Huang, Fei-Yang (黃飛揚)

3 UCLA faculty members elected to the National Academy of Medicine UCLA neurologist S. Thomas Carmichael, lung specialist Paul W. Noble and public health pioneer Ninez A.

Congrats 🎉 Tom Carmichael for your groundbreaking contributions to our knowledge and treatment of stroke… (but not mentioned anywhere is the foundational macaque PFC neuroanatomy) stemcell.ucla.edu/news/3-ucla-...

Happy Taiwan National Day from London!

Neural coding of choice and outcome are modulated by uncertainty in orbitofrontal but not secondary motor cortex - Nature Communications Neural mechanisms underlying flexible learning and decision-making are not fully understood. Using single-cell calcium imaging, authors here found that neurons in orbitofrontal and secondary motor cortex exhibit complementary roles in reward learning, with neurons in the former exerting a sustained role in conditions of uncertainty.

🎇 Excited to finally share JL Romero Sosa’s publication! Results are from single-cell imaging in different subregions of rat frontal cortex during ✨de novo learning. Spoiler: everything is not everywhere all at once www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New in @pnas.org: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

We study how humans explore a 61-state environment with a stochastic region that mimics a “noisy-TV.”

Results: Participants keep exploring the stochastic part even when it’s unhelpful, and novelty-seeking best explains this behavior.

#cogsci #neuroskyence

YouTube video by Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon "Cognition is emergent" by Earl Miller

Talk: Cognition is Emergent - Earl K. Miller
Neuroscience and Philosophy Salon, 9-12-25
youtu.be/Sk4ehOcsDmM?...

🚀Excited to share our project: Canonical Representational Mapping for Cognitive Neuroscience. @schottdorflab.bsky.social and I propose a novel multivariate method to isolate neural representations aligned with specific cognitive hypotheses 🧵https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.01.673485v1

Amygdala–liver signalling orchestrates glycaemic responses to stress - Nature Studies in mice show that acute stress activates hyperglycaemia via activation of a medial amygdala–ventral hypothalamic circuit that controls glucose metabolic responses in the liver, independen...

Amygdala–liver signalling orchestrates glycaemic responses to stress
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A pancreas–hippocampus feedback mechanism regulates circadian changes in depression-related behaviors - Nature Neuroscience The mechanisms linking neuropsychiatric and metabolic disorders remain unclear. The authors show a pancreas–hippocampus feedback loop whereby metabolic and circadian factors drive behavioral fluctuati...

A pancreas–hippocampus feedback mechanism regulates circadian changes in depression-related behaviors

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

Last call: why is China sobering up? Our weekly podcast on China. This week, why the country’s alcohol business is getting hammered

“You’ll need to make sure that your glass is held lower than the others when toasting.”

Jiehao Chen and @CrossleyGabriel consider drinking etiquette in China, on “Drum Tower”

New Dispatch in @currentbiology.bsky.social w/ @RobinPiquet & @dryacinetensaouti.bsky.social highlighting elegant work from the @iordanova.bsky.social lab that formally disentangles whether dopamine signals reward prediction errors or value.

authors.elsevier.com/a/1ldGk3QW8S...

Xiao-Jing Wang outlines the future of theoretical neuroscience Wang discusses why he decided the time was right for a new theoretical neuroscience textbook and how bifurcation is a key missing concept in neuroscience explanations.

And a podcast at Brain inspired www.thetransmitter.org/brain-inspir...

Opinion | The Future of AI Lies in Monkeys, Not Microchips Neuroscience research on primates will help us learn how to build an efficient thinking machine.

Very timely and insightful OpEd by Prof. Cory Miller on WSJ. It lays out an important point - Advanced AI cannot be developed in a vacuum without understanding the sophisticated machines we have in our brains.
www.wsj.com/opinion/the-...

Multispecies characterization of immature neurons in the mammalian amygdala reveals their expansion in primates by Marco Ghibaudi, Chiara La Rosa, Nikita Telitsyn, Jean-Marie Graїc, Chris G. Faulkes, Chet C. Sherwood, Luca Bonfanti Structural changes involving new neurons can occur through stem cell-driven neurogenesis, and through incorporation of late-maturing “immature” neurons into networks, namely undifferentiated neuronal precursors frozen in a state of arrested maturation. The latter have been found in the cerebral cortex and are particularly abundant in large-brained mammals, covarying with the size of the brain and cortex. Similar cells have been described in the amygdala of some species, although their features and interspecies variation remain poorly understood. Here, their occurrence, number, morphology, molecular expression, age-related changes, and anatomical distribution in amygdala subdivisions were systematically analyzed in eight diverse mammalian species (including mouse, naked mole rat, rabbit, marmoset, cat, sheep, horse, and chimpanzee) widely differing in neuroanatomy, brain size, life span, and socioecology. We identify converging evidence that these amygdala cells are immature neurons and show marked phylogenetic variation, with a significantly greater prevalence in primates. The immature cells are largely located within the amygdala’s basolateral complex, a region that has expanded in primate brain evolution in conjunction with cortical projections. In addition, amygdala immature neurons also appear to stabilize in number through adulthood and old age, unlike other forms of plasticity that undergo marked age-related reduction. These results support the emerging view that large brains performing complex socio-cognitive functions rely on wide reservoirs of immature neurons.

Multispecies characterization of immature neurons in the mammalian amygdala reveals their expansion in primates @PLOSBiology.org

Flexible updating of reward and punishment contingencies by VTA GABA neurons In dynamic environments where stimuli predicting reward or punishment unexpectedly change, it is critical to flexibly update behavior while preserving…

New lab paper by @merridee.bsky.social identifying a novel role for VTA GABA neurons in behavioral flexibility

GABA, but not dopamine, neuron activation correlates with behavior when cues unexpectedly shift from predicting punishment to predicting reward www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Tonic dopamine and biases in value learning linked through a biologically inspired reinforcement learning model Nature Communications - Accurate future predictions are essential for guiding behavior, and disruptions in this process are associated with psychiatric disorders. Here the authors show that changes...

My first paper with @naoshigeuchida.bsky.social is finally out in @natcomms.nature.com ! rdcu.be/eACGf

TL;DR: asymmetric learning rates can be induced by shifts in tonic dopamine giving rise to pessimistic/optimistic biases in agents or animals undergoing reinforcement learning .

An economist’s guide to big life decisions Forget your trip to the dentist. A new check-up is required

A trip to the economist might help you. But their prescription will depend on how old you are and what has already gone wrong in your life

I still get chills

Meet Mike
*30+ years severe depression
*first hospitalized @ 13y
*20 meds
*3 rounds of ECT
*2 near-fatal suicide attempts

Mike felt joy for the first time in decades after we turned on his new brain pacemaker or PACE

see videos, read paper, follow thread
doi.org/10.31234/osf...

Happy Father’s Day in Taiwan 🇹🇼

Orbitofrontal cortex computes gaze-dependent comparisons between attributes rather than integrated values When choosing between options with multiple attributes, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is thought to integrate across those attributes, aiding in value comparisons. This study shows in monkeys that OF...

Happy to have some good science news - our new study with @aqperkins.bsky.social is out in @plosbiology.org!

dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

📢 Job announcement: Two (!) 3-year postdoc jobs in our lab at UCL 📢

🧠💫🔊 We are looking for postdocs interested in the abstract mechanisms underlying social cognition. Modelling, fMRI and non-invasive ultrasound, a new deep-brain stimulation method.

Please RT

www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Christmas has come early....SSIBlings in a box!

#SSIB2025 Oxford, UK

A landmark volume, The Handbook of Dopamine, is now online:
www.sciencedirect.com/handbook/han...

Big kudos to the editors, Stephanie Cragg and Mark Walton, for putting this together.

Loved watching this and waiting for the human brain at the end. What an amazing visualization

Upper-gastrointestinal tract metabolite profile regulates glycaemic and satiety responses to meals with contrasting structure: a pilot study - Nature Metabolism In this randomized crossover pilot study, the authors collected human gastrointestinal digesta using a unique intubation technique to compare how meals with contrasting cellular structures affect post...

RESEARCH | 🧪
M Cai, G Frost, C Edwards et al
@imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social @quadraminstitute.bsky.social ‬‬‬

This study compares how meals with contrasting cellular structures affect postprandial luminal metabolites, glycaemia, gut hormones and satiety sensation.

www.nature.com/articles/s42...

🚨New paper🚨

Neural manifolds went from a niche-y word to an ubiquitous term in systems neuro thanks to many interesting findings across fields. But like with any emerging term, people use it very differently.

Here, we clarify our take on the term, and review key findings & challenges rdcu.be/ex8hW

Thank you, Nils! Your talk is exciting, too! I am planning to combine neurostim with my recording soon. Your noninvasive approach seems promising for my exp! Would love to know more about the technology from you!

Thanks @ssibsociety.bsky.social fir the opportunity to share my research at my second SSIB conference. Loved the discussions with you all! #ssib2025

Great to have @ssibsociety.bsky.social in town! Please enjoy Oxford and hope to meet and discuss with you more in the coming days! (feel free to reach out if you need amy restaurant/pub advice!)

The countdown is on!

Who's headed to Oxford for #SSIB2025!

Join us for cutting-edge science, networking, and the historic charm of one of the world’s oldest universities.

Stay tuned for updates throughout the week. 🇬🇧

#IngestiveBehavior #Neuroscience #Oxford #SSIB

High-density, Identified Cell Recordings from Motor Cortex of Awake Behaving Macaques using 1024-channel SiNAPS-NHP Probes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.22.665434v1