Congratulations @kangyongloh.bsky.social, Spencer Zhao, @carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social, and the whole team– including my longtime and wonderful collaborator Zhenan Bao– for this key step in our journey toward genetically-targeted chemical assembly in biology. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Karl Deisseroth
@deisseroth.bsky.social
neuroscientist, psychiatrist, writer optogenetics.org karldeisseroth.org https://www.amazon.com/Projections-Story-Emotions-Karl-Deisseroth/dp/1984853694
Directional elements: the preprints are out! 1/n Congratulations to our amazing team: biorxiv.org/content/10.6... biorxiv.org/content/10.6... biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We screened for principles governing global brain dynamics by developing a set of new methods: 1) conformal immersion microscopy;
Please join us in welcoming incoming chairs @tinakim-neuro.bsky.social & @gisellavetere.bsky.social, and newly elected vice-chairs @tristanshuman.bsky.social & @lindsayschwarz.bsky.social. We can’t wait to see what this team has in store for #OptoGRC2028!
#OptoGRC2026 has officially come to a close! Thank you to our incredible lineup of speakers, discussion leaders, and poster presenters – and to everyone who joined us and made this a meeting we won’t forget. Stay tuned for more on #OptoGRC2028!
To learn more, Link to Tony et al's work: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Link to my et al work: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Conserved brain-wide emergence of emotional response from sensory experience in humans and mice
Emotional responses to sensory experience are central to the human condition in health and disease. We hypothesized that principles governing the emergence of emotion from sensation might be discovera...
science.org
In 1 week: The Lake Conference on The Neurobiology of Mental Health. Excited! There, Tony Liu from the @deisseroth.bsky.social group and I will be speaking about the same challenge: getting high res brain activity measures of emotion/mood. Why so hard? /1 lakeconferences.org/conf/1ed63fd...
From cells to behavior, this #OptoGRC2026 session explores how neural activity shapes behavioral outputs 🧠⚡ Featuring @j9kwapis.bsky.social, Catherine Peña, @nicoleferrara.bsky.social, Kevin Franks, Priya Rajasethupathy, Jennifer Lawlor & Yasmine Ayman, you won't want to miss this lineup!
Join us for an exciting #OptoGRC2026 session on advances in microscopy, tool development & sensors 🔬⚡ With @ismail-ahmed.bsky.social & speakers @ianoldenburg.bsky.social, Olivia Masseck, Linlin Fan, @sagescientific.bsky.social, Tommaso Fellin & Adam Gordon-Fennell!
Don’t miss this session exploring the computational side of brains and behavior at #OptoGRC2026 🧠 💻 Discussion to be led by Sweta Agrawal, featuring speakers Yaniv Ziv, @mazenkheirbek.bsky.social, Takashi Yamaguchi & Jesse Kaminsky, Wednesday evening!
Be sure to join us for this session where we take opto beyond the brain at #OptoGRC2026 🧠⚡➡️🫀 Featuring discussion leader @katrinachoe.bsky.social & speakers Li Ye, Katharina Gapp, Andreas Lüthi & @timmachado.bsky.social
Small perturbations spark big discoveries at #OptoGRC2026 🧬⚡ Led by Erin Calipari with Guosong Hong, @kacummings.bsky.social, Conor Liston, David Anderson, Akemi Ito & Ishaan Kapoor, on Monday morning!
We can't wait to hear from #OptoGRC2026 keynote speaker, Sheena Josselyn! Be sure to catch her Sunday evening talk exploring engrams and how memories are encoded in the mouse brain 🐭 🧠 Haven’t registered yet? Applications are still open through April 12 👇 www.grc.org/optogenetic-...
Get ready to map behavior in motion at #OptoGRC2026 🧠📊 With discussion by @neurrriot.bsky.social & speakers Christian Lüscher, @honglab.bsky.social, @biancasilvalab.bsky.social & @derynleduke.bsky.social, this Tuesday PM session highlights innovative ways to monitor, model & make sense of behavior.
Great work from Claire, Ravi, and the whole team– the initial lifelong continuous screen of behaving vertebrates provided a wealth of ideas on progression/staging of brain function across lifespan. Behavior is unmatched as a noninvasive quantitative readout of brain function (and, one that matters).
Youthful antics predict lifespan? Using machine learning & continuous recordings of #killifish behavior from adolescence until death, @brunetlab.bsky.social & @deisseroth.bsky.social find early-life behavior predicted future lifespan! Now published @science.org: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧪 1/2
Thank you @samvesuna.bsky.social and the whole secret cake team! And congrats to all the amazing laboratory and clinical presenters from our program– the surprise cake got us through (I had forgotten how physically challenging being a poster presenter can be). I'll train harder for next year...
#Stanford Human Neural Circuitry (HNC) showcasing years of hard work and interdisciplinary team efforts @sfn.org !... icing on the cake was a mid-session surprise Bday celebration for HNC and Karl :). #Dlab poster session first? Thanks for being a good sport @deisseroth.bsky.social!
We had the most amazing 25 year lab anniversary today. Blown away by the science from my alumni and very proud of the current members. The community they have built is remarkable and it felt like a family reunion. The tacos, drinks, cake, and jazz were pretty great too.
It's time to meet your #OptoGRC2026 chairs! Co-vice chair @tinakim-neuro.bsky.social is an assistant professor at @princeton.edu who spent the summer building a van for weekend adventures 🚐✨ She's most looking forward to meeting new people & exploring areas outside of her usual wheelhouse!
Our microbial-opsin work (and most of the field ) is basic science, but it was intriguing to review clinical progress–direct & indirect–with a wonderful team of co-authors t.co/JrJen2WGBV & adapt a fig. of PMID:28912215 (2017) with my long-time collaborator Peter Hegemann (pic: a memory from 2017).
Amazing collaboration with @alleninstitute.org team—@hongkuizeng.bsky.social, Bosiljka Tasic, Tanya L. Daigle, La'Akea Siverts—to develop new transgenics for all-optical neuroscience. And deeply grateful to @deisseroth.bsky.social for his support and mentorship. 🙏 12/13
✨ New preprint ✨ What if we could watch AND control thousands of individual neurons in behaving mice—with stable access over months? 🧠⚡ Our work introduces transgenic all-optical tools that make this possible - and a resulting surprising discovery! 🔭💡 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/13 🧵
Large-scale cellular-resolution read/write of activity enables discovery of cell types defined by complex circuit properties
The complexity of the mammalian brain’s vast population of interconnected neurons poses a formidable challenge to elucidate its underlying mechanisms of coordination and computation. A key step forwar...
biorxiv.org
Big thanks to all the co-authors. Huge shoutout to Tony Drinnenberg, Charu Ramakrishnan and @deisseroth.bsky.social as well as the team at @alleninstitute.org. This would not have been possible without their new mouse lines. Check out this preprint for more information: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Large-scale cellular-resolution read/write of activity enables discovery of cell types defined by complex circuit properties
The complexity of the mammalian brain's vast population of interconnected neurons poses a formidable challenge to elucidate its underlying mechanisms of coordination and computation. A key step forwar...
doi.org
Our new paper "High-capacity associative memory in a quantum-optical spin glass." Achieves 7-fold increased capacity thru a quantum optical analog of short term plasticity from neuroscience. Atoms (neurons) couple to motion and photons (synapses)! arxiv.org/abs/2509.12202
Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Scopes trial telling students in central Tennessee about their inner fish. I’m so grateful to the high school and middle school teachers who brought their students from small schools to the event (some from almost an hr away).
congratulations Neil! NAS is lucky to have you leading the way...
Some personal news…
HHMI Tangled Bank Studios brings science to life through powerful, visually stunning storytelling.✨ For over a decade, @tangledbankhhmi.bsky.social has delivered award-winning films that engage audiences with the wonder, complexity, and importance of science.
Congratulations to our Human Neural Circuitry team; bit.ly/4dEyX7Z publishes today in Science! This was the hardest challenge of my career, but one of the most rewarding, after years of rebuilding– & expanding my inpatient neuropsychiatry in the service of basic discovery bsky.app/profile/deis...
bit.ly
The HNC (Human Neural Circuitry) team at our launch celebration at Stanford! Story here: med.stanford.edu/news/all-new...
📆 Mark your calendars: #OptoGRC2026 is headed back to Tuscany, May 10-15, 2026! We look forward to reuniting with our amazing community for a week of great science, thoughtful discussions & shared time with colleagues. More details coming soon👇🏽 tinyurl.com/esvrabsu
New paper from the lab: Our teeth arose as sensory organs on the outside of the body of ancient jawless fish.!! Congrats to Yara Haridy and the team! Background and video: phys.org/news/2025-05... Open Access Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... News and Views: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Teeth first evolved as sensory tissue in the armored exoskeletons of ancient fish, fossil scans find
Anyone who has ever squirmed through a dental cleaning can tell you how sensitive teeth can be. This sensitivity gives important feedback about temperature, pressure—and yes, pain—as we bite and chew ...
phys.org
Unforgettable moments honoring @deisseroth.bsky.social, recipient of the Asan Award in Medicine! Watch this great video highlighting his groundbreaking contributions: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOzK... Proud to celebrate this historic achievement in Seoul. Cheers, Karl! 🎉 #AsanAward #Neuroscience
Congratulations to these two outstanding physician-neuroscientists! Many people now are familiar with the fascinating fundamental research of @michellemonje.bsky.social but most people probably don't know she is a truly great physician. I'm fortunate to be inspired by her every day, in every way.
Congratulations to winners of The Brain Prize 2025! Professors @michellemonje.bsky.social, @stanfordmedicine.bsky.social and @hhmi.org Investigator, and Frank Winkler, Heidelberg University Hospital, have pioneered the field of Cancer Neuroscience. Learn more: brainprize.org/winners/canc...