Pieter Goltstein

Illustration of the brain in blue and yellow

12 leading neuroscientists tackle a big question: Will we ever understand the brain?

Their reflections span philosophy, complexity, and the limits of scientific explanation.

www.sainsburywellcome.org/web/blog/wil...

Illustration by @gilcosta.bsky.social & @joanagcc.bsky.social

Some absolutely stunning photos here!

Cortical columns have been known for over half a century. Now, a new study shows for the first time that they also exist in the mouse visual cortex: neurons processing visual input from the same eye are clustered in vertical columns. www.bi.mpg.de/news/2025-02...
@xpieter.bsky.social

Yes 😁 here is a link to the bsky thread 🧵 bsky.app/profile/xpie...

My colleagues in the @tobiasbonhoeffer.bsky.social department baked a mouse OD columns cake ❤️❤️

And here the rotating version of the image (1b/7)

A column-like organization for ocular dominance in mouse visual cortex - Nature Communications This study reports clusters of ipsilateral eye preferring neurons in layer 4 of mouse visual cortex, extending into layer 2/3 and upper layer 5. This column-like pattern for ocular dominance expands o...

So, it turns out that the mouse visual cortex has a columnar organization for ocular dominance! But what might be the function of such columns in general? We hope that our work inspires further investigation of the molecular, circuits and behavioral aspects of that question. (7/7)

From basic feature maps for ocular dominance, azimuth and elevation (top row) we produced computed feature maps for the cortical magnification factor, retinotopic distortion factor and receptive field size (bottom row). These computed features do not systematically differ in, or near, the ocular dominance columns

What else? Well, in larger mammals, the spatial arrangement of ocular dominance is related to the retinotopic and other feature maps. Interestingly, in mice we could not detect such relationships. (6/7)

The spatial pattern of ipsilateral and contralateral eye preferring neurons is similar across the depth of the mouse visual cortex

Moreover, the clusters we identified in layer 4 extended vertically into layers 2/3 and 5, forming a columnar organization. (5/7)

Different spatial density patterns of ipsilateral and contralateral eye preferring neurons in the mouse visual cortex

We identified the location of these ipsi-patches using a clustering algorithm. But did the data just “type out Shakespeare” by chance? No, neither randomized nor simulated data showed similar spatial distributions for ocular dominance. (4/7)

Neuronal responses in mouse visual cortex color-coded for which eye drives the strongest response, showing an uneven distribution of ipsilateral eye responsive neurons

As expected, there was a retinotopic map, but to our surprise, when we inspected the ‘visual response maps’ we also observed clear patches with mostly ipsilateral eye driven responses in layer 4. (3/7)

Four maps of the mouse visual cortex showing the spatial distribution of the response properties 'ocular dominance', 'preferred direction', 'azimuth' and 'elevation'

How did we find them? Using 2-photon microscopy, we mapped functional properties like retinotopy, orientation tuning, and ocular dominance across a large part of the mouse visual cortex. (2/7)

A rotating 3D-rendered volume showing ocular dominance columns as vertically extending structures (red) in the mouse visual cortex

Can the mouse visual cortex harbor a functional organization for stimulus features? TLDR: Yes, we found ocular dominance columns in this tiny cortical region! Check our paper, open access in @naturecomms.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... and/or read the 🧵 below. @mpiforbi.bsky.social (1/7)

KM3NeT xkcd.com/3053

Moment of zen 🏔️🌞

It is spring when nature doesn’t know anymore where not to flower

Winterwonderland 🤩