Raaj Gowrishankar

Introducing CorText: a framework that fuses brain data directly into a large language model, allowing for interactive neural readout using natural language.

tl;dr: you can now chat with a brain scan 🧠💬

1/n

Extremely cool project by @initself.bsky.social , querying neural data in order to understand it. 👇

ATTN: Two faculty positions are available in my department (neuroscience) at the University of Minnesota. This is a general search with no topic focus. November 20th application deadline.

Apply here: hr.umn.edu/jobs/Find-Job
Assistant Prof job code: 364920
Associate/Full Prof job code: 364921

The Soul of Maintaining a New Machine - First Draft | Books in Progress Books in Progress is what we call a “public drafting tool”: Drafts will be made available for comment from the public, allowing for direct collaboration between author and reader.

Wonderful read about the work ethos among 1980s Xerox service technicians and the importance of practical wisdom and storytelling. That’s what drew me to the community of multiphoton microscope tinkerers, and it explains why I find meaning in the unglamorous process of troubleshooting.

Tachykinin 1-expressing neurons in the lateral habenula signal negative reward prediction error https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.11.680558v1

mitochondria from bipolar patients are closer to the nucleus in these images; control patients' are spread out further

15 years in the making, we confirmed that mitochondria - the powerhouse of the cell - have an unusual localization in patients who experience psychosis (including schizophrenia and bipolar disorders). You’ll never guess what kind of patient cells we used to make this discovery… 🧵

Why does the naked mole rat have the longest lifespan of any rodent, nearly 40 years?
A 30-year long mystery unraveled @ScienceMagazine today!
Its cGAS enzyme in cells has 4 missense mutations that upends its function, promoting DNA repair and suppressing inflammation
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Principles for proper peer review

For all the knucklehead reviewers out there.
Principles for proper peer review - Earl K. Miller
jocnf.pubpub.org/pub/qag76ip8...
#neuroscience

The curriculum effect in visual learning: the role of readout dimensionality Generalization of visual perceptual learning (VPL) to unseen conditions varies across tasks. Previous work suggests that training curriculum may be integral to generalization, yet a theoretical explan...

🚨 New preprint alert!

🧠🤖
We propose a theory of how learning curriculum affects generalization through neural population dimensionality. Learning curriculum is a determining factor of neural dimensionality - where you start from determines where you end up.
🧠📈

A 🧵:

tinyurl.com/yr8tawj3

My group at Science has been running a big campaign to engineer new channelrhodopsins.

Excited to share the first results from it today: a suite of highly sensitive new opsins.

We call them "WAChRs".

Everyday indoor office lighting is enough to activate them pretty strongly.

In a new paper, we analyze published RNAseq and discover impact to the expression of transposable element transcripts in the brains of people with major depressive disorder. Natalie Truby, a recent-grad from the lab, spearheaded this work.

Read about it here:
doi.org/10.1016/j.ja...

Astrocyte networks span large swaths of brain The networks are plastic, connect brain regions that aren’t connected by neurons and may enable long-distance communication between astrocytes, a new preprint shows.

Great story in the @thetransmitter.bsky.social today by
@callimcflurry.bsky.social. It was fun chatting about @melcooperphd.bsky.social's new research on astrocyte networks.

Read the story here: www.thetransmitter.org/astrocytes/a...

Read the preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Astrocyte networks span large swaths of brain The networks are plastic, connect brain regions that aren’t connected by neurons and may enable long-distance communication between astrocytes, a new preprint shows.

Astrocytes are connected by gap junctions in large, plastic networks that link brain regions not connected by neurons, a new preprint shows.

By @callimcflurry.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/astrocytes/a...

‘Almost unimaginable’: these ants are different species but share a mother Ant queens of one species clone ants of another to create hybrid workers that do their bidding.

A common type of ant in Europe breaks a fundamental rule in biology: its queens can produce male offspring that are a whole different species

go.nature.com/4mOb5T9

A complete brain-wide activity map at single-cell resolution has been revealed for the first time.

Researchers recorded from 650,000+ neurons across 279 brain areas to track decision-making in mice.

Read the story:
🔗 www.sainsburywellcome.org/web/research...

Key moments in naturalistic events synchronize neural activity patterns and dominate memory reinstatement https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.30.673233v1

Epigenetic inheritance of complex learning abilities in the mammalian brain https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.31.673327v1

principal investigator component analysis

Metformin alters mitochondria-related metabolism and enhances human oligodendrocyte function Nature Communications - Metformin is under clinical trial for brain neuroprotection but how it may work is poorly understood. Here, the authors show that metformin helps myelin formation by human...

Our new paper on metformin, myelin, mitochondria and metabolism is now out at rdcu.be/eDbFD
Thanks to Nina and all of the team!

Neural representation of emotional valence in human amygdala https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.14.670371v1

Depression symptoms enhance goal-directed behavior underuncertainty https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.14.670362v1

Excellent piece today in @thetransmitter.bsky.social by @callimcflurry.bsky.social on a paper we’ve discussed at some length here (🧵below); she does a terrific job capturing different reasons to be excited about this work (as well as the controversies).

www.thetransmitter.org/emotion-proc...

How a friend's overdose drove a leading addiction scientist to look for answers After Nabarun Dasgupta lost a close friend to an overdose, he dedicated himself to addiction research and trying to empower drug users with lifesaving information.

After Nabarun Dasgupta lost a close friend to an overdose, he dedicated himself to addiction research and trying to empower drug users with lifesaving information.

Coming up in just a few weeks! @karlakaun.bsky.social and colleagues have great things in store. Prizes available for trainee presentations. Spots are still available, so please consider attending! Looking forward to chatting about growing and connecting addiction neuroscience in the area.

Reteti Elephant Sanctuary
"On this beautiful Friday, we are so excited to introduce you to #Kimani – the little elephant with a big story!"

Tenure-track faculty search of the UCSF Biochemistry & Biophysics Department is open for applications!

We are looking for creative, innovative scientists asking fundamental questions in any area of biology.

Join our vibrant, collaborative, and supportive community!

aprecruit.ucsf.edu/JPF05702

Barcoded Rabies In Situ Connectomics for high-throughput reconstruction of neural circuits Sequencing of oligonucleotide barcodes holds promise as a high-throughput approach for reconstructing synaptic connectivity at scale. Rabies viruses can act as a vehicle for barcode transmission, than...

1/ Mapping synaptic connectivity between individual neurons is extremely laborious. We developed BRISC, a new method that makes it possible to map inputs onto 100s of neurons in the same animal in a matter of weeks! Led by Alex Becalick and @antblot.bsky.social. 🧵

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

a cookie monster is sitting on a tray with plates of food ALT: a cookie monster is sitting on a tray with plates of food

NEW PREPRINT OUT! Being in a state of pain changes how we decide.
📄 Altered Decision-Making Across Acute and Chronic Pain States
🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A 🧵 below 👇

That looks magical!

Three-photon microscopy: an emerging technique for deep intravital brain imaging - Nature Reviews Neuroscience Optical microscopy allows neural cells to be studied in the intact brain, but imaging deep neural tissue presents substantial challenges. Prevedel and colleagues outline the principles of three-photon...

A nice Review on 3P neuroimaging in NR Neuro. The images never fail to amaze me. www.nature.com/articles/s41...