Yuriria Vázquez

Could not be more excited about Colton's @coltoncasto.bsky.social work! A deep dive into the linguistic cerebellum, and a discovery of an area remarkably functionally similar to the core left-hemisphere language areas, including in its selectivity for language. Go Colton and team!

Can You Tell What This Monkey Is Thinking from Its Face? A new study suggests that primate facial expressions may not just be reflex

A new study suggests that primate facial expressions may not just be reflex

🤗🙏🏻

Special thanks to Jim Hudspeth—always in our hearts, always missed, and an inspiration to all who knew him.

Thanks to everyone who supported us on this journey. Huge thanks: Ale, Lihong, Freiwald Lab, Shepherd S.V, Schaffelhofer S, Myles @TDT.

4. The takeaway: facial movements aren't controlled by separate circuits—they emerge from a coordinated sensorimotor network.

3. What we found: facial motor areas form an interconnected network—synchronized in alpha/beta during expressions, lower frequencies during chewing. The coupling pattern shifts with movement type.

2. The dominant view: emotional vs. voluntary expressions are controlled by separate circuits (medial vs. lateral cortex). We tested whether they actually operate as one network—using fMRI-guided microstimulation and simultaneous recordings from four cortical areas in macaques.

Summary
1. Primates communicate through facial expressions—but how the brain generates them remains poorly understood.

Title and authors of our PNAS paper on neural synchrony and facial motor control

Thrilled to share our paper in @pnas.org!
"Neural synchrony links sensorimotor cortices in a network for facial motor control"
With superb team: Ianni GR (co-first), Rassi E, Rouse AG, Schieber MH, Yazdani F, Prut Y, Freiwald WA.

doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

4. The takeaway: facial movements aren't controlled by separate circuits—they emerge from a coordinated sensorimotor network.

3. What we found: facial motor areas form an interconnected network—synchronized in alpha/beta during expressions, lower frequencies during chewing. The coupling pattern shifts with movement type.

2. The dominant view: emotional vs. voluntary expressions are controlled by separate circuits (medial vs. lateral cortex). We tested whether they actually operate as one network—using fMRI-guided microstimulation and simultaneous recordings from four cortical areas in macaques.

Summary 👇
1. Primates communicate through facial expressions—but how the brain generates them remains poorly understood.

Optogenetic interrogation of the zebrafish lateral line reveals brain-wide neural circuits involved in pattern separation Zoology; Neuroscience; Sensory neuroscience

It's finally out! Our paper on optogenetic interrogation of the lateral line: www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
This one involved a lot of sweat and tears, and it was a real tour de force. It was also the last paper we got to write with Jim, so it's a special one (and hence, the tears).

🪷🍀🐠🐟🐌🙏🏻

Delighted to share our new paper, now out in PNAS! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

"Hierarchical dynamic coding coordinates speech comprehension in the brain"

with dream team @alecmarantz.bsky.social, @davidpoeppel.bsky.social, @jeanremiking.bsky.social

Summary 👇

1/8

Ultrasonic signals support a large-scale communication landscape in wild mice. See our paper here:
www.cell.com/current-biol...
@currentbiology.bsky.social #bioacoustics

Versatile use of chimpanzee call combinations promotes meaning expansion Chimpanzees uniquely use diverse combinatorial mechanisms to alter meaning in call combinations.

Chimps combine calls to encode many more meanings than there are call types. Congrats to @tozbu.bsky.social from the ENES Bioacoustics Research Lab & Co👇
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
@aaas.org
#bioacoustics
@earthspecies.bsky.social

Bonobo Nyota at Ape Initiative, a science and education nonprofit

Are humans the only species that communicates when a collaborator is missing information?

In @pnas.org, Luke Townrow and I show that our closest relatives, bonobos, can track when a partner is knowledgeable or ignorant, and tailor communication accordingly

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Join researchers across the country in fighting restrictions on the NIH Please click the link to complete this form.

Academic workers across the country are organizing to call on our congressional representatives on Thursday, 1/30, at 3pm ET / 12pm PT to demand these restrictions be lifted immediately.
There will be a training over zoom at the beginning of the event.
Join us!
form.jotform.com/250226137228...