Bing Wen Brunton
@bingbrunton.bsky.social
Scientist interested in all aspects of brain and behavior. Loves to talk math and data. Professor of Biology at University of Washington, Seattle. Mom of 2 epsilons; paints in watercolor here, there, and anywhere. lab website www.bingbrunton.com/people
My department, Neurobiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington (nbio.uw.edu), is hiring a new tenure-track Assistant Professor, application deadline 09/30/26. It's a broad search — molecular to organismal, all of neuroscience/physiology/biophysics welcome. apply.interfolio.com/187735
Cool new work from @dudman.bsky.social and @fluketc.bsky.social Reward magnitude determines reinforcement learning efficiency: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reward magnitude determines reinforcement learning efficiency
Standard animal learning studies minimize individual reward magnitudes to maximize the repetitions of reinforced behaviors. We investigated how reward magnitude influences initial learning across five...
science.org
Researchers have long searched for the neural circuit underlying locomotion. Now they’ve found it in flies. By @natmesanash.bsky.social #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur...
Long-sought walking circuit found in fruit flies
The neuronal circuit controlling repetitive locomotion patterns in any animal has been a mystery until now.
thetransmitter.org
We tracked mice in space! This video shows our estimate of their self-induced centripetal force during circling in 3D 👩🚀 Preprint thread below 👇
Amelia Eisch 🧪🧠👩🔬 🐁@eisch.bsky.social · 3mo ago1/ New preprint! 🧪With @talmo.bsky.social and team, we used deep learning on archival NASA video of mice on the ISS. Turns out mice in microgravity become tiny acrobats: huddling to sleep, doing backflips, even briefly generating their own ~1g. #SpaceBiology #OpenScience #NASA #SLEAP
Run, don’t walk, to your closest local preprint server to see our latest 3D tracking results! I’m still tickled that our results show flies don’t exactly walk, they “ground run” everywhere. I bet they also talk fast and suffer no fools.
John Tuthill@tuthill.bsky.social · 3mo agoNew preprint: Whole-body 3D kinematics of freely behaving 𝐷𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑜𝑝ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑎 New tech from @blobology.bsky.social & others at @hhmijanelia.bsky.social, which @ispizua.bsky.social and @elliottabe.bsky.social used to gain insight into 3D structure of locomotion & courtship www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
New preprint: Whole-body 3D kinematics of freely behaving 𝐷𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑜𝑝ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑎 New tech from @blobology.bsky.social & others at @hhmijanelia.bsky.social, which @ispizua.bsky.social and @elliottabe.bsky.social used to gain insight into 3D structure of locomotion & courtship www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Revision of @sarahpugly.bsky.social's 🪰 walking CPG preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Major updates: → motor rhythms replicate across 4 connectomes (incl. 2 new full-CNS datasets) → robust across all 6 legs → new analyses of the CPG motif show it's an outlier in the VNC → improved code docs
for the cpg curious, we made this video to explain the project www.youtube.com/watch?v=twAZ...
Connectome simulations identify a central pattern generator circuit for fly walking
YouTube video by Bing Wen Brunton
youtube.com
Mindscape 352 | Bing Brunton @bingbrunton.bsky.social on Connecting the Connectome to the Body. #MindscapePodcast www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026...
A new preprint shows that deep learning can make a fly walk realistically using a worm’s brain — exposing a fundamental problem with how connectome models are being built and sold to investors. By @natmesanash.bsky.social #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur...
‘Digital sphinx’ raises questions about connectome models
The sphinx, with a worm’s brain and a fly’s body, illustrates the potential pitfalls of using deep-learning techniques to model biological processes.
thetransmitter.org
A measured story about our new pet, the digital sphinx, in @thetransmitter.bsky.social. www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur...
‘Digital sphinx’ raises questions about connectome models
The sphinx, with a worm’s brain and a fly’s body, illustrates the potential pitfalls of using deep-learning techniques to model biological processes.
thetransmitter.org
If you're interested in emerging ideas in neural interfaces, I humbly suggest my lab's latest: www.nature.com/articles/s42... Neural interfaces create dynamic interactions between the brain & devices. This means mean we need new engineering approaches beyond typical ML to "decode" a static brain
Computational framework to predict and shape human–machine interactions in closed-loop, co-adaptive neural interfaces - Nature Machine Intelligence
Madduri et al. introduce a computational framework grounded in control and game theory to model co-adaptation between users and decoders in neural interfaces. This framework enables a principled desig...
nature.com
Some of you saw a preview of this result at my Cosyne talk last week. We may have had too much fun working on this worm-fly model 🤣🤓🤣 (The digital sphinx may be imagery, but the lessons are real.)
John Tuthill@tuthill.bsky.social · 4mo ago🧵 New preprint led by @bingbrunton.bsky.social, @elliottabe.bsky.social, @lawrencehu.bsky.social We gave a worm brain control of a fly body and it walked What did we learn? Nothing, other than deep reinforcement learning is effective We call it the digital sphinx www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🧵 New preprint led by @bingbrunton.bsky.social, @elliottabe.bsky.social, @lawrencehu.bsky.social We gave a worm brain control of a fly body and it walked What did we learn? Nothing, other than deep reinforcement learning is effective We call it the digital sphinx www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
🤓 Really excited to host this panel at COSYNE! Our incredible speakers Bing, Kenji, Kim & Saskia are sure to share insightful advice on making an impact in their career and community at every stage of their careers 🧑🔬 🧠
When a fly lands on your arm, how does your nervous system decide where to swat? By reconstructing tactile axons in a Drosophila connectome, we found a leg somatotopic map and downstream circuits that sample the map to initiate targeted grooming Led by Leila Elabbady, PhD doi.org/10.64898/202...
1. Kevin Gross and I have a new paper out today PLOS Biology. We used economic models based around screening games and the market for unpaid labor to highlight a meltdown cycle threatening peer review.
Screening, sorting, and the feedback cycles that imperil peer review
The process of peer review is vital to contemporary science, but is also under enormous strain. This study uses mathematical models to dissect the threats to the long-term viability of peer review, su...
journals.plos.org
New preprint from the lab! A frontal motor circuit for economic decisions and actions: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We use a novel task in mice, cortex-wide imaging and optogenetics, NPX recording and modelling to reveal a circuit mechanism that transforms abstract decisions to spatial actions.
A frontal motor circuit for economic decisions and actions
Flexible behaviour requires transforming abstract cognitive representations, such as value preferences, into concrete motor actions. During economic decision-making, individuals evaluate options to gu...
biorxiv.org
How do neural circuits generate the walking rhythm? Using connectome simulations, @sarahpugly.bsky.social found a minimal central pattern generator (CPG) that produces oscillations in leg motor neurons. Same circuit motif for each 🪰 leg. w @bingbrunton.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
thanks for speaking out @markhisted.org
Science and Freedom Alliance - SAFA@safa-science.bsky.social · 10mo agoFederal workers are speaking out on how the Trump regime is harming Americans: "We stand here today at a moment of the greatest assault of our lifetimes on our freedoms. The US Constitution is being shredded... We are here to call on Congress to stand up and stop it." youtu.be/uw1KwIBgrCw?...
Now out in @nature.com: Our study discovering a neural circuit in Drosophila that predictively inhibits proprioceptor axons during voluntary leg movements, such as walking and grooming. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@bingbrunton.bsky.social and I trying our hand at pinning a blue-eyed darner dragonfly, Rhionaeschna multicolor
Embodiment is the concept that the function of the brain is inexorably shaped by the body, a lens that is often neglected when neuroscientists study specific brain subsystems, write @bingbrunton.bsky.social and @tuthill.bsky.social. #neuroskyence #neuroai www.thetransmitter.org/neuroai/brea...
Breaking the jar: Why NeuroAI needs embodiment
Brain function is inexorably shaped by the body. Embracing this will benefit computational models of real brain function and the design of ANNs.
thetransmitter.org
my lab (www.tuthill.casa) at UW is hiring a research assistant/tech. basic scope is to apply machine learning/computer vision tools to measure and model 3D animal behavior and mechanics. we are a diverse, collaborative, curiosity-driven group. Apply: uwhires.admin.washington.edu/ENG/Candidat...
This shot of a little wattlebird might be the best single frame I shot in Australia. Can anyone help me with the banksia ID? 🪶 (You may need to click to view, given the aspect ratio.)
Epsilon 1 takes their reproducible experimental protocol very seriously 🤣
Ken Norman's post on another site: Princeton Psychology is hiring this year (Assistant Professor level, open area, see job ad for details). Please apply! https://puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/apply/application.xhtml?listingId=31561
It seems to me that the time is ripe for a Bluesky thread about how—and maybe even why—to befriend crows. (1/n)
