Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Very excited to share this thread on our recent paper! We show how Zebrafish integrate visual navigation signals in aligned topographic maps. Full thread below🧵

Visual motion and landmark position align with heading direction in the zebrafish interpeduncular nucleus - Nature Communications How are various visual signals integrated in the vertebrate brain for navigation? Here authors show that different spatial signals are topographically organized and align to one another in the zebrafi...

(1/n) We are excited to share our new paper in Nature Communications, by Hagar Lavian (@hlavian.bsky.social) and team, revealing how the zebrafish brain integrates visual navigation signals! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Trojan Horse Gene of the Marine Virus - הטכניון-מכון טכנולוגי לישראל

The Trojan Horse Gene of the Marine Virus www.technion.ac.il/en/blog/arti...

When a larval zebrafish twitches its tail, the vascular endothelium lights up with a calcium signal, mediated by Piezo1. We used to think mechanosensing in endothelial cells was about sensing blood flow, but at least in this case it's about sensing body motion.

the sun is shining through the clouds in the sky above the ocean ALT: the sun is shining through the clouds in the sky above the ocean

Viral NblA proteins negatively affect oceanic cyanobacterial photosynthesis www.nature.com/articles/s41...
this project was led by @omernadel.bsky.social and is a joint work between the labs of @bejalab.bsky.social, Debbie Lindell and Oded Kleifeld from @biologytechnion.bsky.social

New work from Baier Lab 🧠 🐟

🔗 to paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Images of two zebrafish larvae - one with a light, the other with a darker background.

How does a fish know when to blend in? Scientists identified a key circuit controlling camouflage in zebrafish – from cells in the retina sensing light to nerve cells in the brain controlling the release of a hormone that pales the skin to match bright backgrounds.
www.bi.mpg.de/news/2025-11...

Zebrafish use spectral information to suppress the visual background Vertebrate eyes first evolved in water, where spectral content rapidly fades with distance. Zebrafish exploit this loss by antagonizing cone signals to suppress the background, pointing to distance es...

Excited to share our paper now published in Cell!
'Zebrafish use spectral information to suppress the visual background'

Huge thanks to @neurofishh.bsky.social & @teuler.bsky.social

@cellpress.bsky.social @cp-cell.bsky.social

👇🏻
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Zebrafish use spectral information to suppress the visual background Vertebrate eyes first evolved in water, where spectral content rapidly fades with distance. Zebrafish exploit this loss by antagonizing cone signals to suppress the background, pointing to distance estimation—rather than color—as an ancestral cone function.

Now online! Zebrafish use spectral information to suppress the visual background

Behavioral and circuit principles of temperature gradient navigation Behavioral thermoregulation is critical for survival across animals. Balakrishnan and Haesemeyer discover that thermoregulatory behavior in larval zebrafish is organized into longer-term swim modes. T...

Out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social led by Kaarthik A Balakrishnan: We identify medullary circuits that represent the valence of thermal stimuli and control both long-term strategies of cold-avoidance and short term hot avoidance behaviors to enable thermoregulation. www.cell.com/current-biol...

🧠🌟🐭 Excited to share some of my postdoc work on the evolution of dexterity!

We compared deer mice evolved in forest vs prairie habitats. We found that forest mice have:
(1) more corticospinal neurons (CSNs)
(2) better hand dexterity
(3) more dexterous climbing, which is linked to CSN number🧵

I am excited to share my PhD work on head-direction cells recorded in the wild, now published in @science.org, where we recorded neurons in bats flying outdoors on an island.

doi.org/10.1126/sci...

With @ray-neuro.bsky.social, Shir Maimon, Liora Las, Nachum Ulanovsky and many others

Excited to share our new #biorxivpreprint:
“Sexual dimorphism in the complete connectome of the Drosophila male central nervous system” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We describe the #connectomics reconstruction and analysis of an entire adult #maleCNS #drosophila central nervous system. 1/10

Our review is out 🎉

We discuss how neural computations in the retina shape behavior, continuing the top-down tradition of Lettvin et al.'s classic bug-detector neurons

Check it out 👀 arevie.ws/46HMEjd @annualreviews.bsky.social w/ coauthors @serenariccitelli.bsky.social @annaintegrated.bsky.social

“Blame your parents if you can’t pay enough attention." At least when you are a zebrafish! Our new study on attentional switching together with Kumaresh Krishnan, @paulapflitsch.bsky.social , @zwitscherarmin.bsky.social and Florian Engert is out in Science Advances:
doi.org/10.1126/scia...

Our latest study on the neurobiology of collective behavior is now posted as a preprint, led by UCSD PhD student Jo-Hsien Yu @anitajhyu.bsky.social @ucsandiego.bsky.social @danionella.bsky.social

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

Hierarchical processing of sensory information across topographically organized thalamocortical-like circuits in the zebrafish brain Thalamocortical projections contribute to the spatial organization and functional hierarchies of the mammalian cortex. Primary sensory cortices receive topographically segregated information from firs...

Check out this exciting study led by Anh-Tuan Trinh from our lab, where we investigated how thalamocortical-like circuits in the zebrafish pallium receive, represent, and integrate sensory information:
🔗 doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Excited to share our latest paper - now out in @science.org - we showed how oxytocin modulates maternally-directed behavior in young mice (P15).

Preprint -
Excited to present WHOLISTIC, which extends the concept of whole-brain functional imaging to the entire body. Pioneering work by incredibly talented Virginia Ruetten @vmsruetten.bsky.social, this platform reveals whole-organism cellular dynamics in vivo.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

First sneak peek into SimFish! 🐟
Long in development with @isaacbianco.bsky.social and Sam Pink, our fish-on-chips now captures key aspects of larval #zebrafish sensory processing and motor control.

Now published @natecoevo.nature.com with @annika-nichols.bsky.social, our latest on the evolution of 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱 across 𝟲𝟬 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘀 of cichlid fishes! doi.org/10.1038/s415...
with members of the @schierlab.bsky.social and Salzburger labs, as well as the burgeoning Shafer lab @uoftcellsysbiol.bsky.social

🚀 Hiring in Paris: 1 PhD + 1 Postdoc for an ANR project on gut-brain biology in zebrafish (imaging, optogenetics). Leads: P. Hernandez (Curie) & G. Sumbre (ENS-IBENS). Start flexible 2026. Also M2 internships (Jan–Feb 2026). Details in the call.
Please share! #PhDposition #Postdoc #Paris #Zebrafish

Happy to see our work, led by @ivanbassi.bsky.social, out today in @jem.org! #Zebrafish help us find new treatments for a #rare_disease affecting #lymphatic vessels! Congrats to all authors and thanks to #MDBRide4Rare, #ODC_UPenn, @erc.europa.eu for support @weizmanninstitute.bsky.social

Can't wait to read this preprint from Misha Ahrens and team. Calcium imaging in larval zebrafish, in every cell in the body! Amazing.

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

Small electric shocks to ear can boost self-compassion from meditation training Stimulating the vagus nerve with a device attached to the outer ear can help make compassion meditation training more effective at boosting people’s capacity for self-kindness and mindfulness, finds…

#ICYMI Small electric shocks to ear can help make compassion meditation training more effective at boosting people’s capacity for self-kindness and mindfulness, finds a new study led by UCL PALS researchers.

ALT text: A UMAP representation of a single cell RNAseq dataset from the Drosophila ventral nerve cord as well as images of the Drosophila nerve cord connectome and different stages of fly development.

Neuronal diversity is written in transcriptional codes 🧬. But what is the logic of these codes that define cell types and wiring patterns?
To find out we built a #scRNAseq developmental atlas of the Drosophila nerve cord and linked it to the #connectome 🪰🧠
#preprint thread ⬇️1/8

Evolution of nervous systems: Molecular divergence in a conserved body plan Comparative inter-species single-cell atlases of Caenorhabditis whole embryos and larval nervous systems reveal deep conservation of cell type identit…

highlight of two recent fantastic comparative inter-species single-cell atlases, by @live-large.bsky.social from @jisaacmurray.bsky.social, and Itai Toker from Oliver Hobert's lab
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

our new paper on pelagic #Asgard archaea that use #rhodopsins with carotenoid antennas to harvest light energy in the oceans.
Structural insights into light-harvesting by antenna-containing rhodopsins in marine Asgard archaea www.nature.com/articles/s41... @galitzlil.bsky.social

CIG- UNIL

Become our colleague! Tenure-track Assistant Professor position at The Center for Integrative Genomics, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. unil.ch/cig/en/home....
More details for how to apply are here:
www.nature.com/naturecareer...

A new study led by @timothysit.bsky.social reveals that different layers of mouse V1 integrate visual and non-visual signals differently.

Activity is dominated by vision (or spontaneous fluctuations) in L2/3 and by movement in L5. This leads to different geometries.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...