Lisa Genzel (she/her)

Human hippocampal theta–gamma coupling coordinates sequential planning during navigation

Impressive study from Dan Bush's Lab at UCL:

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Registration open 🎉

MEEP – Heidelberg Summer School on Memory and Sleep

www.zi-mannheim.de/forschung/ab...

Awesome new opportunity to join SWC if you are into human ephys.

Do you work or study in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, computer science, artificial intelligence, or philosophy?

What does the term 'representation' mean to you?

We invite you to participate in a brief survey on key conceptual questions across fields.

eu.surveymonkey.com/r/VX9GNXM

Building compositional tasks with shared neural subspaces Nature - The brain can flexibly perform multiple tasks by compositionally combining task-relevant neural representations.

Thrilled that my paper is out in the @nature.com. We explored how the brain builds complex tasks by compositionally combining simpler sub-task representations. The brain flexibly performs multiple tasks by dynamically reusing neural subspaces for sensory inputs and motor actions

rdcu.be/eRVUk

New paper alert! 🚨

We found that the brain's compass is remarkably stable at two scales

1️⃣ the system maintains its internal organization for weeks
2️⃣ It "remembers" its orientation for weeks, even after a single visit

This may be key to how the brain aligns its other maps.

Paper: rdcu.be/e3waP

Can we make brains “smarter”? By boosting mitochondrial metabolism in neurons of memory circuits, we improved memory in flies and mice. Thrilled to see this work out - congrats to @amrapalianjali.bsky.social for spectacular work, and to all lab members for invaluable contributions!

Why did consciousness evolve at all? A superb special issue of @royalsocietypublishing.org brings together experts across disciplines to explore the functions of consciousness and why it emerged in some species but not others. @tecumsehfitch.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/issue/3...

"..hippocampal-prefrontal systems represent emotion concepts in a map-like way at multiple levels of abstraction.."

Map-like representations of emotion knowledge in hippocampal-prefrontal systems
by
@yumengma.bsky.social and @pkragel.bsky.social

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

My lab is looking to recruit 1-2 paid summer interns to do wet lab work on learning in a unicellular organism (Stentor coeruleus). You can apply here:
forms.gle/b47WpSobjFjo...

Many people have no mental imagery. What’s going on in their brains? People with aphantasia are offering a window into consciousness.

Most people can call up pictures in their minds, visualizing the past & summoning images of the future. But for ~4% of us, such mental imagery is weak or absent. New edition of @nature.com has a nice introduction to how research on this phenomenon (aphantasia) opens up novel windows into the brain.🧪

Infraslow modulation of theta synchrony in the hippocampus circuit during REM sleep https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.30.702893v1

Attention-like regulation of theta sweeps in the brain's spatial navigation circuit https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.27.702083v1

This is totally wild. Remember the object they are attending to is presented egocentrically, but the allocentric theta sweeps follow it. The whole system is wired up to provide something like an "integrated attention reflex".

Deadline is almost here, have you applied? fenskavlinetwork.org/who-we-are/a...

Sequential coupling of sleep oscillations enables concept-neuron reactivation and supports information flow across the human hippocampal-cortical circuit https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.15.699122v1

Tolman's Sunburst Maze 80 Years on: A Meta‐Analysis Reveals Poor Replicability and Little Evidence for Shortcutting In 1946, Tolman et al. reported that rats could take a novel shortcut to a goal after training on an indirect route, supporting the Cognitive Map theory. However, a review of subsequent Sunburst maze...

Can humans & animals really use internal maps to take shortcuts?

Tolman famously said yes - based largely on his Sunburst maze.

Our new review & meta-analysis suggests evidence is far weaker than you might think.
🧵👇 doi.org/10.1111/ejn....

@uofgpsychneuro.bsky.social @ejneuroscience.bsky.social

Very happy for this @ejneuroscience.bsky.social editorial on the importance of diverse research animals in neuroscience. We make the case that embracing a plurality of model organisms enriches the field and accelerates both basic and translational research. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

What is the computational role of dendritic excitations? Byung Hun Lee and team mapped voltage dynamics throughout the dendritic trees of CA1 pyramidal neurons in mice navigating in virtual reality. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Meta-learning is expressed through altered prefrontal cortical dynamics https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.01.697272v1

Subspace communication in the hippocampal-retrosplenial axis https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.31.697203v1

❄️ A Year of #FENS: @fkne-scholars.bsky.social ❄️

🧠 #FKNE has continued throughout 2025 to champion excellence in European neuroscience by supporting researchers and strengthening scientific leadership across Europe

👉 Learn more about #FKNE here: buff.ly/2EWch1g

Sleep-dependent infraslow rhythms are evolutionarily conserved across reptiles and mammals Nature Neuroscience - Bergel et al. show that an infraslow rhythm connecting the brain and body during sleep is shared by lizards, mammals and birds, revealing an ancestral process and reshaping...

⚠️ New paper alert and what a way to end 2025! 🎉
Happy to share our story “Sleep-dependent infraslow rhythms are evolutionarily conserved across reptiles and mammals.” published today in Nature Neuroscience.

Sleeping dragons 🦎 and functional ultrasound!
Read the full paper here: rdcu.be/eWJHb 1/8

Deadline is approaching too fast!! Don’t miss it!

It's an important conversation for society to have - that ethical trade-off that @micheleabasso.bsky.social describes and you point to.

As we have it, we need to acknowledge that without animal research, new treatments for neurodegenerative and psychiatric conditions will be blocked/stalled.

Share and apply!

Environmental representations in mouse hippocampal CA1 reflect the predictive structure of navigation Predictive theories of cognitive mapping propose that these representations encode the predictive relationships among contents as experienced by the n…

Another new paper from the lab: Predictive theories like the SR imply that navigators who navigate differently should have cognitive maps which differ in predictable ways. Here we show that this holds in mouse hippocampal CA1.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Happy to announce the 2nd Hippocampus Green Meeting
📍 Barcelona, Spain
🗓️ May 11–12, 2026
Organized together with Manu Valero, Lisa Roux and Dan Bendor
🎤 Keynotes: Nachum Ulanovsky & György Buzsáki
‼️ Call for abstracts now open
🔗 hippocampusgreen.net/wp/
#HippocampusGreen

You are a PI in Europe and have not yet filled in our questionnaire? Please do so! Let us find out the training needs of current PIs!

Terrific work led by @emmaroscow.bsky.social showing that hippocampal replay reflects events with large prediction errors, all the better to bootstrap learning as we slumber

Congratulations to Matt Jones & Nathan Lepora for seeing this through to the end!

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