some personal newsᵗᵐ: I will be joining the biology team at Nature as an associate editor (i.e. permanently now)! I'll be handling neuro papers with focus areas TBD.
When I was a grad student or even a postdoc, a review called "the neuroscience of cancer" would have sounded crazy. From almost nothing, the field has become one of the biggest topics in neuroscience --thanks in large part to
@michelle_monje
New paper from
@TrackingActions
! I liked this one because neuroscience has seen huge advances in recording technologies and behavioral tracking, but it's not always clear what to do with all the data. This paper shows an elegant approach
A metabolic function for sharp wave ripples! For someone like me who studied the hippocampus for years, it is genuinely surprising to learn something totally new about SWRs
Major breakthrough in recovery from paralysis! With the aid of brain-spine interface, this patient was able climb steps and navigate complex terrain. He still needs some support with crutches or a walker, but the recovery is astounding
Amazing! Octopus and squid use cephalopod-specific chemotactile receptors (CRs). The octopus CRs are more recently evolved and expressed on its arms, which allows it to 'taste by touch'
A little late, but I liked handling this paper on enterochromaffin cells and visceral pain. Some of the more striking findings are the differences between male and female mice, which might help explain why more women suffer from IBS and related anxiety.
Acupuncture in Nature? Acupuncture in Nature. This paper shows a cellular basis for at least one key benefit of acupuncture -- reducing inflammation. Excited to see the community response to this one!
Just in time for t-day! How do we know when we are full? Well, lots of reasons, but here
@zaknight
and co show that a key factor is sensory and mechanical feedback from mouth and gut.
Ever gotten light headed or fainted from stress? This phenomenon is so closely associated with the vagus nerve that I've heard people say "they went vagal". But the cellular basis for that was less clear -- this paper tackles that question
One hallmark of addiction (and even a frequently used definition of addiction) is compulsive seeking in spite of adverse consequences. Here the authors show that reward encoding neurons antagonize punishment encoding ones to promote compulsive seeking.
The body really does keep the score...for thousands of years. Here, they were able to detect testosterone in the tusks of woolly mammoths. The peaks and valleys of testosterone notched along the length of the tusk provide a readout of recurring musths
"We [...]found that systemic dehydration and rehydration trigger the inhibition and activation, respectively, of many VTA-DA neurons." Explains why nothing tastes better than that first drink after a long run or hike?
Excited to see two (!) cephalopod papers out today. The first characterizes sleep octopuses including how sleep produces a wave-like pattern on the skin
These two papers ask how navigational signals in the brain (in this case directional signals) are actually used to navigate. I thought about this a lot when doing research, so I am excited to see these out.
A little personal news! This month, I'll start a new, short-term position
@nature
where I'll be a part of the neuroscience team. I'll be back
@NatureNeuro
in a few months. I am beyond excited for this opportunity!
@FutbolCheIsea
Been really impressed with his maturity so far. Gotta be easy to second guess his decision but he's putting in top performances week after week
Male flies sing to females by vibrating their wings. This paper shoes that the patterns are simple at first but get more elaborate as the males get closer. The authors unpack an elegant circuit mechanism behind this shift
It's been really exciting watching sophisticated behavioral and neural analysis start to converge. If you are interested in the state of the art (and some exciting science) check this one out. More to come in this area!
It's been heartwarming to read Oskam's story. Neither I nor the reviewers had access to his personal experience. Sometimes doing research and reading papers tends to flatten things down, make them 2D, but science leads to tangible good in the world.
My next job involves zero bench work and there are many things I will miss about it. Looking at neurons under the microscope is at the very top of the list
Anthrax toxin can reduce pain in mice, according to a study published in
@NatureNeuro
. The findings suggest that the anthrax toxin could represent a potential new therapeutic option for the treatment of pain, although further research is needed.
I loved doing research in Norway. My local environment at
@KISNeuro
was obviously great but the broader interest in science from the government (at the time) and public were equally inspiring. These latest developments are heartbreaking
aaaand another one from the lab. This one reports some really interesting cells that respond whenever the animal is at a particular direction relative to an object
We published one paper from
@DulacLab
on neural control of sickness behaviors already this year, here comes another from the Friedman group examining different circuits
Where is the population of trainees that admit that their mentors *have* helped them learn to write scientific manuscripts?
What do they have to say about it?
I’m not even certain I’ve heard current PIs refer to any such learning in their own histories.
Much like humans, socially isolated flies overeat and lose sleep. This paper confirms that and explains the neural mechanism. Although not the explicit point of the paper, it also reminds us of the need to support each other.
Every year these sfn poster tweets get me. My first conference ever and indescribably nervous. Still an enduring memory. Good luck to all the first time presenters!
Here's another paper I loved. This one shows how two inputs, one excitatory and one inhibitory, onto a single cell can multiply together and shape visual motion detection in flies. This mechanism might also work in other systems like sound localization.
How do grid cells represent 3D spaces? This has been a question since grid cells were discovered in 2005. At least in flying bats, the grid pattern breaks down but local order remains.
what a legend! I met Kandel exactly once, when he crashed my post doc interview with Edvard and May-Britt at SfN in San Diego. One of my best memories.
As we announce the retirement of our codirector Eric Kandel, MD, we celebrate his extraordinary scientific career. Read more about this expert in learning and memory who built bridges between science and the humanities:
Happy 105th (!) birthday to
@GairdnerAwards
oldest living Laureate, Brenda Milner. Born on this day in in **1918**! In 2005, she was honoured "For pioneering research in the understanding of memory". Truly inspiring!
If you have an allergy to a specific food, it's probably a good idea to not eat that food in the future, but how do the brain, body and immune system work together to create this aversion? Some new clues out today in Nature
@hubermanlab
my dad went a whole week with chills, sweating and insane fatigue. He had no idea what happened. He later found out that he accidentally bought decaf
In the second, the Laurent group follows up on their epic cuttlefish paper from a few years ago to show that camouflaging process is complex (high dimensionality) and requires feedback. This enables better pattern matching.
Menno is such a kind and generous man. His knowledge of the brain is basically unmatched. I was really lucky to be in the same institute with him during my PD. Hopefully he'll have more time for sailing now.
I had a wonderful day attending Menno Witter’s retirement symposium with great talks, photos and stories. He’s such an amazing scientist and mentor, and I’m forever grateful for everything he’s taught me
@Mennopw
@KISNeuro
This from
@LilaDavachi
et al is everything I want from a review. It's really hard to write about dozens of experiments in detail and still hold the audience's attention, but they manage.