Constantinople lab

News from central Jersey: I'm running to represent New Jersey's 12th Congressional District.

By entering the fray, I hope to bring ideas of repairing our frayed republic. Not only to defend it in 2026, but to build something stronger, for generations to come!

samwang.substack.com/p/entering-t...

Our lab will be boycotting biotech vendors that have contracts with ICE (e.g., Fisher, Agilent), and telling them why. If you google “vendorname usa spending”, you can see purchases for specific depts including ICE on usaspending.gov. Please talk to your labs and email your vendors!

Flexible use of a multi-purpose tool by a cow Osuna-Mascaró and Auersperg report flexible, multipurpose tool use in a cow, expanding the known range of mammalian tool users and underscoring overlooked cognitive capacities in livestock.

currently reading:

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Excited to share our new study showing how subcortical inputs are routed through ventromedial (VM) thalamus to layer 1 interneurons in the medial PFC, all done by my graduate student Sanne Casello:
sannemcasello.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Careers Careers on Simons Foundation

Joint junior faculty position in Computational Neuroscience, between Ctr for Computational Neuroscience at @flatironinstitute.org and the CUNY Graduate Center @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social . Application deadline: 16 Jan 2026!

www.simonsfoundation.org/flatiron/car...
cuny.jobs/new-york-ny/...

Jobs | Psychological & Brain Sciences Tenured/Tenure-track position in Cognitive Psychology Open Date Dec 01, 2025 Salary Range or Pay Grade The expected academic base salary range for this position is $110,000- $144,500 (Assistant Profes...

Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins is inviting applications for 3 open-rank tenured/tenure-track positions in (1) Behavioral Neuroscience, (2) Cognitive Neuroscience, and (3) Cognitive Psychology.

pbs.jhu.edu/about/jobs/

Scientists Pinpoint the Moment of Decision in the Rat Brain Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain researchers found a synchronized shift in neural activity that signals the moment when animals commit to a decision.

A new study led by Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain investigator @carlosbrody.bsky.social tracked decision-making in rats to pinpoint the precise moment the animals commit to a decision: https://www.simonsfoundation.org/scientists-pinpoint-the-moment-of-decision-in-the-rat-brain/ #science

Thank you for the great summary, @thetransmitter.bsky.social, and the shout-outs from scientists we admire. There is so much we don’t know about how sex hormones modulate behavior and we’ll keep exploring!

Sex hormone boosts female rats’ sensitivity to unexpected rewards During the high-estradiol stages of their estrus cycle, female rats learn faster than they do during other stages—and than male rats overall—thanks to a boost in their dopaminergic response to reward…

“It’s giving mechanistic insight into how estrogen modulates reinforcement learning—all the way down to the molecular mechanism,” says Ilana Witten.

By @avaskham.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/sex-hormones...

NaTuRaL BeHaViOR

Thanks Mel for the kind words and great commentary!

Thanks, Adrian! I’m excited to be starting a lab at the University of Utah (theluolab.org)!

We’re recruiting at all levels.

If you’re excited about neural computation, large-scale multi-region recordings, and machine learning, let’s talk!

And yes, the mountains are as incredible as they say!

Who wore it better? Our new paper shows that rat OFC supports Bayesian inference of hidden states! With neural correlates of inferred state transitions at the level of single neurons and population-level latent factors. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Check out our posters at #SfN25 this Saturday!

@aqperkins.bsky.social @adiraj95.bsky.social @goldenneurons.bsky.social

Ecstatic to announce our exciting new paper! Rat-mon y Cajal found a new friend to help him learn. Introducing, Dr. Tutor-us!

Inspired by discussions at several recent foraging-related seminar series and conferences, our review in @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social explores an expanded role for foraging as a framework in neuroscience and discusses future directions for the field. Do check it out.

doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

What happens in your brain when you make up your mind?

Postdoc (soon faculty at U. of Utah) @thomas-zhihao-luo.bsky.social and ex-grad student (now Shanahan Fellow at Allen Institute) @timkimd.bsky.social have some answers in this new paper out in Nature!

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

🧵 1/6

Rats vs. Chats, round 1: bomb safety

It is real! Sadly not in NYC, but in Capitol Hill, Seattle. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Rat...

Orbitofrontal cortex computes gaze-dependent comparisons between attributes rather than integrated values When choosing between options with multiple attributes, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is thought to integrate across those attributes, aiding in value comparisons. This study shows in monkeys that OF...

Happy to have some good science news - our new study with @aqperkins.bsky.social is out in @plosbiology.org!

dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

Rat-mon y Cajal, our lab mascot, is a pro at our task because he went to kindergarten first. His nemesis, Le Chat GPT, just copied off everyone else’s homework.

www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Standing Up for Science in NYC This form is for organizing the fight against attacks on science and science funding through "Ask-A-Scientist" and other outreach events around NYC. Find and contribute to plans here: https://docs.goo...

Scientists based in New York - do you want to help raise awareness about attacks on science & science funding? We are organizing low-effort outreach events in the city. Some amazing NYUers did a test run in Washington Square Park already.

Sign up for more info here! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Rat-mon is a pro at our task because he went to kindergarten first.

Wild!

Stephen, Praneel and their team use fluorescence lifetime imaging and various manipulations to show that, in male mice, both mating drive and hypothalamic tonic dopamine release drop after a successful mating and gradually recover over the next week, paralleling the recovery in sperm count.

The war on science in the US is already having an effect on private sector research like AlphaFold. Bears repeating but the private sector builds on top of things created by academic research for the public good. This hurts everyone.

Common reviewer comment: "Why do they have so many rats?"

Because it's NYC b*tch.

During Q&A, whenever someone asks a question about our "mice."