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Sarah Shipley

@shipleysj.bsky.social
118 followers 122 following 12 posts

Neuroscience postdoc Barry Lab, UCL Hippocampus, Spatial Cognition, Memory, AD

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Reposted by Sarah Shipley
Caswell Barry @caswell.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Things to do in Eastbourne this Sunday: 1) look at the sea 2) look at it again 3) the LitFest, 11am, where @lucyannunwin.bsky.social and I will let your kids squish a brain and enlist them in a neuron choir. Ages 7+. The brain is a replica. eastbournelitfest.onlineticketseller.com/events/173023
Eastbourne LitFest flyer: Sunday 27 September, 11am, age 7+. Adventures Inside Your Brain with Professor Caswell Barry and Lucy Ann Unwin, an interactive talk with brain texture squishing, myth-busting and a noisy neuron choir. Shows the book cover and Lucy and Caswell holding model brains.
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Sarah Shipley @shipleysj.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
FYI men can fill this out too! Menopause impacts everyone, directly or indirectly.
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Sarah Shipley @shipleysj.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This is a really important new initiative, collecting real life experiences of cognitive changes in menopause to guide research. Please get involved, anonymously share your experiences, and share this post! @ruthwoodmac.bsky.social
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UCL Research Department of Cell & Developmental Biology @ucl-cdb.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
🧠 New publication: Rethinking acetylcholine's role in how we learn and remember 🔗 Read more: www.ucl.ac.uk/life-science... #Hippocampus #Acetylcholine #UCL #CellAndDevelopmentalBiology #BarryLab
ucl.ac.uk
Brain chemical acetylcholine may help us update our understanding of the world
A Nature Reviews Neuroscience perspective suggests hippocampal acetylcholine serves as a learning signal, tracking prediction errors to update brain models during memory and learning.
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Nature Reviews Neuroscience @natrevneuro.nature.com · 25/06/2026
Acetylcholine: a candidate substrate for hippocampal predictive learning? A Perspective by William de Cothi, Sarah Shipley & Caswell Barry @shipleysj.bsky.social @caswell.bsky.social #neuroscience #neuroskyence www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Acetylcholine: a candidate substrate for hippocampal predictive learning? - Nature Reviews Neuroscience
Predictive models have emerged as a normative lens for understanding neural function. In this Perspective, de Cothi, Shipley and Barry plausibly unify the diverse roles of hippocampal acetylcholine in...
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Caswell Barry @caswell.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Really excited about this work with the awesome Will de Cothi & Sarah Shipley, just out in Nature Reviews Neuroscience. We propose acetylcholine is an analogue of dopamine — tracking not reward prediction errors but state-transition prediction errors. doi.org/10.1038/s41583-026-01058-w
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Caswell Barry @caswell.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Had so much fun at Pint of Science last night. Brilliant talk from Holly Gregory. If you missed out last night there’s another night of talks tonight!
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UCL Faculty of Life Sciences @ucllifesciences.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Join our team at the London @pintofscience.uk events. You'll get to hear from @caswell.bsky.social and Holly Gregory about how the body works! Still a few tickets for tomorrow! Book now! pintofscience.co.uk/event/maps-m...
pintofscience.co.uk
Maps, Memories and Mending: Stories from the Nervous System
Your brain is a mapmaker, a memory keeper, and — sometimes — in need of repair. Join neuroscientists Caswell Barry and Holly Gregory for two pint-sized tal…
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Reposted by Sarah Shipley
UCL Faculty of Life Sciences @ucllifesciences.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
We have several events that are part of the Pint of Science event series. If you're free this week check out our academics. You won't regret it! pintofscience.co.uk/event/maps-m...
pintofscience.co.uk
Maps, Memories and Mending: Stories from the Nervous System
Your brain is a mapmaker, a memory keeper, and — sometimes — in need of repair. Join neuroscientists Caswell Barry and Holly Gregory for two pint-sized tal…
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Sarah Shipley @shipleysj.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
If you're in London on Tuesday and fancy an evening of science and beers (who doesn't?!) come along to the Pint of Science night that I'm organising. There are also events on the 18th and 20th if you can't make this one. See you there! pintofscience.co.uk/event/maps-m... @pintofscience.uk
pintofscience.co.uk
Maps, Memories and Mending: Stories from the Nervous System
Your brain is a mapmaker, a memory keeper, and — sometimes — in need of repair. Join neuroscientists Caswell Barry and Holly Gregory for two pint-sized tal…
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Sarah Shipley @shipleysj.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
I'm hosting a #PintOfScience night on the 19th May! Come along for a fun evening with awesome talks from UCL's @caswell.bsky.social and Holly Gregory! @ucllifesciences.bsky.social pintofscience.co.uk/event/maps-m...
pintofscience.co.uk
Maps, Memories and Mending: Stories from the Nervous System
Your brain is a mapmaker, a memory keeper, and — sometimes — in need of repair. Join neuroscientists Caswell Barry and Holly Gregory for two pint-sized tal…
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Reposted by Sarah Shipley
Antoine Coutrot @antoinecoutrot.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
⚠️New review straight out of the oven! "Spatial navigation in preclinical Alzheimer's disease: A review" arxiv.org/abs/2603.23082 We focus on spatial navigation as a sensitive cognitive marker in preclinical AD, compiling evidence from cognitively unimpaired individuals with positive AD biomarkers.
Anatomical representation of Braak stages in Alzheimer’s disease (with a focus on stages I to III associated with preclinical AD) and spatial navigation computations.
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Sarah Shipley @shipleysj.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
Thanks for the feature @ucllifesciences.bsky.social! I plan to let the fame go straight to my head 🧠👩‍🔬
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Caswell Barry @caswell.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
Really interesting from the Burgess stable — theta sweeps in entorhinal cortex show a dorsoventral gradient, with different spatial scales coordinated at different frequencies. Nice work @zilong-ji.bsky.social @neilburgess10.bsky.social 👏 biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2026.03.08.710351v1
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Zilong Ji @zilong-ji.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Thanks Caswell! Happy to see this out. Recent interesting work from Vollan et al @azvollan.bsky.social showed that the decoded locations from grid cell activity sweep out in a left-right alternative way across successive theta cycles, steered by an “internal direction” signal in parasubiculum.
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Hugo Spiers @hugospiers.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
Human hippocampal theta–gamma coupling coordinates sequential planning during navigation Impressive study from Dan Bush's Lab at UCL: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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Marco P Abrate @abrate.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
What drives the sequential emergence of spatial neurons in developing rats? In our ICLR 2026 paper, we show how changes in movement statistics drive spatial tuning. Our model replicates experimental timelines and predicts novel conjunctive tuning maturation. doi.org/10.64898/2025.12.30.696864
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Sarah Shipley @shipleysj.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
So happy to finally see this out in @currentbiology.bsky.social! We found that disrupted replay structure in an AD model was linked to reduced place cell stability and more repetitive behaviour on a radial maze 🧠 @abrate.bsky.social @caswell.bsky.social #neurosky tinyurl.com/yx52vzjd
tinyurl.com
Disrupted hippocampal replay is associated with reduced offline map stabilization in an Alzheimer’s mouse model
Shipley et al. show that spatial memory deficits in an Alzheimer’s mouse model are associated with place cell instability and degraded reactivations in rest. Although reactivation rates are preserved,...
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UCL News @uclnews.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
Memory dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease may be linked to impairment in how the brain replays our recent experiences while we are resting, according to a new study in mice led by Dr Sarah Shipley @shipleysj.bsky.social and Prof Caswell Barry @caswell.bsky.social @ucllifesciences.bsky.social
ucl.ac.uk
How the brain's 'memory replay' goes wrong in Alzheimer's disease
Memory dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease may be linked to impairment in how the brain replays our recent experiences while we are resting, according to a new study in mice by UCL scientists.
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Caswell Barry @caswell.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Wooo! Exciting news - Inside Your Brain - the children's neuroscience book I wrote with @lucyannunwin.bsky.social has been listed in the 2025 Children's book of the year shortlist. Please vote for us: tinyurl.com/yhr8vawe (some of those other books look amazing too)
docs.google.com
Books of the Year 2025 Voting Form
School Reading List Children's Books of the Year 2025. To take part, vote for one book in each category and press 'submit' at the end of this form. For more information, book synopses and purchasing ...
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Science News @scinews.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Three must read papers for PhD students. #scisky #PhD #science #research #academicsky 1. The importance of stupidity in scientific research Open Access journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
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Tim Behrens @behrenstimb.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
OK If we are moving to Bluesky I am rescuing my favourite ever twitter thread (Jan 2019). The renamed: Bluesky-sized history of neuroscience (biased by my interests)
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Sarah Shipley @shipleysj.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Huge thanks to my collaborators on this: @caswell.bsky.social , @abrate.bsky.social, Robin Hayman and Dennis Chan (who aren’t on here).
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Sarah Shipley @shipleysj.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Place fields were less stable in the AD mice (this also improved across days). The stability of place cells correlated with the memory performance! 5/5
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Sarah Shipley @shipleysj.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Place cell stability decreased more rapidly in AD mice than WT’s. Importantly, stability increased in session 2 (following rest) in WT but not AD mice. 4/ 5
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Sarah Shipley @shipleysj.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
MUA rate in the rest between sessions was not different between AD and WT mice. BUT – recruitment of cells to MUAs, and the structure within MUAs, was reduced in the AD mice! Both recruitment to MUAs and structure within MUAs were predictive of place cell stability. 3/5
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Sarah Shipley @shipleysj.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
APP NL-G-F mice (which avoid APP overexpression) had decreased memory performance in a radial-arm maze task. Compared to WT’s, the AD mice were more likely to return to arms they had already visited in trial, rather than visiting unique arms. But they did improve across days! 2/5
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Sarah Shipley @shipleysj.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Excited to share that our preprint is out! doi.org/10.1101/2024... The structure of place cell reactivations was disordered in AD mice compared to WT! This was predictive of reduced place cell stability and memory performance on a radial-arm maze task. Here are a few details: 1/5🧵
doi.org
Disordered Hippocampal Reactivations Predict Spatial Memory Deficits in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer's Disease
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterised by progressive memory decline associated with hippocampal degeneration. However, the specific physiological mechanisms underlying hippocampal dysfunction in A...
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Caswell Barry @caswell.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
Our latest preprint has landed www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Fantastic work from @laurenb29.bsky.social and Will de Cothi showing how many of the cell types associated with subiculum (e.g. boundary vector cells, corner cells) can be understood as successor features. TLDR: SUB not CA1 is the SR
biorxiv.org
Unifying Subicular Function: A Predictive Map Approach
The successor representation has emerged as a powerful model for understanding mammalian navigation and memory; explaining the spatial coding properties of hippocampal place cells and entorhinal grid ...
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Andrew MacAskill @macaskillaf.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Huge congrats to @karyna-mi.bsky.social for her paper published today in Science! She found that the hippocampus is really important for a key strategy we use to make decisions called hidden state inference! 🧪 🧠https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq5874 1/7
science.org
Hidden state inference requires abstract contextual representations in the ventral hippocampus
The ability to use subjective, latent contextual representations to influence decision-making is crucial for everyday life. The hippocampus is hypothesized to bind together otherwise abstract combinat...
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Tom George @tomnotgeorge.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
What are the brain’s “real” tuning curves? Our new preprint "SIMPL: Scalable and hassle-free optimisation of neural representations from behaviour” argues that existing techniques for latent variable discovery are lacking. We suggest a much simpl-er way to do things. 1/21🧵
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