Brianna Vandrey

Modelling multiple sclerosis in a dish to test therapeutics at University of Glasgow on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Modelling multiple sclerosis in a dish to test therapeutics at University of Glasgow, listed on FindAPhD.com

PhD Alert! We’re recruiting for a new, fully-funded #Neuroskyence PhD studentship to model multiple sclerosis in vitro, combining immunology with ephys. Led by the awesome @juliae.bsky.social
Please repost.

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Tolman's Sunburst Maze 80 Years on: A Meta‐Analysis Reveals Poor Replicability and Little Evidence for Shortcutting In 1946, Tolman et al. reported that rats could take a novel shortcut to a goal after training on an indirect route, supporting the Cognitive Map theory. However, a review of subsequent Sunburst maze...

Can humans & animals really use internal maps to take shortcuts?

Tolman famously said yes - based largely on his Sunburst maze.

Our new review & meta-analysis suggests evidence is far weaker than you might think.
🧵👇 doi.org/10.1111/ejn....

@uofgpsychneuro.bsky.social @ejneuroscience.bsky.social

🚨 Funded PhD on ageing, social cognition & self/other differentiation! 🚨

🧠 Supervised by myself (University of St Andrews) & Prof. Louise Phillips (University of Aberdeen), the project includes EEG & eye-tracking training.

🌍 Open to UK + international students!

📅 Deadline: 15th Dec 2025

A Voyage Into the Art of Finding One’s Way at Sea

A huge thankyou to @alexaroblesgil.bsky.social for covering our research in the Marshall Islands for the @nytimes.com !

In the photo Ken Daniels (an expert indigenous sailor) is looking towards the horizon whilst wearing an fNIRS system.

Analysis underway!

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/18/s...

Fired Scholars and Big Grants to Favored Projects: Inside Trump’s N.E.H.

When I think about how exquisitely careful NEH staff were to be fair, impartial, and rigorous, and how much work people put into grants so small they’re pocket change…I just want to scream.

Great to be back at SfN in San Diego, even though the weather gods have decided to go full 'Scottish summer' this year 🌧️
If you're here and you're into spatial navigation do check out the posters below 👇 [1/n]

Acetylcholine reflects uncertainty during hidden state inference To act adaptively, animals must infer features of the environment that cannot be observed directly, such as which option is currently rewarding, or which context they are in. These internal estimates,...

Congrats to Ella for her new paper! She asked a really interesting question about how the brain represents uncertainty during hidden state inference, and in a lovely crossover with theoretical work, she shows that in mice, acetylcholine dynamics play a crucial role. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Sosa Lab - Postdoctoral Researchers We are seeking postdocs to start in 2026!

The Sosa Lab is going to #SfN25 and actively recruiting ✨postdocs✨ with systems neuroscience experience! We study both fundamental memory processes and how memory changes during pregnancy and postpartum.

If you are interested in meeting at SfN, please email me! www.sosaneurolab.com/join/postdoc...

I volunteer as reviewer 2

So so sooo cool!! 🤯 My jaw was on the floor when Nachum talked about this at FENS 2024. Unique and important work, and a far cry from the standard lab-based openfield (I'm not jealous at all, definitely not...☀️)

New paper - Sex differences in healthy brain aging are unlikely to explain higher Alzheimer’s Disease prevalence in women: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2510486122

Memory problems will change how you see the world...literally 👀

Across two new papers, we examined the eye movement patterns of younger adults, older adults, individuals with mild cognitive impairment, and amnesic cases.

1/5

Grid cell distortion is associated with increased distance estimation error in polarized environments Duncan et al. demonstrate that distance estimation is impaired in polarized environments like trapezoids relative to regular rectangular environments. Grid cells recorded in the trapezoid environment ...

Grid cell distortion is associated with increased distance estimation error in polarized environments

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

RatDISCO, a tissue clearing and immunolabelling protocol for large rat brains RatDISCO is a simple, cost-effective, and reproducible tissue-clearing protocol optimised for immunolabeling in adult rat brains. It enables robust detection of diverse neuronal subtypes, glial popula...

🚨 New preprint! 🚨 Proud to have been a small part of this project

RatDISCO is a simple & affordable tissue-clearing protocol that works in rodent brains and organoids. Enormous potential for imaging long-range projections and labelled neuron populations in the whole brain 🧠

👉 tinyurl.com/670723v1

Europe is breaking its reliance on American science European governments are taking steps to break their dependence on critical scientific data the United States historically made freely available to the world, and are ramping up their own data collection systems to monitor climate change and weather extremes, according to Reuters interviews.

Europe is watching as America loses its "Gold Standard" status on #science following Trump's cuts. The EU is preparing to ramp up their own data collection systems to monitor climate change & weather extremes.

They are also aiming to recruit American scientists.
www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

Bittersweet that this is my last Edinburgh Fringe festival working in George Square. I'm going to miss this view of the cow from the wet lab windows! 🐄

(I definitely won't miss commuting through the crowds though)

A wonderful article on work (both old and new) pushing the frontier of memory research.

Computational Urban Ecology of New York City Rats Urban rats are highly adaptable, thriving in the dynamic and often inhospitable conditions of modern cities. Despite substantial mitigation efforts, they remain an enduring presence in urban environme...

New preprint!



tl;dr — We ran around late at night to record wild rats in NYC and figured out how to quantify their behavior and environment. 🧵

w/ Dima Batenkov, @zamakany.bsky.social, Emily Mackevicius

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

This is unfortunate:
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/u...
I wrote to the president of Harvard. I hope other faculty will speak their conscience, even if it means more struggle ahead.

Large Danish Study: No link between vaccines and autism or 49 other health conditions A new Danish study finds no association between aluminum in childhood vaccines and 50 different health conditions, including autism, asthma, and autoimmune diseases. The findings reaffirm the safety o...

Yet another study (Danish) has found no association between aluminum in childhood vaccines & 50 different health conditions, including autism, asthma & autoimmune diseases. In this study, they tracked 1 million kids over 21 years.

🧪🔗 en.ssi.dk/news/news/20...

Reminder! Tenure track position in Genetics at Trinity College Dublin! Come join us, we're nice... 😊 Please repost! 🙏

Brain Surfaces of 70 primate species

1
To predict the behaviour of a primate, would you rather base your guess on a closely related species or one with a similar brain shape? We looked at brains & behaviours of 70 species, you’ll be surprised!

🧵Thread on our new preprint with @r3rt0.bsky.social , doi.org/10.1101/2025...

In a First, Leading Israeli Rights Groups Accuse Israel of Gaza Genocide Israel says it is fighting against Hamas, not Palestinians as a group. But two of Israel’s best-known rights groups — long critical of Israeli policy — now say they disagree.

Two of Israel’s best-known human rights groups said Monday that Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, adding fuel to an international debate over whether the death and destruction there have crossed a moral red line.

I’m thinking today about all the women doing DEI work in universities, and how all of our canceled grants and shuttered initiatives means that not only are we losing the time we’ve already put in, we’re now even more behind our male peers who stayed focused on their research.

Israeli forces have killed over 1,000 aid-seekers in Gaza since May, the U.N. says More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since May while trying to get food in Gaza, mostly near food sites run by an American contractor, the U.N. human rights office said.

More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since May while trying to get food in Gaza, mostly near food sites run by an American contractor, the U.N. human rights office said.

Hippocampal representations drift in stable multisensory environments - Nature Tracking of individual place cells in mouse CA1 shows that representational drift is not influenced by changes in environment or behaviour, and is lower for more excitable place cells.

I’m excited to share my final co-first author paper from my postdoc in Dan Dombeck's lab!

We explored how behavior, senses, and neurons influence how much information in the brain changes over time.

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

#science #research #neuroscience #hippocampus #placecells

Amid Fear of Retaliation, N.S.F. Workers Sign Letter of Dissent

"In the letter, the signatories warned that National Science Foundation grants now underwent a 'covert and ideologically driven secondary review process'...”

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/s...

"At least 101 people are known to have died of hunger during the conflict... including 80 children, most of them in just the last few weeks"

2 Lecturer (Assistant Prof) positions available @yorkpsychology.bsky.social! Come join our department!

#neuroskyence #cognition #psychscisky #neurojobs

jobs.york.ac.uk/vacancy/lect...

Happy 107th Birthday, Brenda Milner! Her contributions to neuropsychology shaped the way we understand the human brain. From surviving two world wars and two pandemics, to paving the way for future generations of researchers, Milner’s legacy continues. @mcgill.ca @cusm-muhc.bsky.social