Eyal Rozenfeld

Ectopic sodium channel expression decreases excitability of Drosophila Kenyon cells Abstract figure legend: We tested the effects of expressing the bacterial voltage-gated sodium channel NaChBac in the Kenyon cells of the Drosophila memory centre, the mushroom body. NaChBac expressi...

Excited to share our latest work - expressing the bacterial sodium channel in fly Kenyon cells surprisingly *decreases* their excitability, thanks partly to decreased endogenous sodium channels. This prevents learning and decreases odor-evoked calcium influx doi.org/10.1113/JP28...

Congrats, Eyal! A great way to start.

The New York Academy of Sciences and the Leon Levy Foundation Announce the 2025 Leon Levy Scholars in Neuroscience - NYAS The New York Academy of Sciences and the Leon Levy Foundation have announced the 2025 class of Leon Levy Scholars in Neuroscience.

✨😀Congratulations to postdocs Eyal Rozenfeld and Francesco Limone on being named 2025 Leon Levy Scholars by The New York Academy of Sciences!

@sciencelemon92.bsky.social
@eyalrozenfeld.bsky.social
@moccalin.bsky.social
@liddelowsa.bsky.social

www.nyas.org/press-releas...

Nonlinear high-activity neuronal excitation enhances odor discrimination Discrimination between different signals is crucial for animals’ survival. Inhibition that suppresses weak neural activity is crucial for pattern deco…

1/ Check out our Juila Manoim, Tal Camchy, @eyalrozenfeld.bsky.social, Hadas Lerner, Hao-Hsin Chang, Ran Darshan, and Ya-Hui Chou new study in @currentbiology.bsky.social. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Genetically encoded biosensor for fluorescence lifetime imaging of PTEN dynamics in the intact brain - Nature Methods A first-in-class fluorescence lifetime-based FRET sensor for phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) enables the dynamic monitoring of PTEN activity in cultured cells and in vivo with high spatiotempora...

I started my lab more then 4 years ago, and we have endured some very challenging times ever since.…I am very excited to share the first paper from my lab, published now in @naturemethods.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

a dog sits on a merry go round while a boy sits on a scooter ALT: a dog sits on a merry go round while a boy sits on a scooter

Our story about flies on carousels is out in @currentbiology.bsky.social! After formally engaging the fantastic @clarahowcroft.bsky.social and integrating helpful reviewer feedback, we present a more concise story with detailed behavioural quantification and cooler videos! doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

So happy to see this paper out! Congrats @victoriacorbit.bsky.social and @ahmarilab.bsky.social! Lots of fond memories from running these experiments. The similarity in the behavioral and striatal neural response time course produced by driving M2 inputs was really striking.

The locus coeruleus norepinephrine (LC-NE) system regulates arousal and awakening; however, it remains unclear whether the LC does this in a global or circuit specific manner. We hypothesized that sensory-evoked awakenings are predominantly regulated by specific LC-NE efferent pathways. Anatomical, physiological, and functional modularities of LC-NE pathways involving the mouse basal forebrain (BF) and pontine reticular nucleus (PRN) were tested. We found partial anatomical segregation between the LC->PRN and LC->BF circuits. Extracellular NE dynamics in BF and PRN exhibited distinct sound-evoked activation during sleep, including a fast sound-evoked NE peak specific to PRN. Causal optogenetic interrogation of LC efferent pathways, by retro-ChR2 activation or PdCO silencing of synapses in target regions, revealed a pivotal role for early LC->PRN activity in driving arousal and sound-evoked awakenings. Together, our results uncover a prominent role for early LC-NE PRN activity in connecting sensory and arousal pathways and establish LC heterogeneity in regulating arousal.

An early surge of norepinephrine along brainstem pathways drives sensory-evoked awakening

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

Happy to see this great work (and some PdCO application) out in the wild.

Marlin Lab’s 1st Thesis Defense ✨
Hear the science @2:30pm EST
bit.ly/MarlinLab
Have the cheers @5:00 pm EST JLG✨

Columbia Biology student Beka Stecky will share her discoveries on “What the Nose, Knows” after learning an odor predicts a stressful experience.👃🏽🧬🧪

My thesis defense date is official! And yes I put my cat and Tac2 neurons on my poster 🥰

Experience-dependent dopamine modulation of male aggression - Nature Dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area have a role in modulating aggression in adult male mice, and this effect of dopamine depends strongly on fighting experience.

Antipsychotics is often used to suppress hyper-aggression. Does it really suppress aggression or just cause sedation? Antipsychotics targets dopamine receptors. Our new study revealed that dopamine modulates aggression based on animals' fighting experience.

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

An improved FLARE system for recording and manipulating neuronal activity Recording and manipulating neuronal ensembles that underlie cognition and behavior in vivo is challenging. FLARE is a light- and calcium-gated transcriptional reporting system for labeling activated n...

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

Fly neuro people: has anyone tried the Ting lab’s scFLARE (or variants) for labelling active neurons in Drosophila? Thanks.

🚨Postdoc and Postbac positions available in my group at the NIEHS/NIH!

Interested in investigating the neural mechanisms for social behaviors across development in a supportive environment? Make sure to apply!

Job ads in🧵Feel free to DM/email w/ questions, please RT

We are hiring!

We are looking for two PhD students interested in the regulation of habit formation. Habits are useful to decrease cognitive load, but carry the risk of becoming stereotyped and hard to control - it’s hard to shake a bad habit. The fruit fly Drosophila also forms habits and we […]

Aggression experience and observation promote shared behavioral and neural changes The ability to observe the social behavior of others and use observed information to bias future action is a fundamental building block of social cognition. A foundational question is whether social o...

New year new work from the lab! We explore whether aggression experience and observation lead to similar changes in future aggression strategy. (They do!) We perform 2-color imaging across the whole social behavior network across time and track changes www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Red-shifted GRAB acetylcholine sensors for multiplex imaging in vivo The neurotransmitter acetylcholine (ACh) is essential in both the central and peripheral nervous systems. Recent studies highlight the significance of interactions between ACh and various neuromodulat...

(1/6) Excited to introduce our first generation red acetylcholine sensors! #acetylcholine #GRAB #RedSensors
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🎄PinkyCaMP- our christmas gift to you! 🎁: We are excited to present PinkyCaMP, the first mScarlet based calcium sensor with:
✨exceptional, brightness
✨phototability
✨and optogenetic compatability.
Check out our new preprint:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Apropos of never ending discussions about whether ANNs are "good" models of the nervous system, here is a slide I present to masters students showing a network that is found in motor control circuits *across phyla* (that's pretty ubiquitous!) I ask them to guess what it does...

Why not joining us?

Wanna switch on/off synaptic transmission but not the ideal vector for your🧠🧪🔬, we are happy to help!

Requested recently & available to you:

ChrimsonR(no soma targeting)+PdCO (Cre & non-Cre)
DoxOn/OFF PdCO-EGFP (TREtight)

-> docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Probably soon @addgene.bsky.social too.

Mating proximity blinds threat perception - Nature A state-dependent dopamine filter system in the male Drosophila brain balances threat perception against the drive to mate.

Sex or survival—what’s more important? Excited to share our
@Nature paper on how flies resolve this conflict.

We found a dopamine-based filter that reduces threat perception, helping flies focus on courtship when close to mating.

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

Hi everyone!

I am Daniela, a pre-clinical psychedelic researcher doing a PhD at the Paris Brain Institute under the supervision of Eric Burguière. I am working with the SAPAP3-KO mice and LSD.

I am a great advocate for open science, diversity and science communication!

Nice to meet you all 🥰

Neuroscience methods - YouTube Nanocourse: Approaches to Study Neural Circuits This course was taught by Anita Autry, Tiago Gonçalves, and Luke Sjulson at Albert Einstein College of Medici...

Neuroscience students asked us to teach a PRACTICAL course on experimental methods, and it is now on YouTube!

Please like and repost to help us get the word out!

www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Lecture 1: Signals and data acquisition
Focusing on hardware, digital/analog I/O, synchronization
🧵

I made the Insect Sensory Neuro starter pack - let me know in the comments if you'd like to be added! (and also I'm sure I missed tons of people - tag them in!)
go.bsky.app/JW7c5LN

Excited to have this paper out (rdcu.be/d0T3Y)! In it, we focused on how flies know what to attend to in a complex environment (like below)?

We uncovered neuronal pathways through which social states (like aggression 🥊) modulate visual processing in #Drosophila. #WomenInSTEM #neuroscience 🧪 1/

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Glad you liked it!

Neuronal circuit mechanisms of competitive interaction between action-based and coincidence learning Parallel and interfering neuronal circuits are responsible for operant and classical learning.

It was nice to take a break from project-related OFC/amygdala papers & read a fun fly study from the Parnas lab this morning: www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Exciting to see potentially distinct pathways for cue- & action- outcome learning in the fly, drawing parallels between the MB & striatum.