Reposted by Tara RaamTalia Lerner @talialerner.bsky.social · 09/08/2026It has been painfully clear since Fall’24 that US science funding would tank, universities would be targeted, and any assertions about a new “gold standard” disingenuous. The question has not been “will it be that bad,” but “how bad will it be.” 212935
Reposted by Tara RaamMatt Lovett-Barron @mlovettbarron.bsky.social · 26/09/2026New 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.orgDecay chemicals activate a pH-sensing pathway to initiate a persistent stateAnimals 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... 12512
Reposted by Tara RaamMoi Expósito-Alonso (MOILAB) @mexpositoalonso.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Fantastic Asst Professor positions open across multiple UC Berkeley departments @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social Plant/Algae/Microb aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05522 Plant/Env aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05382 Gen/Dev/Evo aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05481 Eco aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05489aprecruit.berkeley.eduAssistant Professor – Plant or Macroalgae-Associated Microbial Communities and Interactions - Plant and Microbial BiologyUniversity of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now! 05171
Reposted by Tara RaamGrace Lindsay @neurograce.bsky.social · 27/08/2026MIT has put out an "AI and Education" report summarizing what they've found at their own institution. Seems thoughtful. aiandeducation.mit.edu/report/ 421968
Tara Raam @tararaam.bsky.social · 04/08/2026hi Mark! I realize this is an old post, but wondering if your department will be hiring again this fall? 110
Reposted by Tara RaamDan Feldman @danfeldman.bsky.social · 31/07/2026The Neuroscience Department at UC Berkeley is hiring an Asst Professor in Computational Neuro. All areas of computational/theoretical neuro are welcome. Deadline Oct 30. Join our neuroscience community! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05446 #AcademicJobs #Neuroscience #NeuroJobsaprecruit.berkeley.eduAssistant Professor - Computational Neuroscience - Department of NeuroscienceUniversity of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now! 09193
Reposted by Tara RaamMarla Feller @mfeller.bsky.social · 03/08/2026Spring 2026 PhD grads: miller.berkeley.edu postdoc fellowship at UC Berkeley is calling. If you want the freedom to pursue your most ambitious ideas, this is for you. And if you are interested in development, neural circuits, or anything retina, I'm happy to sponsor your nomination. Email me!miller.berkeley.eduHome | Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science 022
Reposted by Tara RaamCris Niell @crisniell.bsky.social · 03/08/2026Very happy to share our new review on visual computation in the cephalopod brain, with @vangeliqueallen.bsky.social, out now! We discuss exciting recent advances in understanding how the radically different brain of cephalopods processes the visual scene. 🐙🔬👀 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 211142
Reposted by Tara RaamBen Saunders @bensaunders.bsky.social · 03/08/2026The final version of our amygdala dopamine paper is out! BLA dopamine dynamically tracks emotional salience and not value or reward prediction error. Congrats to Dr. Megan Brickner!! www.nature.com/articles/s41...nature.comBasolateral amygdala dopamine transmits emotional salience - Nature CommunicationsThe basolateral amygdala dopamine system has received little attention. Here, authors show that BLA dopamine plays a unique role in learning, by encoding the emotional salience of sensory cues to supp... 614035
Reposted by Tara RaamTom Kash @superkash.bsky.social · 01/08/2026message to some people: please, stop using chatgpt to email. it is very obvious, and it is embarassing for you. 3478
Reposted by Tara RaamEarl K. Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social · 15/07/2026I am deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Susumu Tonegawa. He was the founding director of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and a remarkable scientific force. I am personally grateful for all that he has done for me. @picowerinstitute.bsky.social 2485
Reposted by Tara RaamIshmail Abdus-Saboor @ishmailsaboor.bsky.social · 13/05/2026Long-term editing of brain circuits with engineered electrical synapses! I still remember years ago when Kafui Dzirasa from @dukeuni.bsky.social @hhmi-science.bsky.social called me beaming with excitement about this new technology. Here it is today in Nature. www.nature.com/articles/s41... .nature.comLong-term editing of brain circuits using an engineered electrical synapse - NatureConnexin proteins found in white perch fish were used to engineer synthetic electrical synapses, enabling precision circuit editing in mammals. 0198
Reposted by Tara RaamDayu Lin @moccalin.bsky.social · 15/04/2026What has changed in mama bear brain (well, actually mice) to make her risk her life to attack a potential threat and protect her young? Oxytocin is the key! Happy to share our new study led by two awesome postdocs: Takashi Yamaguchi and Rongzhen Yan. www.nature.com/articles/s41...nature.comThe neural mechanisms supporting the rise and fall of maternal aggression - NatureIn mice, female aggression is governed by an amygdala–to–medial hypothalamus circuit that is strengthened during pregnancy and is dynamically amplified by oxytocin during lactation. 27330
Reposted by Tara RaamBita Moghaddam @bita137.bsky.social · 06/04/2026Sharif University in Tehran was just bombed Founded in 1965, it is one the most elite science and engineering institutions in the world. Alumni include the mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani, first woman to win the Fields Medal Here is the list of other alumni en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...en.wikipedia.orgList of Sharif University of Technology people - Wikipedia 5207115
Tara Raam @tararaam.bsky.social · 18/03/2026get past the paywall here: rdcu.be/e8LrVrdcu.beCortical regulation of collective social dynamics during environmental challengeNature Neuroscience - Raam, Li, Gu and colleagues identify neural mechanisms underlying group huddling in mice during cold exposure. They find that the prefrontal cortex encodes decisions to huddle... 132
Tara Raam @tararaam.bsky.social · 18/03/2026I've been obsessed with understanding group dynamics for a very (very) long time. this feels like the tiniest beginning of an answer. so grateful for the wonderful team of collaborators I got to work with, and to everyone who listened to me talk incessantly about this for 5+ yrs. 130
Tara Raam @tararaam.bsky.social · 18/03/2026We tend to think of the brain as something that operates within an individual, but our findings suggest that to really understand how the brain controls behavior, we need to look beyond the individual and consider the whole group. 110
Tara Raam @tararaam.bsky.social · 18/03/2026Excited to share my postdoc work is out in @natneuro.nature.com today! We examined how the brain enables social groups to collectively coordinate their behavior in the face of environmental challenge ❄️🐭🐭🐭🐭❄️ : www.nature.com/articles/s41...nature.comCortical regulation of collective social dynamics during environmental challenge - Nature NeuroscienceRaam, Li, Gu and colleagues identify neural mechanisms underlying group huddling in mice during cold exposure. They find that the prefrontal cortex encodes decisions to huddle and that silencing neura... 109024
Tara Raam @tararaam.bsky.social · 18/03/2026We tend to think of the brain as something that operates within an individual, but our findings suggest that to really understand how the brain controls behavior, we need to look beyond the individual and consider the whole group. 000
Reposted by Tara RaamWeizhe Hong @honglab.bsky.social · 18/03/2026We often think of survival as an individual act. But when facing hardship together, social groups may function more like a unified system than a collection of separate individuals. We are excited to share our latest work @natneuro.nature.com studying collective social dynamics. See: rdcu.be/e8LrV 2258
Reposted by Tara RaamTimothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 08/03/2026Iran’s people were facing a horrible shortage of water before the war began. If we are destroying desalination plants and setting fire to Teheran we are committing unfathomable crimes. 762251118002
Reposted by Tara RaamCarla Golden @goldenneurons.bsky.social · 11/11/2025Thrilled to share our new paper, out now in @natneuro.nature.com, uncovering how estradiol, the most potent estrogen, modulates reinforcement learning and reward prediction errors across biological levels. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #blueprint 1/7nature.comEstrogen modulates reward prediction errors and reinforcement learning - Nature NeuroscienceDopamine encoding of reward prediction errors naturally fluctuates over females’ reproductive cycles with estrogenic signaling due to reduced expression of dopamine reuptake proteins. 815761
Tara Raam @tararaam.bsky.social · 12/11/2025missing out on all the SfN fun this year, but for the very best reason 🥰🫶🏼 270
Reposted by Tara RaamShaked Palgi @shakedpa.bsky.social · 16/10/2025I am excited to share my PhD work on head-direction cells recorded in the wild, now published in @science.org, where we recorded neurons in bats flying outdoors on an island. doi.org/10.1126/sci... With @ray-neuro.bsky.social, Shir Maimon, Liora Las, Nachum Ulanovsky and many others 612037
Reposted by Tara RaamArdem Patapoutian @ardemp.bskyverified.social · 14/10/2025During these uncertain times, I’m very happy to see that my institution, @scripps.edu has an open tenure-track Assistant Professor position. Any field in Chemistry or Biology is welcome. I’d especially love to see fellow neuroscientists apply. Please repost! apply.interfolio.com/174756apply.interfolio.com Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio 212994
Reposted by Tara RaamAnn Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 09/10/2025Finally out: our recent work with Nick Betley is a view into how the brain reshapes its behavior in the face of competing survival needs- and also a potential angle on treatment targets for enduring pain. A brief rundown... www.nature.com/articles/s41...nature.comA parabrachial hub for need-state control of enduring pain - NatureActivity in a set of parabranchial neurons in the mouse brain is increased during chronic pain, predicts coping behaviour, and can be modulated by circuits activated by survival threats. 912841
Reposted by Tara RaamAnn Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 18/09/2025And we are live! Excited to announce the 2025 Multi-Agent Behavior Challenge on cross-lab supervised action recognition in mice 🐁🐀🖱️ Running on Kaggle until December 15th, with a $50,000 prize pool going to the top five submissions! www.kaggle.com/competitions... 13523
Reposted by Tara Raamallen institute @alleninstitute.org · 18/09/2025✨ The Art of Open Science ✨ This beautiful crossstitch was created by Leah Blankenship, an undergraduate student at the @uoregon.bsky.social! This meticulously embroidered art uses data from our Allen Brain Reference Atlases. #OpenScienceWeek 0255
Reposted by Tara RaamAnn Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 22/08/2025Can't wait to read this preprint from Misha Ahrens and team. Calcium imaging in larval zebrafish, in every cell in the body! Amazing. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 18122
Reposted by Tara RaamMathias V. Schmidt @mathiasvschmidt.bsky.social · 21/08/2025Important initiative 👇 046
Reposted by Tara RaamCarl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 19/08/20251. The philosophy of science sometimes gets an unearned reputation as a purely academic exercise that offers little by way of concrete tools for advancing research. This is wrong. And today, as we grapple with how AI is changing the nature of scientific activity, it's desperately wrong. 19797240
Reposted by Tara RaamCarl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 12/08/20251. "'Trusting the experts is not a feature of either a science or democracy," Kennedy said." It's literally a vital feature of both science and of representative democracy. I've written a fair bit about trust in expertise as a vital mechanism in the collective epistemology of science.scrippsnews.comRFK Jr. in interview with Scripps News: ‘Trusting the experts is not science’HHS Secretary RFK Jr. sat down with Scripps News for a wide-ranging interview, discussing mRNA vaccine funding policy changes and a recent shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 52999032824
Reposted by Tara RaamKOJAMF🤘🖤🤘 @kojamf.bsky.social · 18/07/2025Aidan Bedford "Interspecies interaction between humpback whale and bottlenose dolphins." 19280021125
Reposted by Tara RaamMari Sosa @marisosa.bsky.social · 12/06/2025It's officially published!! In my main postdoc work with @markplitt.bsky.social and @lgiocomo.bsky.social, we found that the hippocampus simultaneously encodes an animal's spatial position and its experience relative to reward in parallel population codes. 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41...nature.comA flexible hippocampal population code for experience relative to reward - Nature NeuroscienceSosa et al. find that hippocampal neural activity in mice encodes both environmental location and experience relative to rewards, spanning distances far from reward, through parallel and flexible popu... 912940
Reposted by Tara RaamKaitrin Snodgrass @kaitsnod.bsky.social · 12/06/2025What they aren’t showing on Fox News 6435255813286
Tara Raam @tararaam.bsky.social · 05/06/2025agree, bare minimum. it's insulting they require it from you after terminating your grant. 020
Reposted by Tara RaamJohn M. Drake @jdrakephd.bsky.social · 01/06/2025Fascinating new paper shows that when researchers “pivot” to new areas of work the outcome is less impactful. #ScienceOfScience www.nature.com/articles/s41...nature.comThe pivot penalty in research - NatureAn analysis of millions of scientific papers and patents reveals a ‘pivot penalty’ when researchers shift direction, with the impact of studies decreasing rapidly the further they move from their prev... 2397
Reposted by Tara RaamSally Hudson @sallylhudson.bsky.social · 18/05/2025With mRNA and CRISPR this country could be entering a scientific heyday and instead we’re torching the institutions that make it all possible.nytimes.comBaby Is Healed With World’s First Personalized Gene-Editing Treatment 28626
Reposted by Tara RaamJosh Johansen @jojolab.bsky.social · 15/05/2025I’m excited to share a new paper from the lab. The study led by Xiaowei Gu reveals how the mPFC encodes complex emotional memories, using an internal model to infer emotional associations and memories via projections to the amygdala. a🧵(1/8) rdcu.be/el19trdcu.bePrefrontal encoding of an internal model for emotional inferenceNature - Neurons in the rodent dorsomedial prefrontal cortex encode a flexible internal model of emotion by linking directly experienced and inferred associations with aversive experiences. 1010527
Reposted by Tara RaamDavid Malakoff @davidmalakoff.bsky.social · 13/05/2025Another scoop from Jeff Mervis (@policyhound.bsky.social): NSF's ~1400 grant terminations have disproportionately affected PIs from groups underrepresented in science: women, racial & ethnic minorities, & those with disabilities. 1/3 www.science.org/content/arti...science.orgTrump officials take steps toward a radically different NSFEfforts to shrink staff, budget, and focus have alarmed members of Congress 15407310
Reposted by Tara RaamGrace Lindsay @neurograce.bsky.social · 10/05/2025Because we must build good things while we scream about the bad, I have started a "Data for Good" team @data-for-good-team.bsky.social that partners with organizations needing short-term data science help. We have three projects ongoing & will add more as our capacity grows. data-for-good-team.org 815168
Reposted by Tara RaamMari Sosa @marisosa.bsky.social · 25/04/2025Exciting news!! I’m joining the tenure-track faculty at University of Colorado Boulder this fall as an Assistant Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience! The Sosa Lab will study how memory is shaped by cognitive and physiological demands, including during pregnancy and the postpartum period. 🧵 5335136