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Kristian Herrera

@kherrera.bsky.social
500 followers 170 following 10 posts

Post doc in the Fishman and Engert laboratories @Harvard SCRB and MCB exploring the interplay between brain and body. kjherrera.com

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Reposted by Kristian Herrera
Tessa Montague @tessamontague.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I'm excited to share our new preprint: Generation of a transgenic cephalopod tinyurl.com/pc86jxz8 Cephalopods (cuttlefish, octopus & squid) are crazy critters that dynamically camouflage to their surroundings by changing the color, pattern, & texture of their skin, which they control w their brain.
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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 Kristian Herrera
Matt Lovett-Barron @mlovettbarron.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Our lab's latest paper on the neurobiology of collective behavior is now published www.nature.com/articles/s41... This is the work of a great team in the lab - led by Jo-Hsien Yu, with Geoff Meyerhof, Jimjohn Milan, and Julia Napoli @nature.com @danionella.bsky.social
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Misha Ahrens @mishaahrens.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Whole-body cellular activity imaging in zebrafish, headed by Virginie Ruetten @vmsruetten.bsky.social - new paper is out: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Imaging cellular activity across all organs reveals body-wide circuits - Nature
An imaging system developed to record cellular activity throughout the whole body of zebrafish captures cellular organ dynamics and identifies multiple distributed circuits.
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Reposted by Kristian Herrera
Bahl Lab @bahllab.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
The animal is the same. The stimulus is identical. Yet the behaviour varies. Why? In our new study, @ashritocyte.bsky.social explores the sources of this behavioural variability under fully controlled conditions in larval zebrafish doing optomotor response. (1/7) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Opposing influences of sensory and response history in larval zebrafish
Variability is a prominent feature of animal behavior across species. Despite highly controlled experimental conditions, the same individual often responds differently to repeated identical stimulatio...
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Reposted by Kristian Herrera
Florian Engert @engertlab.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Yet another cool story just came out of the ever-so-capable hands of Roy Harpaz (@royharpaz.bsky.social). www.nature.com/articles/s41... Roy showed that larval zebrafish will adapt and get used to crowded conditions, and that they are then, later on, less sensitive about their personal space.
nature.com
Experience-dependent modulation of collective behavior in larval zebrafish - Nature Communications
How does social experience shape collective behavior? Here, authors show that larval zebrafish use visual-social encounters in crowded or sparse environments to dynamically retune social interactions,...
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Reposted by Kristian Herrera
Emre Yaksi @emreyaksi.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
I am excited to announce the latest paper from our lab, published in Science ! In this study, we show that thalamocortical-like circuits in the zebrafish brain process sensory information hierarchically across topographically organized forebrain circuits.
science.org
Hierarchical sensory processing in zebrafish thalamocortical-like circuits
Thalamocortical projections shape the functional regionalization and parallel sensory computations across the mammalian cortex. However, the principles of thalamocortical computations in non-mammalian...
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Reposted by Kristian Herrera
Bahl Lab @bahllab.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
New paper out: www.cell.com/iscience/ful... Congratulations to our former PhD student @maxcapelle.bsky.social whose work reveals that the switch in light preference across zebrafish development is driven by a reweighting of three parallel visual processing pathways. Check out a short summary below!
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Zebrafish Rock! 🎃 @zebrafishrock.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
JOB ALERT🚨The Zwaka Group at the Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology in Magdeburg 🇩🇪 is seeking a full-time Postdoctoral Fellow to be a key part of their fishy research team. 🐟💤🧠🫀 More details and how to apply in this thread ⬇️ #ZebrafishJobs #PostdocJobs #zebrafish 🧪 @hannazwaka.bsky.social
ALT text: A group of wild-type zebrafish larvae swimming in a petri dish. Credit to Pradeep Krishna Chintapalli.
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Zebrafish Rock! 🎃 @zebrafishrock.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Fintastic thread on cool paper 😎
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Wei-Chung Allen Lee @darbly.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Now published - the #BANC! A full central nervous system (CNS) connectome of a limbed animal at single-synapse resolution, enabling us to follow sensory-motor arcs and understand how the CNS controls the body. rdcu.be/fncjS. #neuroscience. Video by @quorumetrix.bsky.social 1/18
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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
PGE2 modulation of stimulus valence directs zebrafish behavioral fever www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Reposted by Kristian Herrera
John Tuthill @tuthill.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
New preprint: Whole-body 3D kinematics of freely behaving 𝐷𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑜𝑝ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑎 New tech from @blobology.bsky.social & others at @hhmijanelia.bsky.social, which @ispizua.bsky.social and @elliottabe.bsky.social used to gain insight into 3D structure of locomotion & courtship www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Ziqiang Wei @zqwei.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
How does the brain manage metabolism proactively? We show that a neuron–glia circuit helps zebrafish anticipate the delayed oxygen cost of movement and act before brain O2 drops. Excited to share our preprint on predictive oxygen regulation. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #Allostasis
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Current Biology @currentbiology.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
Check out our Q&A with Mark Fishman, who uses the zebrafish to study body–brain interactions and the genetic structure of social behavior at Harvard University! www.cell.com/current-biol...
cell.com
Mark C. Fishman
Interview with Mark Fishman, who uses the zebrafish to study body–brain interactions and the genetic structure of social behavior at Harvard University.
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Reposted by Kristian Herrera
Alex Schier @schierlab.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Very happy to see this out. 👏 @yinanwan.bsky.social Bogdan Bintu and team. Whole-embryo spatial transcriptomics at subcellular resolution from gastrulation to organogenesis | free link Science www.science.org/eprint/5MHTM...
science.org
Whole-embryo spatial transcriptomics at subcellular resolution from gastrulation to organogenesis
Gene expression patterns underlie development, but their systematic detection in whole embryos has remained elusive. We introduce a whole-embryo imaging platform using multiplexed error-robust fluores...
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Harvard_MCB @harvardmcb.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Brain and Heart in Parallel: Zebrafish Study Reframes the Biology of Fear 🧠 🧪🧬 #AcademicSky #higherEd www.mcb.harvard.edu/department/n... @engertlab.bsky.social @kherrera.bsky.social @mishaahrens.bsky.social @rachellegaudet.bsky.social @cellpress.bsky.social @harvardbrainsci.bsky.social
mcb.harvard.edu
Brain and Heart in Parallel: Zebrafish Study Reframes the Biology of Fear - Harvard University - Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology
In a new study published in Cell Reports, (PDF) researchers from the labs of MCB’s Florian Engert and Mark Fishman of the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative […]
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Reposted by Kristian Herrera
Summer Thyme @sthyme.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
I'm pleased to share our newest preprint, which was actually the very first project started in my lab. It took a long time to come together! We address the challenge of translating complex psychiatric genetics into biological mechanism. tinyurl.com/4w7hv8d8
Juvenile zebrafish brain stained with filipin to measure free cholesterol.
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Kristian Herrera @kherrera.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
And finally, shout-out to mentors @mishaahrens.bsky.social, Florian Engert, and Mark Fishman, our RA Arman Zarghani-Shiraz who made the transgenic lines, an everyone else in our labs who's helped along the way!
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Kristian Herrera @kherrera.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
So, if it's not interoceptive feedback, how is the brain linking behavior to heart rate? Well, we don't know yet. Brain-wide imaging reveals many areas reflecting this state, but it's hard to guess their roles without anatomically grounding their connectivity. Something we hope to do very very soon.
brain maps showing hot spots of heart-rate correlated activity across the brain
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Kristian Herrera @kherrera.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
This suggests the interoceptive representation of optopaced tachycardia is different from the naturally occurring one. So, we looked at what's happening in the nodose ganglia and saw that while some neurons had activity mirroring "normal" tachycardia, they actually don't respond to the optopacing!
Time series of heart rate and calcium in nodose ganglion neurons where activity matches stimulus evoked tachycardia, but does not increase when optopacing brings up the heart rate
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Kristian Herrera @kherrera.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
However, the interpretation of these data was tricky. These "optopaced" beats are not normal beats, and seem to be less efficient at transporting blood. So, we "helped" the fish by adding extra oxygen to the water, and saw that this rescued the OMR during the optoacing.
bar plot showing that At 70% oxygen, increasing pacing rate does not change OMR rate
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Kristian Herrera @kherrera.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
But could a high heart rate, by itself, be enough to stop the OMR? To test this, we used optogenetics to control how fast the heart beat using timed light pulses, and saw that this was sufficient to bring down the OMR
time series of heart rate with LED pacing rate showing that heart rate will match up with the intended pacing ratebar plots showing reduction of OMR probability as LED-driven optopacing rate is increased
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Kristian Herrera @kherrera.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
We do believe noradrenergic signaling is involved in both cardiac and behavior states - propranolol abates the heart rate and elevates the OMR. However, severing spinal inputs to sympathetic ganglia only affects heart rate suggesting feedback is not involved in the behavioral changes.
Graph showing effect of propranolol on OMR and heart rate relationship, with heart rate lowered and OMR probability increasedtime series of heart rate in sham and preganglionic axon ablated fish showing loss of heart rate dynamics on left, and bar plots showing preservation of post-threat OMR change on right being unaffected
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Kristian Herrera @kherrera.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
So, does the reduced OMR occur because the fish _senses_ a high heart rate? Or do central mechanisms control both cardiac and behavioral changes? We manipulated the autonomic nervous system in various ways, and long story short, we believe interoceptive feedback is _unnecessary_ for the coupling.
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Kristian Herrera @kherrera.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
A quick thread of highlights: We find two types of behavioral coupling: elevations in heart-rate occur after high energy swim events and persist for over a minute. Second, with higher heart rate comes a reduced tendency to perform a routine behavior, the optomotor response (OMR).
time series of heart rate following a threat showing that if the fish struggled, the heart rate goes up; if the fish didn't, then heart rate doesn't go upGraph showing omr probability as a function of heart rate going from 0.8 to 0.2 as heart increases from 2 to 3 Hz
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Kristian Herrera @kherrera.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
New paper out : "Synchronization of behavioral and cardiac dynamics in larval zebrafish" Here, we report a pretty striking relationship between behavioral state and heart rate in larval zebrafish, and then explore the mechanisms that lead to this coupling bit.ly/4ciYt3R
bit.ly
Synchronization of behavioral and cardiac dynamics in larval zebrafish
Animals reprioritize behavioral goals in response to internal physiological states. Using larval zebrafish, we investigated whether engagement with a …
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Kristian Herrera @kherrera.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
However, the interpretation of these data was tricky. These "optopaced" beats are not normal beats, and seem to be less efficient at transporting blood. So, we "helped" the fish by adding extra oxygen to the water, and saw that this rescued the OMR during the optoacing.
bar plots showing no change in omr proability with changing LED pulse-induced heart rate at 70% O2
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Reposted by Kristian Herrera
bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
Social context modulates cannibalistic attraction in Drosophila larvae www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
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Portugues Lab @portugueslab.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
1/6: New publication from the lab: “Plastic landmark anchoring in zebrafish compass neurons” by Ryosuke Tanaka (@ryosuketanaka.bsky.social) and Ruben is available here: rdcu.be/eX1L4
rdcu.be
Plastic landmark anchoring in zebrafish compass neurons
Nature - Using two-photon microscopy with a panoramic virtual reality setup, how head direction cells in larval zebrafish integrate visual landmarks and optic flow to track orientation is revealed.
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Harvard_MCB @harvardmcb.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
Smarter Microscopes, Faster Maps: Lichtman Lab’s “SmartEM” Brings AI to Connectomics 🧠 🧪🧬 #AcademicSky #higherEd www.mcb.harvard.edu/department/n... @yaronmr.bsky.social @harvard.edu @harvardbrainsci.bsky.social @natmethods.nature.com @rachellegaudet.bsky.social @thermofishersci.bsky.social
mcb.harvard.edu
Smarter Microscopes, Faster Maps: Lichtman Lab’s “SmartEM” Brings AI to Connectomics - Harvard University - Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology
A new paper in Nature Methods (PDF) from the labs of MCB’s Jeff Lichtman and Aravinthan Samuel, of the department of physics and Center for Brain Science, introduces […]
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Catherine Dulac @dulaclab.bsky.social · 13/12/2025
New paper alert!!...🤩 Led by @blogeman.bsky.social, we identify how cell type-specific hormonal responses in the hypothalamus tunes parenting behavior in males and females 🐭🧠🍼. Highlights in thread 👇 1/6 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Cell Type-Specific Hormonal Signaling Configures Hypothalamic Circuits for Parenting
Parenting behavior emerges from hormonally sensitive circuits, but how distinct circuit components are affected by, and contribute to, sex and state dependent changes in infant caregiving remains uncl...
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Rob Johnson @blobology.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
To study how animals understand the physical world (and the rules that govern its dynamics), @jinyao-y.bsky.social trains rats to play fetch with robots 🐀🤖🎾 To learn more, come to our poster Tuesday morning! [Board W11] Rats learn and use intuitive physics knowledge to solve fetch tasks. #SfN2025
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Martin Haesemeyer @haesemeyerlab.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
Out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social led by Kaarthik A Balakrishnan: We identify medullary circuits that represent the valence of thermal stimuli and control both long-term strategies of cold-avoidance and short term hot avoidance behaviors to enable thermoregulation. www.cell.com/current-biol...
cell.com
Behavioral and circuit principles of temperature gradient navigation
Behavioral thermoregulation is critical for survival across animals. Balakrishnan and Haesemeyer discover that thermoregulatory behavior in larval zebrafish is organized into longer-term swim modes. T...
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Kelsey Tyssowski @kelseytea.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
🧠🌟🐭 Excited to share some of my postdoc work on the evolution of dexterity! We compared deer mice evolved in forest vs prairie habitats. We found that forest mice have: (1) more corticospinal neurons (CSNs) (2) better hand dexterity (3) more dexterous climbing, which is linked to CSN number🧵
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Kara McKinley @karalmckinley.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
Lab’s 1st preprint! Menstruation is understudied due to societal taboos + a biological challenge: mice (a key system for research + drug discovery) don’t menstruate. @cagricevrim.bsky.social made menstruating mice + used them to discover early events in menstruation. He is on the job market!
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Hanna Zwaka @hannazwaka.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
“Blame your parents if you can’t pay enough attention." At least when you are a zebrafish! Our new study on attentional switching together with Kumaresh Krishnan, @paulapflitsch.bsky.social , @zwitscherarmin.bsky.social and Florian Engert is out in Science Advances: doi.org/10.1126/scia...
doi.org
Attentional switching in larval zebrafish
Attentional switching in larval zebrafish suggests a basis for focus and competence while performing a task.
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Malcolm Campbell @malcolmgcampbell.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
🚨Our preprint is online!🚨 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... How do #dopamine neurons perform the key calculations in reinforcement #learning? Read on to find out more! 🧵
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Misha Ahrens @mishaahrens.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
Preprint - Excited to present WHOLISTIC, which extends the concept of whole-brain functional imaging to the entire body. Pioneering work by incredibly talented Virginia Ruetten @vmsruetten.bsky.social, this platform reveals whole-organism cellular dynamics in vivo. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Max Planck Institute for Brain Research @mpibrain.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
🚨Hiring Alert! Join Gregor Schuhknechts’s new group Brain Algorithms and Circuits @mpibrain.bsky.social ! 🧠 Fully funded PhD & Postdoc 🐟 Larval #zebrafish model 🔬 Imaging, electrophysiology, EM 💻 #SystemsNeuroscience 👉 brain.mpg.de/schuhknecht
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Felix Baier @felixbaier.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
🚨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! 🧵⬇️
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Harvard_MCB @harvardmcb.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Solar-Powered Thieves: New Study Uncovers Animal Organelle That Sustains Photosynthesis from Stolen Chloroplasts 🧠🧪 #AcademicSky #higherEd www.mcb.harvard.edu/department/n... @nbellono.bsky.social @rachellegaudet.bsky.social @naoshigeuchida.bsky.social @neurovenki.bsky.social @dulaclab.bsky.social
mcb.harvard.edu
Solar-Powered Thieves: New Study Uncovers Animal Organelle That Sustains Photosynthesis from Stolen Chloroplasts - Harvard University - Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology
They look like crawling leaves, but these sea slugs are anything but ordinary. MCB Professor Nick Bellono calls them “the weirdest animal we’ve ever studied”—a bold claim from […]
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Harvard_MCB @harvardmcb.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Octopuses Use Microbial Signals to Guide Complex Behaviors 🧠🧪 #AcademicSky #higherEd www.mcb.harvard.edu/department/n... @nbellono.bsky.social @rachellegaudet.bsky.social @naoshigeuchida.bsky.social @neurovenki.bsky.social @dulaclab.bsky.social @harvardbrainsci.bsky.social @cellpress.bsky.social
mcb.harvard.edu
Octopuses Use Microbial Signals to Guide Complex Behaviors - Harvard University - Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology
A new study published in Cell from the lab of MCB faculty member Nick Bellono reveals that octopuses detect microbial cues on surfaces to distinguish prey and eggs […]
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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
A connectomic resource for neural cataloguing and circuit dissection of the larval zebrafish brain www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
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Martin Haesemeyer @haesemeyerlab.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
Now published in @plos.org Computational Biology our paper led by @yesthatlindsay.bsky.social on the integration of sensory and motor information in zebrafish thermoregulation. Thanks to the peer reviewers for great suggestions. dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...
dx.plos.org
Sensorimotor integration enhances temperature stimulus processing
Author summary As animals explore their environment, they constantly encounter new sensory information. Some sensory inputs come from their own movements, such as sounds while walking across leaves wh...
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Michał Januszewski @michalwj.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
Wouldn't it be great if we could not only image large connectomic volumes but also completely reconstruct them? And if a whole mouse brain project didn't cost billions? With the PATHFINDER preprint (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...), we preview a future where it doesn't have to.
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Alex Chen @alexbchen.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
Excited to share that the astrocyte-centered half of my thesis work is now out @science.org ! With @mishaahrens.bsky.social and @marcduque.bsky.social science.org/doi/10.1126/... 1/8
science.org
Norepinephrine changes behavioral state through astroglial purinergic signaling
Both neurons and glia communicate through diffusible neuromodulators; however, how neuron-glial interactions in such neuromodulatory networks influence circuit computation and behavior is unclear. Dur...
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Datta Lab @dattalab.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
Maps are everywhere in the brain...and finally we've discovered one in the nose! Led by @davidhbrann.bsky.social, we uncovered the logic that specifies the positions of each of the 1,000 sensory neuron subtypes in the nose and aligns their projections to the brain.👇👃see more details below👃👇
biorxiv.org
A spatial code governs olfactory receptor choice and aligns sensory maps in the nose and brain
Although topographical maps organize many peripheral sensory systems, it remains unclear whether olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) choose which of the ~1100 odor receptors (ORs) to express based upon t...
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Mark Andermann @markandermann.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
A drop of milkshake takes a wild ride as it passes through the body. Rachel and Kiersten and the team came up with cool strategies for visualizing food passing through the mouse GI tract and mapping the activity of the same 100s of brainstem neurons across weeks during feeding and other behaviors.
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Portugues Lab @portugueslab.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
3/3 We are looking for a lab technician, a lab manager and researchers to join us in this new chapter. Read the post here: portugueslab.com/the-lab-is-h... Reach out to us if you are interested.
portugueslab.com
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