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Felix W. Moll

@mollfw.bsky.social
313 followers 268 following 21 posts

Research Group Leader at the Institute of Neurobiology, University of Tübingen. Neuroscientist. Studies crows and modern dinosaur brains 🦖 --> 🐦‍⬛. Group website: felixmoll.com

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Reposted by Felix W. Moll
Torben Ott @torbenottlab.org · 02/09/2026
#Psilocybin🍄 shifts visual cortex dynamics towards a state of surprise! Thrilled to share our work w/ OpenScope at @alleninstitute.org lead by postdoc @roberto-defilippo.bsky.social. We combined visual change detection w/ Neuropixels recordings in mice to uncover how psilocybin changes circuits 1/
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BirdLife Europe & Central Asia @birdlifeeurope.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Birds on the € notes!? You can make it happen! 🐦✨ Vote now for your favourite design! www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/banknot... The European Central Bank is redesigning the euro banknotes and is asking the public for feedback. And one of the themes is birds and rivers...😈
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Mohammed Khallaf @khallaf.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Our new paper is out in @nature.com! We uncovered how a naked mole-rat queen 👑 controls an entire colony: a natural contraceptive scent that suppresses reproduction in other females! A remarkable mammalian parallel to bees and ants! 🐝🐜 @garyrlewin.bsky.social youtu.be/enfv3zJrWKM?...
youtu.be
Naked mole-rats are ruled by a queen: this chemical puts her in power
YouTube video by nature video
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Reposted by Felix W. Moll
Jonas Rose @jonasrose.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Registration for our Avian Cognitive Neuroscience Meeting is open. Join us Oct 1 - 2 in Bochum for talks, posters and plenty of discussion. This is the lineup of speakers: www.ngl.psy.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/ngl/mam/cont... Stay tuned for the full program or just register here: eveeno.com/239532040
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Tamir Eliav @tamir-eliav.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
🚨 New paper in @nature.com We asked why two hippocampal areas with very different anatomy, CA3 and CA1, often seem to code space so similarly? By recording bats flying up to 200m, we found that the difference was hidden by scale! www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵 1/11
nature.com
Sparse-to-dense coding transformation between hippocampal areas CA3 and CA1 - Nature
The hippocampus exhibits a CA3-to-CA1 coding transformation that combines fast learning with an efficient, compressed neural code.
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Drew Schreiner @schreinerdrew.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
Where, exactly, does learning happen in the brain? Out today in @nature.com, we identify a synaptic locus of birdsong learning and show that the circuit can be tuned to make birds learn faster - but at a cost. Read on👇 #neuroskyence 🧪 #prattle 💬 #bioacoustics Shareable link: rdcu.be/fiyrS
nature.com
A synaptic locus of song learning - Nature
Combining a computational framework and optogenetic and chemogenetic manipulations within and downstream of the cortico-basal ganglia circuit identifies the specific cortico-basal ganglia synapse...
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Congrats @arkarupbanerjee.bsky.social et al.!
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
More control wires enable finer control. The Banerjee lab's findings on the neuroanatomical underpinnings of vocal dexterity neatly tie in with a recurring motif in brain evolution: pre-existing pathways can be selectively expanded to increase sensorimotor control and expand behavioral repertoires.
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Striking results showing "swimming" brains in fish endocasts, demonstrating that endocasts are a poor predictor of brain morphology in ray-finned fish.
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Petr Procházka @rytikerttunen.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
New paper in Animal Behaviour: After centuries of debate, we finally have direct evidence that common cuckoos use different egg-laying tactics 🥚 doi.org/10.1016/j.an... Check the appendix videos! #ornithology #broodparasitism #cuckoo @animbehsociety.bsky.social @ivb-cas.bsky.social
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
Super interesting paper on the brains of vocalizing seals and sea lions. Highlighting the role of the thalamus for volitional vocal control in both mammals and birds!
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Reposted by Felix W. Moll
Matthias Loretto @matthiasloretto.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
For decades biologists assumed ravens follow wolves to their kills. Our paper @science.org shows something different: ravens rarely follow wolves far. Instead they remember areas where wolf kills are common and return to them—sometimes from >150 km away. doi.org/10.1126/science.adz9467 📷Dan Stahler
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
Neat study suggesting proboscis dexterity is improved by learning in an invertebrate.
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
Nice commentary on our recent paper on crow stick tool use. To add one piece of information: One of our crows did, in fact, sometimes use the substrate (i.e., the apparatus desk) to adjust its grip—the crow for which stick re-grasping by tossing was too subtle to be reliably detected.
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences @pnas.org · 22/11/2025
After the Ngogo chimpanzee group killed 21 members of neighboring groups and expanded their territory by 22%, female birth rates more than doubled and infant survival increased sharply—showing clear fitness benefits from intergroup killing. In PNAS: ow.ly/TKmf50XuPjY
Jolie, an adult female chimpanzee of the Ngogo community in Kibale National Park, Uganda, with sleeping infant son, Zawinul. 
CREDIT: Kevin Langergraber
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Arkarup Banerjee @arkarupbanerjee.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
As a longtime fan of cool papers in @currentbiology.bsky.social, I am really thrilled to see this out! This study sets the stage for understanding the origins of novel (vocal) behaviors. Big shout out to the main architects of this work @xmikezheng20.bsky.social and @cliffscience.bsky.social
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences @pnas.org · 24/10/2025
Researchers gave female canaries testosterone, which causes them to sing. Two-photon in vivo imaging reveals that songs emerge due to changes in brain cell function rather than by increasing the size of a key brain region, as was once thought. In PNAS: ow.ly/pn1750XhFL5
A pair of canaries from the canary breeding colony of the Max Planck Institute of Biological Intelligence in Seewiesen, Germany.
CREDIT: Stefan Leitner
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
Great Dispatch piece by @milliejohnston.bsky.social et al.. Our crows are very flattered: "Great skill can be found in the dextrous movements of a tool tip. [ ] from cave paintings and papyrus scripts to Da Vinci’s sketches and today’s remote laparoscopic surgery." www.cell.com/current-biol...
cell.com
Animal tool use: Capturing tool-expertise development with a deep learning network
Movement tracking using the deep-learning network DeepLabCut has revealed how a species not known for tool use acquires and refines tool skills. This opens the door to detailed cross-species compariso...
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Reposted by Felix W. Moll
animal prattle @animal-prattle.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
🐦 21 species all produce similar whining noises towards their brood parasites 🐦 Found in areas w/dense parasite-host networks 🐦 Playbacks trigger innate recruit response from all hosts 🐦 --> intermediate b/t innate & learned signals! www.nature.com/articles/s41... #prattle 💬 #bioacoustics 2/2
nature.com
Learned use of an innate sound-meaning association in birds - Nature Ecology & Evolution
Over 20 species of geographically and phylogenetically diverse bird species produce convergent whining vocalizations towards their respective brood parasites. Model presentation and playback experimen...
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
Awesome, congrats!!
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Science Magazine @science.org · 04/10/2025
A 2024 study found that ants best humans at tests of collective intelligence. Learn more on #WorldAnimalDay: scim.ag/42nMvQJ
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 29/09/2025
Thanks for sharing! Don't miss out on the videos --> bsky.app/profile/moll...
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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
🌆🐀Scientific American article about the project we're starting on NYC rats!! scientificamerican.com/article/scie... w/ Emily Mackevicius, Dima Batenkov, @zamakany.bsky.social, @basisresearch.bsky.social Seeking collaborators and funders 🐀🌆
scientificamerican.com
New York City’s Rats Have a Secret Nightlife—And a Language Humans Can’t Hear
A new preprint field study reveals that New York City’s rats aren’t just survivors—they’re talkative city dwellers with their own hidden nightlife. Mapping their movements and conversations could offe...
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 14/09/2025
Thanks Arka! :)
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Thank you :)
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Universität Tübingen @unituebingen.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Ein Forschungsteam der @unituebingen.bsky.social zeigt, wie Krähen lernen, ein Stäbchen präzise im Schnabel zu führen, um damit an Futter zu gelangen: 👉 uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet... #Neurobiologie #Biologie #Forschung
Eine Rabenkrähe schiebt mit ihrem Schnabel ein Stäbchen in eine Plexiglasbox. Text: "Rabenkrähen können lernen, Werkzeug zielgerichtet einzusetzen.". Rechts oben als Rubrik "Pressemitteilung".
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Linking it to our previous crow brain anatomy study (Moll et al., 2025, JCN): Our behavioral paradigm offers a scaffold for future studies investigating neuronal correlates of corvid tool use in the avian general motor system and beyond.
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
At the start of each trial, when the crows pulled the stick from the holder, the stick was often misaligned with the beak. In these cases, the initial pull was followed by brief tosses—momentary re-leases and re-grasps of the stick—to adjust its orientation within the beak and achieve a better grip.
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Trained crows dexterously corrected errors when the tool’s working end lost control over the target.
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
DeepLabCut pose estimation (@trackingactions.bsky.social) revealed high intitial motor variability, which is essenatial for motor learning (Dhawale et al., 2017, Annu. Rev. Neurosci.).
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
New paper on precise tool use learning in carrion crows @currentbiology.bsky.social. We show that—like New Caledonian crows—expert carrion crows pay close attention to the working end of their tool, suggesting tool integration into their peripersonal space. 🧵 & vids! 👇 www.cell.com/current-biol...
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Cool new paper on how neurons in my favorite bird's brain encode time. Congrats Millie and Max!! @milliejohnston.bsky.social , @crowbrain.bsky.social
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Cool new method (functional ultrasound imaging) now established in the crow by @daliao.bsky.social and colleagues: www.jneurosci.org/content/45/2...
jneurosci.org
Exploring Neural Dynamics in the Auditory Telencephalon of Crows Using Functional Ultrasound Imaging
Crows, renowned for advanced cognitive abilities and vocal communication, rely on intricate auditory systems. While the neuroanatomy of corvid auditory pathways is partially explored, the underlying n...
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
Amazing meeting with amazing people!
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Reposted by Felix W. Moll
Thomas MacGillavry @thomasmacgillavry.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
Our paper on brain size evolution in birds of paradise was recently accepted! In brief: •BoPs have big brains, comparable to those of medium-sized corvids •Neither absolute nor relative brain size appears to have co-evolved with display complexity doi.org/10.1093/orni...
doi.org
Did complex song and dance co-evolve with brain size in the birds-of-paradise (Aves: Paradisaeidae)?
Abstract. Complex signaling behaviors, such as avian song and courtship displays, have been associated with increases in both absolute and relative brain s
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Hannah Payne @hannahpayne.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
My latest Aronov lab paper is now published @Nature! When a chickadee looks at a distant location, the same place cells activate as if it were actually there 👁️ The hippocampus encodes where the bird is looking, AND what it expects to see next -- enabling spatial reasoning from afar bit.ly/3HvWSum
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Arkarup Banerjee @arkarupbanerjee.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
Our first look at midbrain PAG’s role in singing mouse vocal control. When near each other, these mice produce two divergent vocal modes. Same circuits for USVs and Songs—or different ones? Bets were made..some of us bought beers for others! Led by @xmikezheng20.bsky.social & Clifford Harpole. 👇🏽
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Nature @nature.com · 19/03/2025
Nature research paper: Convergent vocal representations in parrot and human forebrain motor networks go.nature.com/4iEIBsz
go.nature.com
Convergent vocal representations in parrot and human forebrain motor networks - Nature
Using advanced brain-recording techniques, parrots were found to have a brain organization for vocal control similar to humans, making them an important model for studying speech and for developing potential treatments for communication disorders.
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Drew Schreiner @schreinerdrew.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
Proud to have contributed to @jiaxuanqi.bsky.social's masterpiece out @nature.com! She shows that dopamine transients track the learned quality of song during juvenile learning and that dopamine release is driven not just by VTA firing, but by a local cholinergic mechanism! (1/x)
nature.com
Dual neuromodulatory dynamics underlie birdsong learning - Nature
Dopamine release in the basal ganglia of the zebra finch is driven by neurons associated with reinforcement learning and by cholinergic signalling, and tracks performance quality during long-term lear...
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Arnav Raha @arnavraha.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
Excited to share our latest work! It’s been a great experience working on this (including building a whole new lab!) 😊 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Natural behaviour is learned through dopamine-mediated reinforcement - Nature
Studies in zebra finches show that dopamine has a key role as a reinforcement signal in the trial-and-error process of learning that underlies complex natural behaviours.
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
How might the general motor system and the song system interact and contribute to flexible vocal behavior? We discuss this question in our brand-new review with lead author @daliao.bsky.social: "Bridging the fields of cognition and birdsong with corvids" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Bridging the fields of cognition and birdsong with corvids
Corvids, readily adaptable across social and ecological contexts, successfully inhabit almost the entire world. They are seen as highly intelligent bi…
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Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
Now published in JCN: "Exploring Anatomical Links Between the Crow's Nidopallium Caudolaterale and Its Song System" In crows (which are songbirds!), we show that the song system is paralleled by the 'general motor system' (cf. Feenders, 2008; Farries, 2001). onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Exploring Anatomical Links Between the Crow's Nidopallium Caudolaterale and Its Song System
The crow's nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL) projects densely to the dorsal intermediate arcopallium (AID) and the striatum, paralleling important song system pathways. Connections from the magnocellul...
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