iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ana Dorrego Rivas @adorrego.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Indecisive mitral cells or weeping willows? 🧠🌳🔬🧪

Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Why optogenetics deserves the hype www.wiringthebrain.com/2013/09/why-... (a piece I wrote in 2013 explaining how it works and why modulating specific cell types is so key to understanding how neural circuits and systems work)

wiringthebrain.com

Why optogenetics deserves the hype

Optogenetics has come in for some stick lately, with a number of people criticising the hype that this technique generates in some quar...

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Florent Waltz @florentwaltz.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Huge congratulations to all three Nobel Laureates, and especially Peter Hegemann! 👏 His seminal work on the green alga Chlamydomonas 🦠 laid the foundation for optogenetics. Thank you for putting Chlamy in the spotlight! ✨ Proof that groundbreaking discoveries don't always come from animal models! 🔬

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Nobel Prize @nobelprize.org · 05/10/2026

BREAKING NEWS The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel “for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.”

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Roberto De Filippo @roberto-defilippo.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Too many neuro preprints to keep track of, so I made a monthly ranking of the most-read ones on bioRxiv. Not a measure of quality, just what people are reading. Here's the fresh ranking for September: robertodf.github.io/biorxiv-top/

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Cahir O'Kane @cahirokane.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

This. Sign up, support and turn out now, as a glimmer appears for the road to #RejoinEU

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Matthijs Dorst @mattneuro.dorst-lab.org · 03/10/2026

Last year, Janos Fuzik and I organized a symposium on voltage imaging for the @fens.org regional meeting in Oslo. We then teamed up with our speakers to write a review on this. I am very happy to share that this review is now out in #EJN! #neuroscience 🧠 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Advances and Applications in Population Voltage Imaging

Reader environment loaded

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Christopher J Stevens @metaphysiology.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Taking scientific production as an end-in-itself is disastrous in an env where AI can amplify prod. beyond all capacity for social cognitive digestion. If the end of science isn't the improvement of all individual human experience & if the enriching of cognition isn't part of that, what use is it?

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Ana Dorrego Rivas @adorrego.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I was in Paris yesterday talking about mitral cell development to a very enthusiastic crew as part of the NeuroDev Paris seminars 🧠🇫🇷🧪 The most beautiful cells with the weirdest phenotypes.

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Cathy Abbott @cathyabbott.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Great reporting from @robinbisson.bsky.social on an absolutely dire funding situation…

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Matthijs Dorst @mattneuro.dorst-lab.org · 29/09/2026

I realise this is a long shot, but do I know anyone in Europe working with inducible mouse models of Parkinson (e.g. 6OHDA lesions)? Who, crucially, is willing to host and train a PhD student, sometime next year? 🧠 #neuroscience

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Sophien Kamoun @kamounlab.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I just published: How do we recognize world-class science? Not by the journal it appeared in What I told early-career researchers about prediction, rigour, failure, priors — and the tyranny of bar graphs. kamounlab.medium.com/how-do-we-re...

kamounlab.medium.com

How do we recognize world-class science? Not by the journal it appeared in

What I told early-career researchers about prediction, rigour, failure, priors — and the tyranny of bar graphs.

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Dr. Fim @fim.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Good fucking God, don't give any of these things unpublished data. Its data security 101.

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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 27/09/2026

Four days ago, a scientist was surprised by the news that Anthropic discovered new virus genes for making DNA. He says he’s been studying them for years—and feeding his data to Anthropic’s AI as part of his own research. Coincidence? Here’s my story. nyti.ms/3VSWayc

nyti.ms

Did Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? (Gift Article)

An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company’s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.

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Ana Dorrego Rivas @adorrego.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Science may humble me daily but Wordle will absolutely not. Wordle 1,926 3/6 🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟨⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Matt Lovett-Barron @mlovettbarron.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

New lab preprint: @grace-padilla.bsky.social studied how zebrafish respond to chemical cues of death and decay. Brief exposure initiated a persistent state, but not through olfaction. Instead, these cues' basic pH was detected by trigeminal neurons and TrpA1 channels www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

biorxiv.org

Decay chemicals activate a pH-sensing pathway to initiate a persistent state

Animals use multiple sensory systems to identify signs of danger, including dead conspecifics. Fish can identify decaying conspecifics from chemosensory cues, which prompt a long-lasting avoidance; th...

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Christopher J Stevens @metaphysiology.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

My least effort feminist action of recent years has been to completely train myself out of the common Irish and British habit of using the word c**t to refer to men who are quite plainly horrible cocks. Follow me for more woke ideology.

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Ana Dorrego Rivas @adorrego.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

These three and I surviving a writing weekend

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Cahir O'Kane @cahirokane.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Interesting to see (possible) ER tubules running through these dendritic constrictions. Might also influence computation.

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

LMAO gotta love peer review: ”But outside experts said that the Anthropic researchers have yet to do the research required to confirm that they’ve found something new.” 🧪 www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/s...

nytimes.com

Anthropic’s A.I. Is Teaching Itself Biology. Now It’s Made Its First Discovery. (Gift Article)

Scientists at the company announced their first finding: a group of enzymes whose function is unknown.

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Tim Vogels @tpvogels.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

2 tweeprints to go. Good morning! If you've moved already today, you probably asked yourself: how? How did I even get up? Not the hangover. How does your nervous system orchestrate your muscles so well? We've been asking ourselves, too: How can fixed networks produce so many firing patterns?

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

MwahahahahahadScientist @mads100tist.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This is it. This is what everyone is enabling by humoring genAI: you spend months writing something that took you years to get at, for an opaque algorithm that a few control to spit a number and cut you off right there and then. This is what we're up against 🧪

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Centre de Regulació Genòmica (CRG) @crg.eu · 24/09/2026

Too early to know implications of Anthropic and Claude's discovery on enzymes, says the CRG's Bernardo Rodriguez in @elmundoes.bsky.social. The researchers also says peer review remains fundamental to ensuring the study meets minimum quality standards. www.elmundo.es/salud/2026/0...

elmundo.es

Anthropic anuncia que la IA ha descubierto un nuevo sistema de enzimas hasta ahora desconocido y similar al 'corta-pega' genético

La compañía estadounidense Anthropic ha anunciado que su modelo de inteligencia artificial Claude ha descubierto un nuevo sistema enzimático cuyas propiedades recuerdan a las de...

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Grubb Lab @grubblabneuro.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Registration now open for our AIS meeting, organised with @royalsociety.org in Edinburgh, 7th-8th December 2026! royalsociety.org/science-even...

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

megan peters 🧠 @meganakpeters.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Neuromatch Impact Scholars are smart, dedicated, motivated, and have also gone thru at least one of our courses! Mentoring them can lead to publications and other important outputs! Apply to mentor today -- fantastic opportunity!

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Our new team studying human circuit function @researchmar.bsky.social is looking for a PhD student! If you or anyone you know would be interested to learn more about this, our plans, previous work, or other positions, visit humancircuits.net or get in touch! #humancircuits

Advert for a 4-year funded PhD position at Hospital del Mar Research Institute, Barcelona. Text reads: "How do human cells and synapses give rise to computations? Can we understand how they change in patient epilepsy?" Background shows a photo of the institute and a human hippocampal slice image

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Sainsbury Wellcome Centre @sainsburywellcome.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Applications are now open for the SWC Systems Neuroscience PhD Programme. Join us in London! 🎓 World-class neuroscience training 💰 Fully funded 4-year programme 🖥️Close links to @gatsbyucl.bsky.social Apply by 9 Nov: www.sainsburywellcome.org/web/content/...

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Tim Vogels @tpvogels.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Playing Pong with spikes, dancing rate networks, composite engrams & #ihngrams4engrams. The labs most recent work-in-progress, now on biorxiv.com. Stay tuned for more Pong doi.org/10.64898/202... Dale doi.org/10.64898/202... Composite engrams doi.org/10.64898/202... Ihngrams doi.org/10.64898/202...

Small sub panel of the "Dale" paper's Fig. 1 ,depicting a humanoid dancing with joy. The paper is about how motor cortex can orchestrate a rich and flexible repertoire of network dynamics for rhythmic and goal-directed movements. Computational studies have begun to illuminate the mechanistic origins of this repertoire, but a comprehensive model that can explain the emergence of both transient and self-sustained dynamics is still missing. Condruz et al. show that three simple ingredients: Dalean connectivity, stability, and nonlinear neural responses, suffice to reverse-engineer networks that produce transient, steady-state, and self-sustained periodic activity. A single dynamical principle underlies this repertoire: the interaction of non-normal amplification, inherent to Dalean networks, with neuronal nonlinearity, so to ignite and sustain multi-stable, controllable dynamics. The approach yields entire families of connectivity matrices that require no hand-tuning or learning of weights. Without fitting them to data, these networks reproduce the population-level signatures of motor cortex, implying that the richness of cortical dynamics need not be sculpted by learning, but may emerge from simple biological ingredients. But really, we just feel like dancing with JOY!!

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

paveltomancak.bsky.social @paveltomancak.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

21627 applications. Nothing to celebrate here. Impossible to evaluate fairly & safely. Neither the science (too diverse & possibly LLM generated) nor the soft criteria (likely LLM generated). Without an interview stage - a security risk! marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/whats-new/ne...

marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu

MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2026 receives record number of applications

The 2026 call has attracted considerable interest from the research community with 21,627 applications submitted.

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Stefan Schoenfelder @stefanschoenfelder.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The number of MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship applications in 2026 (21,627) has more than doubled since 2024 (10,360 proposals) and more than tripled since 2022 (7,044). Stating the obvious here but this is not sustainable.

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Steve Cross @drstevex.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Over on my philosophy/comedy/parenting podcast @philosophyplaydate.bsky.social we've run out of impossible questions asked by kids. Every week we take on something like "Are numbers real?", and use 4000 years of philosophy to help you answer them. Help us out: philosophyplaydate@gmail.com.

Two people dressed in blue standing in front of a blue background. Text read "we need your kids' impossible questions and we'll help you to answer them"

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Ana Dorrego Rivas @adorrego.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Apparently 2026 is our year of thinking about dendrites in the cortex. Slightly unconventional behaviour for olfactory bulb scientists 👀 Looking forward to sharing the final piece soon!

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Human brain cells transplanted into mice in ‘most extensive’ integration ever www.nature.com/articles/d41... - amazing work by @sergiuppasca.bsky.social and colleagues, replacing the ENTIRE MOUSE CORTEX with human-derived neurons

nature.com

Human brain cells transplanted into mice in ‘most extensive’ integration ever

Lab-grown organoids wire into mice missing a key part of their brain, offering a new way to test drugs for developmental conditions.

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Ana Dorrego Rivas @adorrego.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Taking advantage of a recent seminar pic because apparently we need to investigate this: Yapperism: nature or nurture? Someone made the mistake of giving me a mic in 1996 and this woman has NOT stopped talking ever since 🎤

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Ana Dorrego Rivas @adorrego.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Thanks for having me! It was a pleasure to share my work and discuss the science with you all. Also, my first-ever photoshoot before a seminar… pretty cool! 😄

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Reposted by Ana Dorrego Rivas

Ʌʗʜʋʗɑɼɼʘ @achucarro.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Last Friday we hosted Ana Dorrego-Rivas (King’s College London, UK) at Achucarro for a seminar on neuronal polarity and axo-dendritic interactions. Thank you for sharing your research with us! 👏 #AchucarroSeminars #Neuroscience #BrainResearch

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Ana Dorrego Rivas @adorrego.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Like every September, we are attending this year’s CDN retreat at Hinxton Hall. 2 full days of talks and posters and all things Dev Neuro. Lauren has (once again) presented our latest data flawlessly! 🧠🧪

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Tomás Ryan @tjryan.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

"MIT wants to rebuild education around the things AI can't replace. That means oral exams, semester portfolios, in-person project work, and a required social component in every subject. The report even floats the idea of rethinking grades entirely..." This is the way forward @tcddublin.bsky.social

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Ana Dorrego Rivas @adorrego.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Yesterday I tried to convince the glia-loving crowd at Achucarro that neurons are still cool in 2026. Great science, Bilbao’s delicious pintxos, and another reminder of why I love the Basque Country so much. Eskerrik asko! 🧠🧪🍢

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Ana Dorrego Rivas @adorrego.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

As someone who checks if her passport is there at least 1,000 times, here’s photographic proof that, indeed, I am taking it with me. You are now all witnesses.

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