Andrew Seeds
@andrew-seeds.bsky.social
Director at the Institute of Neurobiology, University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences Campus https://x.com/Andrew_M_Seeds
A new Catalyzer Research Grant from the Puerto Rico Science, Technology&Research Trust will support INB research led by @andrew-seeds.bsky.social using high-speed imaging, optogenetics, and quantitative behavioral analysis in Drosophila. Congratulations! #Neuroscience #Drosophila #PuertoRicoScience
💡 Learn to design behavioral workflows, apply ML approaches to behavioral modeling, and connect behavior to neural and experimental manipulations. Register: www.jax.org/education-an... Organized by: @vivekdna.bsky.social @antihebbiann.bsky.social @gordonberman.bsky.social @goldenneuron.bsky.social
Congratulations to Dr. Cristina Velázquez-Marrero who was recently awarded a Catalyzer Grant from the Puerto Rico Science, Technology & Research Trust (PRSTRT). Her project explores how a single episode of adolescent alcohol exposure affects fear extinction memory.
Congratulations to INB Professor Mark W. Miller on receiving a $596K NIH/NIAID SuRE award! His team will study how schistosomiasis parasites interact with the nervous system of freshwater snails—and whether those interactions could offer new ways to interrupt disease transmission. 🐌🧠
How does the brain know where the body has been touched? In our new eLife paper, we map how touch-sensitive bristles on the fruit fly head connect to circuits that guide precisely aimed grooming, revealing how brain maps turn touch into action. (elifesciences.org/articles/108...)
A comprehensive mechanosensory connectome reveals a somatotopically organized neural circuit architecture controlling stimulus-aimed grooming of the Drosophila head
A synaptic-resolution map reveals how spatially organized touch pathways in the fly brain shape aimed head grooming through parallel excitatory circuits and inhibitory control.
elifesciences.org
I have always wanted to be able to view the genome, protein, and protein structure at the same time. Last week I built this utility with Claude Science. Click protein domain to zoom to structure and genomic region. I hope you find it as revealing and useful as I do. github.com/DavidSternLa...
Now published - the #BANC! A full central nervous system (CNS) connectome of a limbed animal at single-synapse resolution, enabling us to follow sensory-motor arcs and understand how the CNS controls the body. rdcu.be/fncjS. #neuroscience. Video by @quorumetrix.bsky.social 1/18
We are so looking forward to CSHL Neurobiology of Drosophila 2026 🔬 🧠. The new application deadline is April 13th. Come join us! @cshlnews.bsky.social @cshlcourses.bsky.social @rister.bsky.social
Jens Rister@rister.bsky.social · 8mo agoCan't wait to serve again as co-director of the CSHL Drosophila Neurobiology course this year! 🧪🪰👀 Application Deadline: March 27 meetings.cshl.edu/courses.aspx... @cshlnews.bsky.social @cshlcourses.bsky.social
Live from San Juan: the Connectomics & Brain Simulation Winter School is underway! A week of hands-on connectome analysis, modeling, and student-led projects—can’t wait to see the final presentations. @andrew-seeds.bsky.social, Sebastian Seung, Steffi Hampel, Srini Turaga, Sven Dorkenwald
Excited to return as co-director of the CSHL Drosophila 🪰Neurobiology course in 2026! Application Deadline: March 27 meetings.cshl.edu/courses.aspx... @cshlnews.bsky.social @cshlaboratory.bsky.social @cshlcourses.bsky.social #cshlflycourse #scicomm #drosophila 🪰🧪
Drosophila Neurobiology: Genes, Circuits & Behavior
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Meetings & Courses -- a private, non-profit institution with research programs in cancer, neuroscience, plant biology, genomics, bioinformatics.
meetings.cshl.edu
@senapati.bsky.social latest and greatest! Charly Treiber on board too. Over and out. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Visceral signaling of post-ingestive malaise directs memory updating in Drosophila
Consolidation is a time when labile memories transition to a stable form. Malaise learning in Drosophila reveals consolidation to also permit memory updating. Flies taught to associate one of two odor...
biorxiv.org
If you wonder why doesn't Harvard use its endowment: the answer, of course, is that we do. A major source of Harvard's annual budget is the endowment investment return. For anyone seriously interested in how university endowments work, an excellent wonky reference: www.nber.org/papers/w32506
Economic Budgeting for Endowment-Dependent Universities
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
nber.org
There are still a few days left to apply for the San Juan Winter School on Connectomics and Brain Simulation! Apply by October 24th! sjcabs.com
Institute of Neurobiology - UPR@neurobio-upr.bsky.social · 12mo agoApplications are now open for our course on connectomics & brain simulation. Organizers: Sven Dorkenwald (MIT), Stefanie Hampel (UPR), Andrew Seeds (UPR), Sebastian Seung (Princeton), and Srini Turaga (Janelia). Interested? Apply here ➜ sjcabs.com
Excited to share more widely: I am starting the Dorkenwald Lab at MIT (McGovern Institute + BCS) in January 2026. We study the organizational principles of neuronal circuits using connectomics. And we are hiring postdocs & tech associates! dorkenwaldlab.com/join
MIT’s McGovern Institute and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences welcome new faculty member Sven Dorkenwald - MIT McGovern Institute
The McGovern Institute and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences are pleased to announce the appointment of Sven Dorkenwald as an assistant professor starting in January 2026. A trailblazer i...
mcgovern.mit.edu
NEWS🎉 We’re excited to announce @hhmijanelia.bsky.social Investigator David Stern will join the Institute from Janelia Research Campus. His lab studies how aphids transform plants at the genetic level, uncovering secrets of #evolution & new strategies for pest control. @hhmi.org bit.ly/4np96Fb
Stowers Institute recruits renowned developmental and evolutionary…
David Stern, Ph.D., brings groundbreaking research on insect–plant interactions for next-generation pest control to the Institute.
bit.ly
Applications are now open for our course on connectomics & brain simulation. Organizers: Sven Dorkenwald (MIT), Stefanie Hampel (UPR), Andrew Seeds (UPR), Sebastian Seung (Princeton), and Srini Turaga (Janelia). Interested? Apply here ➜ sjcabs.com
San Juan Winter School on Connectomics and Brain Simulation
Two-week intensive course on connectomics and brain simulation in San Juan, Puerto Rico. December 29, 2025 - January 10, 2026.
sjcabs.com
Ed Kravitz passed away yesterday. He was a remarkable scientist and mentor- brilliant, curious, creative, and kind. I am grateful to have learned from him. His legacy will endure through his science and through the many people he inspired. We will miss you, Ed.
How is the nervous system organized to coordinate behavior? To approach this massive question, a team led by @asbates.bsky.social, @jasper-tms.bsky.social, @mindyisminsu.bsky.social, & Helen Yang present the BANC: a Brain and Nerve Cord connectome. Preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025... 🧪#Neuroskyence
Alexander Shakeel Bates@asbates.bsky.social · last yr.Public access to the first fly connectome that spans the whole CNS - BANC!: codex.flywire.ai?dataset=banc Different from prior connectomes - it is brain + cord (think spinal cord) We use it to ‘embody’ the system and find it resembles ‘subsumption architecture’ doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Congratulations to the Seeds/Hampel Lab on their new manuscript on BioRxiv! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
A comprehensive mechanosensory connectome reveals a somatotopically organized neural circuit architecture controlling stimulus-aimed grooming of the Drosophila head
Animals respond to tactile stimulations of the body with location appropriate behavior, such as aimed grooming. These responses are mediated by mechanosensory neurons distributed across the body, whos...
biorxiv.org
🎉🏆🏆🏆We're delighted to announce 3 new @royalsociety.org Fellows here in Zoology! Dr Gregory Jefferis, Prof Claire Spottiswoode and Dr Marta Zlatic are all now FRS. Many, many congratulations! Read more: bit.ly/3H4rCCk
It's been 3.5 months since this experiment on scientific reasoning. The improvements in SOTA models since are remarkable. Here's OpenAI's o3 model's first attempt at reviewing my 2017 R01-A1 submission. Would you do a better job?
Andrew Hires@andrewhires.bsky.social · 2y agoTesting out DeepSeek-R1's ability to do "science" in one-shot. I asked it to critique my 2017 R01 proposal (Impact 26, 10%, funded by NINDS. I wrote the proposal, have rights to share it. It's first-shot response is indistinguishable from a median quality reviewer's. What do we do now?
📢 New paper alert! Comparative connectomics of Drosophila descending and ascending neurons A new publication in Nature from our Drosophila Connectomics group and Jefferis group @jefferis.bsky.social @mrclmb.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... @cambridgebiosci.bsky.social @nature.com
Today we welcomed 50 students from UPR Ponce to the Institute of Neurobiology in Old San Juan! They explored our research and learned about the building’s unique history. 🧠🏛️ #NeuroBoricuas #ScienceOutreach #UPRPonce #OldSanJuan
Exciting news - Drs. @andrew-seeds.bsky.social, Sebastian Seung, and Stefanie Hampel just received Simons Foundation and NSF awards to launch the San Juan School on Connectomics in 2026. Stay tuned - it's happening!! 🎉🧠🔥
So great to see this in print! Congratulations to Johannes and team!
Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology of Behavior – caesar@mpinb.mpg.de · last yr.Read our news article from our research group Neural Circuits mpinb.mpg.de/en/research-... Or the full paper 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41... #Neuroethology #Sleep #Glia #WatchingAFlysBrain
Yay - the extensive review Ansgar Büschges and I wrote on insect motor control and the many things insects can teach us about our own nervous systems just came out in Physiological Reviews @apsphysiology.bsky.social. Check it out - it's free: journals.physiology.org/doi/epdf/10....
Motor control on the move: from insights in insects to general mechanisms
journals.physiology.org
Congratulations to the lab of Dr. Cristina Velazquez for the acceptance of their paper "Comparative mRNA Profile Analysis from NAc of Adolescent Male Mice after Binge-Like Alcohol Exposure Eliciting Deficits in Context Fear Extinction Learning".
Our third paper on the neuronal control of insulin release in flies was published in @elife.bsky.social! This was a great team effort spearheaded by Tina Held, Rituja Bisen and our collaborator @zandawala.bsky.social. You can find the paper here: elifesciences.org/articles/99548. 1/3
Aminergic and peptidergic modulation of insulin-producing cells in Drosophila
The combination of receptor expression analysis, optogenetics, physiological approaches, and connectomics reveals how a heterogeneous population of insulin-producing cells in Drosophila integrates div...
elifesciences.org
The first paper from the lab is out on biorxiv - enjoy reading! Social context and interactions influence our behavioral decisions - the same is true for the little fly larva!
bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · last yr.Multimodal social context modulates behavior in larval Drosophila https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.03.24.644986v1
