Vanessa Stempel

🚨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! 🧵⬇️

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...

Introducing warpfield, an open source Python library for GPU-accelerated non-rigid 3D registration. Warps and aligns gigavoxel volumes within seconds (not hours). For 3D microscopy, region-to-region and cell-to-cell matching.
A collaboration with @mh123.bsky.social 🚀
github.com/danionella/w...

What about visiting a neuroscience conference in Europe this year? There is still time to register for IBNS in Tromsø (June 24th-29th 2025)! Please like and share! For more information: www.ibnsconnect.org/annual-meeting @ibnsconnect.bsky.social #neuroskyence

We will focus on exploring how degeneracy, i.e. multiple structurally different components yielding the same or very similar functions, facilitate both - flexibility and robustness - of nervous system function.

Registration is open!
gutenberg-workshops.uni-mainz.de/flexibility-...

Very happy to announce a workshop I'm co-organising with Marion Silies and @crltt.bsky.social, taking place 2-4 Sept in Ingelheim, Germany!

'Flexibility and robustness of nervous system function', hosted by the Gutenberg Workshops @unimainz.bsky.social & with a fantastic line-up!

Details below 🔻

Computing Cords: Sensorimotor Control by Nerve Cord Circuits Across Species Organizers Salil Bidaye, Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience Ansgar Büschges, University of Cologne Graziana Gatto, University of Cologne Abdel El Manira, Karolinska Institutet Julie

Registration started for the Janelia meeting on spinal cord and brainstem circuits for sensorimotor adaptation across species. Spinal cord is more than a hub, it does supercomputing!
www.janelia.org/you-janelia/...

The application deadline for the Sensation and Action conference 2025 is fast approaching! Join us for an exciting set of talks and for a chance to share your ideas: www.lakeconferences.org

Gilles Laurent is awarded the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine in 2025 The 2025 Louis-Jeantet Prizes are awarded to Gilles Laurent, director at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt and to Veit Hornung, professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University of ...

Congratulations to @mpibrain.bsky.social director Gilles Laurent for being awarded the 2025 Louis-Jeantet prize for Medicine! The @louisjeantetfdn.bsky.social recognizes Laurent's pioneering work on the operations of #neurons and dynamics of neuronal networks. More infos 👉 bit.ly/4hqk6ie

📢 The Louis-Jeantet Foundation is happy to announce the 2025 #LouisJeantetPrizes, awarded to VEIT HORNUNG @v-hornung.bsky.social @genecenter-lmu.bsky.social and to GILLES LAURENT @ maxplanck.de

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

👉 jeantet.ch/en
👇 follow thread

I'm thrilled to be opening my own lab this Fall at the @maxplanck.de MPI for Brain Research in Frankfurt. The lab is going to investigate the neuronal and genetic underpinnings of behavioral evolution. We are hiring on all levels. Don't hesitate to share widely and reach out if interested.

The non-model organism “renaissance” has arrived Meet 10 neuroscientists bringing model diversity back with the funky animals they study.

Meet 10 neuroscientists bringing model diversity back with the funky animals they study.

By @callimcflurry.bsky.social, @avaskham.bsky.social, @claudia-lopez.bsky.social, @shaena.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/animal-model...

A modular circuit coordinates the diversification of courtship strategies - Nature Peripheral and central circuit adaptations can be flexibly coordinated in Drosophila, and such a modular circuit organization may facilitate the evolution of mate recognition systems by allowing novel...

Sharing my new paper again since moving from the other place 🙂 We shed light on some of the most rapidly evolving animal behaviors—those surrounding mating.

New Year, New Challenge? About to finish your PhD or recently graduated? Ready to tackle brain circuits & mouse behavior using Neuropixels/2P imaging, and live in London? We’ve got the postdoc position for you. Apply by Dec 18th before it’s gone! 🧠 #PostdocLife #ScienceJobs

NYU campus near Washington Square

We are hiring at NYU! An Assistant Professor position between the Department of Biology and the Center for Neural Science.

apply.interfolio.com/160048

Deadline Jan 8th

Please re-post / re-Sky / re-Blue...just tell people

Excited to share our latest findings, now published @NatureNeuro www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We found unmyelinated axons exhibit pearls-on-a-string morphology's due to their membrane mechanical properties.

Threads will follow!

OK If we are moving to Bluesky I am rescuing my favourite ever twitter thread (Jan 2019).

The renamed:

Bluesky-sized history of neuroscience (biased by my interests)

I'm excited to share recent work led by my PhD student Cassidy Malone, with help from Patryk Ziobro. Given numerous reports that female mice produce USVs during courtship, we tested the idea that female courtship USVs are regulated by estrous state.

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

Neuroscientists! A key message from the ALBA Network
Please help us spread the word and share this with your network!!!
Nominate (self-n allowed) a mid-career neuroscientist (5+ years post-PhD) for the ALBA-Roche Research Prize for Excellence in Neuroscience!
🔎http://loom.ly/_EvQvm4
🗓️20 January 2025

Excited to publish a broad set of enhancers to target interneuron types in the brain, along with a broad set of collaborators. Part of the BI armamentarium. Together this will help revolutionize the targeting of brain circuits.https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.07.17.603924v2

Picture of textbook cover with title "Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience"

Announcing a new open access textbook for entry level behavioral neuro. Funded by NSF. Written by a collection of 26 neuro experts. Method demonstration videos and author interviews too. Consider using it in your courses to reduce financial barriers to education.

openstax.org/details/book...

Daily oscillations of neuronal membrane capacitance Severin et al. describe time-of-day changes in membrane capacitance in excitatory neurons from the visual cortex and hippocampus. Membrane capacitance is usually stable. These daily variations could p...

This randomly popped up in my feed, and I've got to share it since it's just such a "never even thought about this" kind of paper: www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Neuron membrane capacitance oscillates wildly during the day?! 🧪🧠

Primate superior colliculus is causally engaged in abstract higher-order cognition - Nature Neuroscience Neuronal recordings show that primate superior colliculus encodes learned abstract visual categories. The authors demonstrate that it plays a causal role in categorization behavior, independent of its...

Did you see this coming? Abstract categorization in a so-called sensorimotor midbrain area.
Primate superior colliculus is causally engaged in abstract higher-order cognition
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#neuroscience

Neuroanatomical changes observed over the course of a human pregnancy - Nature Neuroscience Neural changes in pregnancy are not well understood. Here Pritschet et al. present an open-access precision brain imaging resource, mapping neuroanatomical change in an individual from preconception t...

A few years ago I was in a position to do something unique in neuroscience. I had been working with the phenomenal
@emilyjacobs.bsky.social on menopause and inspired by Laura Pritschet's menstrual study, and I was planning a pregnancy. What if we scanned my brain??
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A lot of what we do involves producing a sequence of movements, but how the CNS does that remains elusive.

A recent @elife.bsky.social paper by Mehrdad Kashefi, @andpru.bsky.social et al provides compellign behavioural evidence that we plan a few movements ahead

tinyurl.com/2j22x99n

#neuroskyence

Very happy to receive an #ERC starting grant to study brainstem circuits for instinctive behaviours in mice. We're hiring postdocs and PhD students, if you're interested please email me!