First whole-brain recording of social sound processing in a vertebrate. Surprises start in the hindbrain; thalamus gates conspecific calls; male and female brains diverge downstream. Work by @joerghenninger.bsky.social, @mh123.bsky.social sky.social and team. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Why are some males caring toward infants while others are neglectful or abusive? I'm so pleased to share work that my colleagues and I @princeton.edu have just published @nature.com (an explanatory thread to follow!) (1/8)
Why do some worms graze on bacteria while others hunt and kill?
Our study, published today in Nature, reveals how predatory aggression evolved in nematodes.
Led by @gunizgozeeren.bsky.social and @leoboeger.bsky.social across the @jameslightfoot.bsky.social and @monikakscholz.bsky.social labs.
I’m excited to share my PhD work on localized mRNAs and protein synthesis in cortical layer 1 on bioRxiv! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
As a longtime fan of cool papers in @currentbiology.bsky.social, I am really thrilled to see this out!
This study sets the stage for understanding the origins of novel (vocal) behaviors.
Big shout out to the main architects of this work @xmikezheng20.bsky.social and @cliffscience.bsky.social
How does life evolve to adapt to modern cities?
Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation.
🧵(1/n)
@science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515
Amazing, congrats Kelsey!
🧠🌟🐭 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🧵
Excited to share our new #biorxivpreprint
We discovered that the fruit fly #drosophila erecta requires food odor to mate and arousal is further enhanced by social group motion.
Cross-species analysis of brain activity reveals a novel gate evolved from within a conserved circuit
shorturl.at/gGYm7
Our new study modeling selection for (behavioral) variability has been covered in a lovely @genetics-gsa.bsky.social podcast featuring first author Shraddha Lall and @ecoevogal.bsky.social
academic.oup.com/g3journal/ad...
🚨Hiring Alert! Join Gregor Schuhknechts’s
new group Brain Algorithms and Circuits @mpibrain.bsky.social !
🧠 Fully funded PhD & Postdoc
🐟 Larval #zebrafish model
🔬 Imaging, electrophysiology, EM
💻 #SystemsNeuroscience
👉 brain.mpg.de/schuhknecht
We are looking for a Postdoc (up to 5 years) who wants to study neural mechanisms of spatial memory in honeybees.
This includes tetrode recordings in behaving honeybees.
Application Deadline is 1st of October 2025.
More details:
www.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/en/services/...
Thanks Ivan, and congrats on your amazing work!
How do animals decide if they should forage for food or stay home to take care of newborn offspring? Whose needs come first? For my PhD work now out in Nature, we examined how hunger and parenting neurons interact and are reshaped postpartum in mice 🧵⬇️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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...
🧵8/8 We conclude that evolution adjusted the role of the dPAG in the computation of escape, thereby raising the escape threshold in P. polionotus.
Special thanks to co-first Katja Reinhard and co-last Karl Farrow for superb collab, to @hhmi.org for 💰, and to the 🐭 for holding fascinating insights 🥳
🧵7/8 When referees requested loss-of-function expts, @arnausd.bsky.social and Chen Liu jumped in and carried us to the finish line.
They found that chemogenetic inhibition of dPAG during looming delays escape onset in P. maniculatus, such that the species appear almost identical!
🧵6/8 To test for a causal role of the dPAG, I joined Katja in Belgium, and with help from undergrad Julie Murmann, we set up optogenetics in these wild mice.
Remarkably, dPAG activation alone triggered similar species differences - suggesting sufficiency of this brain region for the behavior.
🧵5/8 To dissect further, we shipped mice to Belgium and teamed up with the @farrowlab.bsky.social: @katjareinhard.bsky.social, now w/ her own lab, figured out how to record from escaping mice - and with @bramnuttin.bsky.social, found that dPAG neurons in the two species encode behavior differently.
🧵4/8 Indeed, by staining for FOS in mice exposed to visual threat, we found that retinorecipient superior colliculus is activated in both species.
However, the periaqueductal gray (dPAG), known for its role in escape, was activated much less in P. polionotus, even when they strongly escaped!
🧵3/8 We were curious: where did evolution act in the brain to adjust behavior?
To narrow down our search, we exposed mice to an auditory stimulus – and observed the same behavioral differences.
This suggested a mechanism downstream of sensory detection, relevant across modalities.
🧵2/8 Inspired by work in lab mice, Hopi and I asked how wild-derived deer mice respond to visual threat.
With help from undergrad Tori Tong, we discovered robust variation: while P. maniculatus escaped, much like Mus, sister species P. polionotus, from open habitats in Florida, briefly froze!
🚨Very happy that my PhD work is now out in @nature.com!
We discovered that evolution, by acting in the midbrain, shifted the threshold to escape in Peromyscus mice, to fine-tune defensive strategies in different environments
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
This was a truly collaborative effort! 🧵⬇️
Very happy to share the latest from my postdoc!
10 yrs of mouse social networks + 1.25 yrs of acoustic data ➡️ insight into vocalization & sociality in a wild population of your favorite lab model 🐁
paper: bit.ly/4n93yyD
data: bit.ly/4lfFBEk
code: bit.ly/4kNnMwx
#bioacoustics #neuroskyence
1/8
🧬 New study out: we report a chromosome-level assembly of the deer mouse Peromyscus maniculatus! A launching pad for chemosensory-evolution research. Read more 👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A nice, layperson writeup of my latest work, which is now out on eLife!
TLDR: Using snRNA-seq, we find cell type abundance differences and sex-biased gene expression differences that may explain innate differences in mating + parenting behavior
elifesciences.org/digests/1031...
🎉 so excited to share my first first-author paper is out in @Nature.com, from my PhD work in the Gallio Lab! we uncover the neurobiological mechanisms that drive the evolution of temperature preference behavior in flies of the genus Drosophila 👇
go.nature.com/4i1VQn9
This is a few weeks old, but LIZARDS NEVER GET OLD 🦎😇 Find out what makes them so interesting in our Creature Column @naturemethods.bsky.social
Having flashbacks to my time in the US during Trump‘s first term. Lots of sympathy and hugs to everyone on the ground. Hang in there ❤️
Congrats Saikat, amazing work!!
