Jean Laurens

Hintergründe zur deutschen Forschung an der #Xenotransplantation aus erster Hand gibt es u.a. im Podcast #FabelnFellFakten: www.tierversuche-verstehen.de/s3e5-xenotra...
Darin erklärt Eckhard Wolf @lmumuenchen.bsky.social die Gründe und verrät wann es mit dem #Schweineherz so weit sein könnte.

Let's recap:

Everything* is everywhere**

* Except language, motor, memory, facial recognition, spatial perception, ...

** Except white matter, human brains, or anything else that is not a mouse brain

‪@benhayden.bsky.social‬
@tyrellturing.bsky.social‬
@jmgrohneuro.bsky.social‬
@pessoabrain.bsky.social
I see a lot of talk on here about how we should avoid
"x does y" talk because the brain is "a dynamic, reverberant, reciprocally interconnected system".
But this does not follow.
A thread...

I think the church of everything is everywhere should check tumor removal surgeries. They all start by making sure they won't remove a specific function when removing a specific region. Can you guess how they do it?

@benhayden.bsky.social
@pessoabrain.bsky.social

hint: it is not with decoders

Of course. It’s extraordinarily that we even need to have this discussion - again - I despair.

This graph, taken from an article @science.org by ‪@sarareardon.bsky.social is problematic. Actually, it's outright wrong. And that's probably due to ill definitions.
Short 🧵⬇️

This week's @thelancet.com cover and editorial
www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

The Dangerous Precedent of Political Interference in Medical Research in Canada The European Animal Research Association (EARA) expresses deep concern over recent statements by Ontario Premier Doug Ford regarding biomedical research involving dogs.

We express deep concern over the recent dangerous precedent of political interference in #Canada regarding research involving #dogs.
Decisions about biomedical research should be guided by fact-based evaluation and evidence, not crude political grandstanding. 

More: www.eara.eu/post/the-dan...

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-...

screengrab of a portion of new yorker interview with former simpson's writer john swartzwelder: Mike Sacks: How much time and attention did you spend on these scripts? Another “Simpsons” writer once compared your scripts to finely tuned machines—if the wrong person mucked with them, the whole thing could blow up. Swartzwelder: All of my time and all of my attention. It’s the only way I know how to write, darn it. But I do have a trick that makes things easier for me. Since writing is very hard and rewriting is comparatively easy and rather fun, I always write my scripts all the way through as fast as I can, the first day, if possible, putting in crap jokes and pattern dialogue—“Homer, I don’t want you to do that.” “Then I won’t do it.” Then the next day, when I get up, the script’s been written. It’s lousy, but it’s a script. The hard part is done. It’s like a crappy little elf has snuck into my office and badly done all my work for me, and then left with a tip of his crappy hat. All I have to do from that point on is fix it. So I’ve taken a very hard job, writing, and turned it into an easy one, rewriting, overnight. I advise all writers to do their scripts and other writing this way. And be sure to send me a small royalty every time you do it.

hi this is my favorite writing advice, it's from former simpsons writer john swartzwelder (i think about the crappy little elf all the time) www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

(PDF) The Exit Manual: How to Leave the Free Energy Cult and Still Get Tenure PDF | This manual is not a plea. It is a jailbreak from a cult—the Free Energy Principle, a theoretical metastasis that began in computational... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on Res...

This had me laughing to tears. The person sitting next to me on the flight must have thought I was nuts.

A must read for the FEP curious.

www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Kleiner Sneak Peek in unser neues Video: Wir schauen Tierpfleger Justin bei seinem Arbeitsalltag am Deutschen Primatenzentrum über die Schulter.
🎥 Hier den ganzen Film ansehen: youtu.be/x8FI2xuklds

Die Welt gewinnt den "War on Cancer" - titelt der @economist.com.
Langsam, aber stetig fallen die Todesraten, immer mehr Menschen überleben eine Krebserkrankung.
Und die Forschung hat noch ein paar Pfeile im Köcher: Neue Immuntherapien, mRNA-"Impfungen" uvm.
#ForschungWirkt

Aaaand we have our final line-up for ESI-SyNC 2025! Check it out! :)
Join us for two exciting days of figuring out what altered states of consciousness do to your brain!
More info:
esi-frankfurt.de/newevent/
Go register (100 Euro, free for junior researchers):
survey.academiccloud.de/index.php/18...

Foto: Tessa Ohrndorf

Guinea-Paviane im Senegal treffen ihre nächtlichen Entscheidungen offenbar unabhängig von potenziellen Risiken durch Fressfeinde oder Parasiten und bevorzugen es, in guter Nachbarschaft zu schlafen. Dabei nutzen sie überwiegend hohe Bäume in den Galeriewäldern entlang des Gambia-Flusses. 🌴👉 (1/2)

I’m doing some research on IACUC practices. Does your institution make public the meeting minutes? If so can you DM me with the link to them. mbasso@uw.edu. Thanks!

Amidst everything, the lab's first preprint is out! It's just a methods paper, no scientific results (yet!), but it's still great to see it all pulled together. We hope that these open-source behavioral tools will be useful for others!

YouTube video by Neuroscience and Beyond How do researchers study social interactions?

In our upcoming episode, Dr. Raymundo Baez Mendoza @raymundobaez.bsky.social, neuroscientist at the German Primate Center @primatenzentrum.bsky.social, explains how game theory is used to understand cooperation, competition, and social risk in controlled lab settings. 🐒

youtube.com/shorts/Ac34u...

Machtverhältnisse bei Primaten: Klar dominante Geschlechter sind die Ausnahme! Neulich war der NDR bei uns zu Gast und hat unsere Forschenden Claudia Fichtel & Peter Kappeler zu ihrer neuen Studie interviewt. 👉 Hier geht’s zum Beitrag: www.ndr.de/fernsehen/se...
#DPZ #patriarchat

Is it just me or do others find it super hypocritical that health agency officials (HHS/FDA/NIH) have suddenly become anti-animal research activists for "ethical reasons" while being quiet about, if not actively promoting, more consumption of red meat, tallow and other forms of animal fat and flesh?

Wofür braucht es Affen in der #Forschung?
@stefantreue.bsky.social, Direktor des @primatenzentrum.bsky.social und Sprecher der Initiative "Tierversuche verstehen" @tvvde.bsky.social, zu Gast im TVV-Podcast "Fabeln, Fell & Fakten".
www.tierversuche-verstehen.de/s4e18-wofuer... #Tierversuche #Podcast

PhD position — Rademaker lab

Curious about the visual human brain, a vibrant and collaborative lab, and pursuing a PhD in the heart of Europe? My lab is recruiting for a 3-year PhD position. More details: www.rademakerlab.com/job-add

YouTube video by Deutsches Primatenzentrum - Leibniz-Institut für Primatenforschung Nacht des Wissens 2025

🎥 Eindrücke von der Nacht des Wissens 2025

Am Deutschen Primatenzentrum haben wir Einblicke in unsere Forschung gegeben.
Das Video zeigt einige Impressionen vom Abend:
youtube.com/shorts/sMTEj...
#NachtDesWissens #DPZ #Forschung

YouTube video by The Daily Show Leave it to Pete Hegseth to make science sound as stupid as possible

"And this is the thing about science: it's easy to make it sound made-up and stupid. Someone who just want's to cut funding can trivialize any research."
Yes, that is exactly what we see in many public debates about #AnimalResearch
youtube.com/shorts/Xxcz9...

A common computational and neural anomaly across mouse models of autism - Nature Neuroscience Noel et al. show aberrant updating of expectations in three distinct mouse models of autism spectrum disorder. Brain-wide neurophysiology data suggest this stems from excess units encoding deviations ...

Mice harboring mutations in Fmr1, Cntnap2 or Shank3B show a blunted update of priors during decision-making, suggesting that distinct genetic instantiations of ASD may yield common neurophysiological and behavioral phenotypes

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

The Ernst Strüngmann Institute of Neuroscience joined the Be Open about Animal Research Day.
You can join too! Show your support and share on #BOARD25

These organisations got on #BOARD25 in Germany.
Show your support and share on #BOARD25

Only 10 days left to apply for the postdoc position in our lab 👇

The end to animal testing marks the beginning of better biomedicine No longer will our medicines be gated through animals, but rather through entirely human systems — leading to breakthrough options for the humans that need them.

This opinion piece @statnews.com hailing the new FDA approach to animal testing (and by extension the Trump Administration) is a real impertinence.
www.statnews.com/2025/05/19/a...
Here's why: ⬇️ 🧵

Running Paris Spring School practicals this week! The fabulous @maxime-beau.bsky.social is teaching the ins and outs of Neuropixels recordings, with help from the brilliant Marin Dauguet and all the team.
@upcite.bsky.social @sppin-cnrs.bsky.social #neuroscience 👩‍🔬🧠
parisneuro.ovh