Sign in

Emilie Macé

@mace-lab.bsky.social
394 followers 465 following 43 posts

Neuroscience & functional ultrasound imaging. Vision and brain states. Professor at University Medical Center Göttingen. brainwidenetworks.uni-goettingen.de Co-Spokesperson, EKFZ Center for Optogenetic Therapies. ekfz.uni-goettingen.de/en

PostsRepliesMedia
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Organised with @antbergel.bsky.social, @agnesland.bsky.social and Pierre Pouget. Join us!
020
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Exciting times for functional ultrasound! The field is growing fast—and we need to train the next generation. We’re launching the first Paris Ultrasound Workshop, on Dec 8–9 2026. 🎓 Leading experts 🧰 Open-source tools 👩‍🔬 For new & experienced users Register by Nov 15! Link: tinyurl.com/ParisfUSI
185
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Excited to see our lab present at #FENS2026 this week! 🧠 Come by our posters to see how we use fUSi to study neuromodulation, arousal, vision restoration, and learning. Looking forward to many great discussions!
0103
Reposted by Emilie Macé
bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Volumetric functional ultrasound imaging in macaques www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/20…
052
Reposted by Emilie Macé
Agnès Landemard @agnesland.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
How does blood flow relate to brain activity? We discovered that it reflects two neural populations affected oppositely by arousal. Together, they explain neurovascular coupling in all brain regions and brain states! Out today in Nature: rdcu.be/fdC2A @uclbrainscience.bsky.social
The supply of blood to brain tissue is thought to depend on the overall neural activity in that tissue, and this dependence is thought to differ across brain regions and across brain states. However, studies supporting these views have measured neural activity as a bulk quantity and related it to blood supply following disparate events in different regions. Here we measure fluctuations in neuronal activity and blood volume across the mouse brain, and find that their relationship is consistent across brain states and brain regions but differs in two opposing brainwide neural populations. Functional ultrasound imaging (fUSI) revealed that whisking, a marker of arousal, is associated with brainwide fluctuations in blood volume. Simultaneous fUSI and Neuropixels recordings showed that neurons that increase activity with whisking have distinct haemodynamic response functions compared with those that decrease activity. Their summed contributions predicted blood volume across states.Brainwide Neuropixels recordings revealed that these opposing populations coexist in the entire brain. Their differing contributions to blood volume largely explain the apparent differences in blood volume fluctuations across regions. The mouse brain thus contains two neural populations with opposite relations to brain state and distinct relationships to blood supply, which together account for brainwide fluctuations in blood volume.
314562
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Maybe I should have made the timescale of the effect more clear - we are talking about tens of seconds before behavior, not preparatory signals. We find that the mouse is in a state that makes it more likely to switch (a bit like sleep pressure making you increasingly more likely to sleep!)
040
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Our question here was to see if spontaneous events are more likely to happen when animals are in a specific internal/arousal brain state or not. The spontaneous aspect is assumed - it refers to events being uninstructed and not triggered by external inputs (as far as we can measure)!
010
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
The control trace in the decoding plot is addressing that, it is made using pseudo events (data from same time points in other sessions when no event happened). Does that answer your question?
110
Reposted by Emilie Macé
Julie Fabre @juliefabre.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
How do the basal ganglia turn what you see into what you do? New preprint w/ @kenneth-harris.bsky.social, @flickerfusion.bsky.social & @carandinilab.net: we recorded across striatum, GPe & SNr in a Go/NoGo task. Striatum encodes which stimulus, GPe & SNr encode action. 🧵 biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
16525
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Here we inhibited the cells. For Vglut neurons, given previous results showing that they promote behavior, I would expect the opposite. We also see a strong pupil constriction which hints at a cholinergic effect. Data will tell!!
000
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Cholinergic cells are our guess.. Dissecting the role of different cell types in MS is our next step! Regarding the brain activity, what is maybe surprising is the timescale of the effect? Of course preparatory signals are known. Here we focus more on slow changes in internal state.
100
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
8/8. This work builds on inspiring studies showing that internal states shape spontaneous behavior over long timescales.🕜 Huge thanks to co-authors, institutions, and funders for making this possible! 🙏 @uni-goettingen.de @mpiforbi.bsky.social @dfg.de @ekfstiftung.bsky.social @mbexc.bsky.social
070
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
7/8. In short: ~10 s before a spontaneous behavioral switch: ↑ decodability ↓ medial septum activity (and other regions) Our interpretation: internal drive gradually builds up, creating a transition-prone brain state that makes switching more likely.
180
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
6/8. To test causality, we used optogenetics 💡 to inhibit the medial septum, mimicking the decrease seen with fUS seconds before behavior initiation. The result: MS inhibition made transitions to egress, running, and grooming more likely.
130
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
5/8. So what drives this predictability before behavioral transitions? We identified a set of regions whose hemodynamic signal decreased seconds before egress and running, with one potential key player: the medial septum (MS).
130
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
4/8. As expected, whole-brain fUSi revealed distinct activity patterns associated with spontaneous egress, grooming, and running. But what happens before behavior initiation? We found that whole-brain signals predicted both egress and running several seconds before onset! ⏳
240
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
3/8 To test this, we used whole-brain fUSi in head-fixed mice across two contexts: a virtual burrow and a running wheel. In both, mice spent most of their time in quiet wakefulness, but spontaneously initiated egress (exiting the burrow), grooming, or running. 🐭
140
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
2/8. Paulina Wanken 🤩, the outstanding student who led this project, asked a simple question: when animals change behavior without external cues, are those transitions random, or does the brain enter a specific internal state first? 🤔
media.tenor.com
a cartoon mouse is standing next to a hole in the floor
ALT: a cartoon mouse is standing next to a hole in the floor
150
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
1/8. New preprint! ✨ How spontaneous is spontaneous behavior? 🧠🐭 We found that whole-brain fUSi signals predicted spontaneous behavioral transitions seconds in advance. Inhibiting one node of this transition-prone state, the medial septum, facilitated switching! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
26021
Reposted by Emilie Macé
Tommaso Patriarchi @tpatriarchi.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Wait… localized norepinephrine transients in the awake visual cortex?! Who would have guessed this neuromodulatory signal is that spatially precise, right where visual processing is happening. Brain state control just got a lot more local. @ruedigersarah.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
1110934
Reposted by Emilie Macé
Meryl Malezieux @merylneuro.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
1/8 New preprint alert! How are signals from the heart encoded in the brain? What could be the functional implications of cardioception? We found that neurons in the posterior insular cortex are precisely tuned to heartbeats, and that this cardio-insular coupling supports emotion coding in mice.
biorxiv.org
28840
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
Thanks Peter! We were super happy to see that you also found a big difference between LC opto and natural arousal at the cellular level in hippocampus. We mentioned it extensively in the paper discussion! The inhibition that you see during optoLC is also in line with the decrease in fUSi we see.
011
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
8/8. Last but not least: Jose Maria is looking for a postdoc in computational neuroscience 🧠💻 Don’t miss the chance to recruit him — he comes highly recommended! 🚀
120
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
7/8. In sum: arousal engages a brain-wide hemodynamic wave independent of noradrenergic tone! Huge thanks to all the coauthors, institutions, and funders for making this possible! 🙏 @uni-goettingen.de, @mpiforbi.bsky.social, @dfg.de, @ekfstiftung.bsky.social, @mbexc.bsky.social
120
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
6/8. We then tested an obvious suspect: noradrenaline. Twist: bidirectional optogenetic manipulations of the locus coeruleus shifted baseline fUSi signals, but the arousal wave remained intact. This suggests that other neuromodulators, such as acetylcholine, may play a bigger role. 🤔
110
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
5/8. This wave propagated from subcortex → cortex. We recovered it from low-dimensional components of resting-state signals. These components predicted both spontaneous and evoked responses in a test set! The arousal wave is a latent state that explains a large fraction of brain-wide signals ⚡
110
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
4/8. We used functional ultrasound imaging (fUSi) + pupillometry in awake mice 🐭 to track whole-brain signals around spontaneous pupil dilations and after arousing stimuli (air puffs). Result: a robust spatiotemporal "arousal wave" 🧠🌊
110
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
3/8. 🧠👀 Arousal shapes physiology, behavior, perception, and task performance. It also drives brain-wide activity, often more strongly than sensory or task variables. But what is the spatiotemporal structure of this effect? And is it shared between spontaneous and sensory-driven arousal?
media.tenor.com
ALT:
110
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
2/8. This is the first output of our lab’s effort to understand spontaneous behavior and neuromodulation at the brain-wide level. This was a fantastic project to see come together, led by Jose Maria Martinez de Paz, with a key contribution from @johannalmayer.bsky.social. Now to the results👇
110
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
1/8. New preprint! Using fUSi in head-fixed mice🐭, we found that arousal events trigger a brain-wide wave of activity 🌊🧠. Surprisingly, this pattern was preserved during opto manipulations of the locus coeruleus, pointing to a minor role for noradrenergic tone. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
23412
Reposted by Emilie Macé
Matteo Guardamagna @matteoguardamagna.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
1/7 🧠 My journey into development begins with this work and question: how does the brain's spatial navigation system develop? We found that the neural networks for spatial navigation (tori and rings) are preconfigured and only later anchor gradually to the world with experience! 🧵
818171
Reposted by Emilie Macé
Benjamin Cowley @benjocowley.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
DNN models of the brain are getting bigger. Are we replacing one complicated system in vivo with another in silico? In new work, we seek the *smallest* DNN models of visual cortex, balancing prediction with parsimony. It turns out these compact models are surprisingly small! rdcu.be/e5H8G
rdcu.be
Compact deep neural network models of the visual cortex
Nature - Parsimonious deep neural network models can be used for prediction of visual neuron responses.
412947
Reposted by Emilie Macé
Portugues Lab @portugueslab.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
(1/n) We are excited to share our new paper in Nature Communications, by Hagar Lavian (@hlavian.bsky.social) and team, revealing how the zebrafish brain integrates visual navigation signals! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Visual motion and landmark position align with heading direction in the zebrafish interpeduncular nucleus - Nature Communications
How are various visual signals integrated in the vertebrate brain for navigation? Here authors show that different spatial signals are topographically organized and align to one another in the zebrafi...
35421
Reposted by Emilie Macé
Alex @alexattinger.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
How does the brain balance learning new things without overwriting what it already knows? Our new paper tackles this long-standing stability–plasticity dilemma during active navigation. With Tony Drinnenberg from the Deisseroth Lab (@deisseroth.bsky.social) doi.org/10.1101/2025...
doi.org
Environmental Novelty Modulates Rapid Cortical Plasticity During Navigation
In novel environments, animals quickly learn to navigate, and position-correlated spatial representations rapidly emerge in both the retrosplenial cortex (RSC) and primary visual cortex (V1). However,...
15915
Reposted by Emilie Macé
Georg Kosche @gek0s.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
Gene editing of single, targeted neurons in vivo is now feasible. We are proud to present our preprint for highly efficient single-cell electroporation using RNA. With @alex-fratzl.bsky.social, @munzlab.bsky.social, Botond Roska @iobswiss.bsky.social #neuroskyence www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
In vivo single-cell gene editing using RNA electroporation reveals sequential adaptation of cortical neurons to excitatory-inhibitory imbalance
The balance between excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission is fundamental for normal brain function, yet the adaptation of individual neurons to disrupted excitatory-inhibitory balance is not wel...
25119
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
Thanks Henry for your hard work!! It was fun indeed :)
000
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Enjoy guys!! 🍾🥳
050
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
We currently have open positions for PhD and Postdocs! Interested in learning fUS: please apply! brainwidenetworks.uni-goettingen.de/open-positio...
053
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Big thanks to our institutions and funding sources for the support—and to everyone on the team for making this discovery possible! 🙏✨ @mbexc.bsky.social @mpiforbi.bsky.social @mcgill.ca @dfg.de
110
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
In summary, visual objects refine population-level head-direction coding in postsubiculum, potentially helping the brain’s internal compass anchor to external cues. Whether this extends to other types of spatially tuned neurons remains an exciting open question! 8/ Illustration: Dorothea Laurence
252
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
To test if this effect was specific to objects, we presented two landmarks to the mouse: an object picture or a scrambled version. The boost occurred only with the object! 7/
210
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
At the population level, head-direction cells form a ring attractor. Cells aligned with an object’s direction were boosted, while others were inhibited—showing that objects refine the brain’s internal compass.⚡🧭 A model confirmed the effect when adding an untuned input to the attractor network. 6/
131
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
We then asked: How are visual signals integrated with spatial ones? We teamed up with @apeyrache.bsky.social. Mice were recorded in PoSub while exploring an arena with a landmark, then head-fixed for visual stimulation. Both head-direction cells and fast-spiking interneurons preferred objects! 5/
120
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
To our surprise, spatial navigation areas—not visual cortex—responded strongest to objects! We replicated this in awake and anesthetized mice and confirmed it with electrophysiology. Postsubiculum (PoSub), a hub of the head-direction system, was the top hit! 🎯 4/
1112
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
This project began with a paradox: Mice can see objects, yet no dedicated object areas like those in primates had been found. Inspired by early human fMRI studies, we used an unbiased functional ultrasound (fUS) screen to look beyond the visual cortex. 3/
120
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
This was a true team effort, led by the brilliant Domique Siegenthaler, in collaboration with Stuart Trenholm and @apeyrache.bsky.social ! 🙌 2/
110
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Thrilled to share that our work is now published in Science! ✨ We found a preference for visual objects in the mouse spatial navigation system where they dynamically refine head-direction coding. In short, objects boost our inner compass! 🧭 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧵1/
817572
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
To test if this effect was specific to objects, we presented two landmarks to the mouse: an object picture or a scrambled version. The boost occurred only with the object! 7/
000
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
At the population level, head-direction cells form a ring attractor. Cells aligned with an object’s direction were boosted, while others were inhibited—showing that objects refine the brain’s internal compass.⚡🧭 A model confirmed the effect when adding an untuned input to the attractor network. 6/
100
Emilie Macé @mace-lab.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
We then asked: How are visual signals integrated with spatial ones? We teamed up with @apeyrache.bsky.social. Mice were recorded in PoSub while exploring an arena with a landmark, then head-fixed for visual stimulation. Both head-direction cells and fast-spiking interneurons preferred objects! 5/
100