriers have much larger volumes than what is expected based on their brainstem volume. middle: photos of sections taken through auditory brain nuclei of the Northern Harrier right: photos of sections taken through the auditory brain nuclei of a Cooper's hawk

New paper out from our lab today!

@evolsara.bsky.social shows that harriers have expanded their auditory nuclei in a similar way to owls to enable them to calculate the position of prey by sound.

#birds #ornithology #neuroskyence 🧠🧪🇨🇦🇦🇺

doi.org/10.1111/joa....

Check out this fantastic opportunity #bioacoustics people!

YouTube video by Turismo Torino e Provincia Torino the place To be - short 1'

ISBE26-the 20th International Society for Behavioral Ecology Conference will take place in Turin, Italy, from 20-24th of July 2026. We invite you to join us to enjoy a 5-day meeting rich in top-notch science and ample networking opportunities, in our beautiful city. Website out soon!
#ISBE26

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

Our new paper is out. We point out that large brained (and often smart) mammals and birds have evolved very different distribution of neurons numbers in the brain.
This means that similar cognitive abilities have evolved in very different brains.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

‘Natural Neuroscience,’ an excerpt In his new book, Nachum Ulanovsky calls on the field to embrace naturalistic conditions and move away from overcontrolled experiments.

In his new book, published today, Nachum Ulanovsky calls on the field to embrace naturalistic conditions and move away from overcontrolled experiments.

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur...

See more on the PhD position [here](www.activesensingcollectives.com/openings/) - and am also happy to receive informal queries. Please re-post and share in your circles!

Lateralized cerebellar connectivity differentiates auditory pathways in echolocating and non-echolocating whales We report the first application of diffusion tractography to a mysticete, which was analyzed alongside three odontocete brains, allowing the first direct comparison of strength and laterality of audit...

This is cool -- I've been thinking about dolphin echolocation and subcortical circuits recently (e.g., now in press - www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...). Seems a lot is happening between IC and cerebellum in dolphins (who do click socially), presumably in support of rapid sensorimotor prediction.

Convergent vocal representations in parrot and human forebrain motor networks - Nature Using advanced brain-recording techniques, parrots were found to have a brain organization for vocal control similar to humans, making them an important model for studying speech and for developing po...

In this fascinating paper by the Long lab, activity was recorded from the vocal production region of the budgerigar. These neurons form a map of phonetic features just like in humans. This, however, was not the case in the homologous region of the zebra finch 🧠! www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🦜🗣️

Anyone happen to know of good PhD funding opportunities for bioacoustics or vocal behavior neuroscience?

Options for early PhD candidates in the US would be extra appreciated 🙏

#bioacoustics
#neuroskyence

Our first look at midbrain PAG’s role in singing mouse vocal control. When near each other, these mice produce two divergent vocal modes. Same circuits for USVs and Songs—or different ones? Bets were made..some of us bought beers for others! Led by @xmikezheng20.bsky.social & Clifford Harpole. 👇🏽

UAB Neurobiology is hiring up to 4 new tenure-track faculty as part of 3 new open-rank searches. Come join our vibrant, supportive, and growing neuroscience community!
uab.peopleadmin.com/postings/23916
uab.peopleadmin.com/postings/23944
uab.peopleadmin.com/postings/24010

🚨 Lecturer in Animal Behaviour position @waikatouniversity.bsky.social. Fantastic opportunity for someone passionate about teaching & research in animal behaviour, preferably on birds, amphibians, reptiles or bats.

📍 Hamilton, NZ
Closes: 4th May 2025
🔗 www.seek.co.nz/job/83279795...

The International Society for Neuroethology has a grant for disadvantaged scientists investigating the mechanisms of animal behaviour. Apply for funds to help overcome any barriers you face!

Membership fees can be included in your application.

Details here: www.neuroethology.org/diversity-aw...

A book cover for Bird Brains and Behavior: A Synthesis. The images on the cover include a Turkey vulture in flight, a singing song sparrow, a drawing of a black browed albatross brain, and a foraging whimbrel.

The cover of our new book has been approved!

Due out this August through MIT Press and the online version will be open access.
#neuroskyence #ornithology 🪶🧠

"Onboard recordings reveal how bats maneuver under severe acoustic interference"

doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Exciting new study by The Bat Lab.
#bioacoustics

What drives our desire to eat or drink? Food or water intake is regulated by distinct circuits with specialized "thirst" and "hunger" neurons in the amygdala, a new study in mice shows. Read more: www.bi.mpg.de/news/2025-03...

@uniregensburg.bsky.social @stanford.edu
Art @somedonkey.bsky.social

Join us at @ibe.pensoft.net We are looking to build a special collection of new articles on Individual Perspectives in Conservation Ecology. We are eager to be taxonomically inclusive. Please contact co-editor- in-chief, prof. Mark Hauber MHauber@gc.cuny.edu for more information. Photo: T. Grim

👋 Looking forward to the 117th Annual Meeting of the German Zoological Society. Please like and share 🤩

#prattle 💬 #bioacoustics

Convergent vocal representations in parrot and human forebrain motor networks - Nature Using advanced brain-recording techniques, parrots were found to have a brain organization for vocal control similar to humans, making them an important model for studying speech and for developing po...

Convergent vocal representations in parrot and human forebrain motor networks (commonalities with
speech-related motor cortices in humans found in budgerigar, but not in zebra finch, a songbird
capable of more limited vocal learning) 🧪🧠🦜
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Who is calling? Bats outsmart deception by solving sensory conflicts

www.cell.com/current-biol...

🐒 Have you ever wondered how animals use gestures to communicate?

Join @kirstyegraham.bsky.social as they share open-source tools that can enhance our ability to compare bodily communication across species!

📆Saturday, February 22⏰ 5 pm GMT |1 pm EST |10 am PST🔗 Register here:https://rb.gy/fb4rer

It’s #BrainAwarenessWeek! Today, we're highlighting songbirds as a key model organism in #neuroscience research. These vocal learners help scientists study how the brain processes speech, learning, and memory. #KavliNeuro #BAW