Susanne Babl

Towards a neuroethological approach to consciousness | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Understanding consciousness remains a significant challenge in science. What distinguishes conscious beings from unconscious systems, such as organoids, artificial intelligence or other non-sentient e...

Our paper “Towards a neuroethological approach to consciousness” is out in Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B.

Together with @talking-bat.bsky.social and Lucia Melloni, we suggest bringing Tinbergen’s framework into consciousness research.

Sending huge congratulations to Julio Hechavarría @talking-bat.bsky.social on delivering his very first inaugural lecture today at @freieuniversitaet.bsky.social! What an exciting start of a new a chapter filled with great ideas, strong science, and bat-driven brainloop insights! 👨🏻‍🏫🦇🧠

#SPP #Neuro

Neurons in the bat auditory cortex encode class and complexity of future vocalizations Vocal production is a complex behavior across the animal kingdom that relies on coordinated motor and auditory networks. However, the contribution of sensory areas in vocal control remains poorly unde...

Our new paper is now in BioRxiv ☺️
See how the auditory cortex encodes vocalizations before the bat produces them 📣🦇🧠

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

with @talking-bat.bsky.social and Dennis Röhrig!

Last week, I moved from Frankfurt to Berlin and started my new postdoc position at Freie Uni with @talking-bat.bsky.social and @ycabral.bsky.social 🥳
I am super excited to set up our new lab for more work on bats and their brain+behavior! 🦇🧠🧠

New paper out!
We found that in pipistrelle bats, social vocalizations carry a stronger phylogenetic signal than echolocation calls, suggesting the former evolve more slowly, while the latter remains flexible and shaped by the environment.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Team effort by Ava Kiai, @talking-bat.bsky.social , Francisco García-Rosales and me :)

Are you interested in bat vocalizations and the neural circuits that give rise to their emission?🦇🎶🧠
We reviewed the recent literature on neural activity underlying echolocation and communication calls across multiple bat species in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences:
doi.org/10.1111/nyas...

From student to researcher, a #career in #science can come with a high price tag. @drcraigmc.bsky.social explores how wealth shapes opportunity in #STEM and proposes structural changes to support #equity and inclusion. 🧪
plos.io/4edGlY4

Mother-pup pair of the Greater sac-winged bat in their day roost.

Ever wondered how baby bats learn to sing? 🦇🎶
Turns out, their moms support their practice! Our study shows that maternal feedback leads to:
More vocal practice
Higher song syllable versatility
More mature song syllables
🔗https://elifesciences.org/articles/99474
elifesciences.org/digests/9947...

Top left: Schematic of virus injection and optic fiber implantation in dHPC (left) or vHPC (right) with electrodes implanted in the PFC to record neuronal activity during hippocampal silencing. Right: Example coronal sections showing ArchT-GFP expression in dHPC (top) and vHPC (bottom) with optic fiber placements outlined by dashed white lines. Bottom left: Task schematic. In the sample phase (left), mice were guided to enter one of the two goal arms to receive a reward. After a delay phase in the start box (middle), mice could choose between both goal arms but only received a reward in the goal arm opposite to the one visited in sample (right).

#Hippocampus & PFC interact to support spatial #WorkingMemory, but are dHPC & vHPC functionally redundant in this? @susannebabl.bsky.social @torfisigurdsson.bsky.social show that both regions contribute differentially to spatial WM & coding of spatial info by PFC @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4cXyddO

Our results indicate distinct contributions of the two hippocampal poles in spatial working memory and in communicating relevant spatial information to the prefrontal cortex.

Interestingly, prefrontal representations of the animal’s goal location during encoding was disrupted only when the ventral HPC was inactivated. Inactivation of the dorsal HPC had no effect on these spatial goal codes.

Then, we looked at prefrontal activity when either dorsal or ventral HPC were inactivated. We found that while neurons in the prefrontal cortex still represented the animal’s position in the maze, spatial codes were altered compared to trials with a functioning HPC.

However, the ventral HPC is only necessary in the encoding phase. Neither ventral nor dorsal HPC were needed to maintain the location in memory for a few seconds.

First, we found that the dorsal and the ventral HPC play distinct roles in supporting spatial working memory: the dorsal HPC is necessary during two critical phases of the task, namely during encoding a spatial location and while retrieving this information.

The dorsal and ventral hippocampus contribute differentially to spatial working memory and spatial coding in the prefrontal cortex The hippocampus and prefrontal cortex interact to support spatial working memory, but are the dorsal and ventral hippocampus functionally redundant in this context? This study shows that both hippocam...

The last part of my PhD with @torfisigurdsson.bsky.social is now published in @plosbiology.org

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

We looked at the interaction of the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex during spatial working memory when mice were navigating a T-maze, using ephys and optogenetics 🧠🐭

‘Natural Neuroscience,’ an excerpt In his new book, Nachum Ulanovsky calls on the field to embrace naturalistic conditions and move away from overcontrolled experiments.

In his new book, published today, Nachum Ulanovsky calls on the field to embrace naturalistic conditions and move away from overcontrolled experiments.

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur...