In an article published today, we show that ancient feeding-related neuropeptides have been repurposed to control brood care in clonal raider ants. Photo: Bart Zijlstra, UNIL /1

New paper from the lab on the molecular regulation of parenting in ants. Spearheaded by postdocs Alex Paul and @tomaskay.bsky.social

Tomas Kay@tomaskay.bsky.social · last mo.

In an article published today, we show that ancient feeding-related neuropeptides have been repurposed to control brood care in clonal raider ants. Photo: Bart Zijlstra, UNIL /1

Excited to share a new preprint from the lab, by @andrewmatheson.bsky.social and team, where we dive into the superpower of newts: plasticity! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Like many good projects, this started with a serendipitous observation... 🧵1/5

You could live here too! A new Senior Lecturer/Reader position to teach in our new Master of Public Policy Programme. Come build something great with me in a beautiful place! Please repost. www.vacancies.st-andrews.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

New article from the lab out today, in which we discuss how social behavior evolves at the molecular level. From parenting across the animal tree of life to caste systems in social insects, it’s all connected (and, therefore, slowly starts to make sense)…

Tomas Kay@tomaskay.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Parental care, and more complex cooperative systems of care, have independently evolved in hundreds of animal lineages. In an article published today, we explore how these behaviors evolve 𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭l shorturl.at/g5OPw /1

New preprint from the lab: A reference brain for the clonal raider ant. With this resource, which is based on 40 individual brains, you can register and compare all kinds of samples in a common space. It comes with lots of detailed protocols and a user-friendly GUI. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Excited to share our latest work on brain evolution, where we dive into the evolution of Cajal-Retzius cells! If you are interested in cell type evolution and cerebral cortex evo-devo, please read on… www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵 1/7

Evolution of Cajal-Retzius Cells in Vertebrates from an Ancient Class of Tp73+ Neurons

In the developing cerebral cortex, Cajal Retzius (CR) cells are early-born neurons that orchestrate the development of mammalian-specific cortical features. However, this cell type has not been conclu...

biorxiv.org

Please mark your calendars and join us next May 20th in the next session of the webinar series "The future of Neuroethology". We will have a line-up of amazing scientists as usual, we will learn about locusts, newts and cichlids!

Had the most amazing time at the HHMI Janelia campus showing some of my work at the Genetic Tools for New Model Organisms conference!! Thanks to the organizers and @hhmi.org for such a great experience!

Calling all neuroscientists! 🧠 The MBL's 2025 Neural Systems & Behavior course is accepting applications until February 1. Don't miss your chance to apply! Read more: bit.ly/4jetcAc #ScienceStartsHere