Preprint now updated with our own take: our acortical mice were raised in cages like everyone's lab mice, with no chance for long-range movement, and tested within hours of seeing the maze. Impossible for developmental compensation to build custom navigation circuits! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Rapid spatial cognition in mice, with and without neocortex and hippocampus

Rapid learning, memory, and generalization are often attributed to the neocortex and hippocampus. We examined these cognitive abilities in mice navigating a reconfigurable 3D labyrinth. Naïve wildtype...

biorxiv.org

Jieyu Zheng@jieyusz.bsky.social · 3w ago

An acortical mouse — born without hippocampus and most of its neocortex — learns the Manhattan Maze: a 30× improvement in 5 hours, 18 rewards! Now a question for everyone: How can an acortical brain do this? Leave a comment! Preprint w/ @mameister4.bsky.social: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Happy to be featured by @caltech.edu Magazine on activities outside research! magazine.caltech.edu/post/socalte...

More evidence that acortical/apallial mice are quite capable. Quoting the work: "These applications are made possible by the finding that extensive depletion of the mouse cortex early in development preserves many behavioural functions." Also cool to see if XCX mice gain any functions!

Sergiu P. Pasca@sergiuppasca.bsky.social · 2w ago

Today in Nature @nature.com, we report a new approach to studying human brain development and modeling disease in vivo. Open article link below 👇

An acortical mouse — born without hippocampus and most of its neocortex — learns the Manhattan Maze: a 30× improvement in 5 hours, 18 rewards! Now a question for everyone: How can an acortical brain do this? Leave a comment! Preprint w/ @mameister4.bsky.social: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I’m on the faculty job market this fall! 🐦🧠 I’m an NIH K99/R00 awardee studying how the brain learns complex skills, using birdsong to connect molecules, synapses, circuits, behavior & computation. Know of a search where I might fit? Please send it my way & share!

Drew Schreiner, Ph.D. | Neuroscience of Learning

I use birdsong to understand how the brain learns complex skills across molecules, synapses, circuits, behavior, and computation. On the 2026–27 faculty job market.

drewschreiner.github.io

How fast can mice learn complex mazes? With @mameister4.bsky.social we reveal memory, generalization, latent learning, and remote credit assignment of mice in the Manhattan Maze. Do mice born without a cortex or hippocampus have them too? Check it out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Rapid spatial cognition in mice, with and without neocortex and hippocampus

Rapid learning, memory, and generalization are often attributed to circuits of the neocortex and hippocampus, but their specific role remains unclear. To examine these cognitive abilities together in ...

biorxiv.org

Vibe coding is dangerously fun! I somehow ended up redesigning my entire website without writing a single line of code. New artwork and writings are up as well. Take a look: www.jieyuzheng.com

A common question about “The Slowness of Being” is how to measure implicit thoughts like mental math. Now exciting new work suggests algorithmic search during mental calculation may far exceed 10 bits/s! See our @mameister4.bsky.social public review of Wiederhold et al. (2025): disq.us/p/35bbdxl

Thanks @neuroetho.bsky.social for inviting me! I loved our endless conversations on rodent behavior in the wild, evolution, and outdoor neuroscience. If you’re into comparative neuroscience from beach to forest rodents (and see the #birds #wildlife at @upenn.edu biopond), reach out to Nacho!

Thank you @blobology.bsky.social for hosting me! Every visit to @hhmijanelia.bsky.social feels tranquil and special. Even in the winter you are embraced by lively science and nature. Here are some photos from the beautiful Janelia campus, species names in the alt text. #birds #wildlife #nature

Many thanks to all who talked to me and/or came to my poster at #sfn25! It was a wonderful and fruitful reunion. See you soon in future meetings! PDF of my poster and a video of acortical mice are on my website: jieyusz.github.io/talks/sfn_2025

We @jiangwu98.bsky.social are ready to challenge your beliefs about hippocampus! Come to SS5 and SS6 @sfn.org #sfn25 for @mameister4.bsky.social posters!

It's the last morning of #SfN25 @sfn.org so I decided to go conference birding! This female belted kingfisher at the back of the San Diego Convention Center certainly caught a nice breakfast. Did you also get a lot of food for thoughts? #birds #wildlife

Come to see us at #39 in the graduate school fair of #SfN25 @sfn.org to learn about the wonderful programs in Neuroscience at @caltech.edu. We are here to answer questions about Phd in Computational neuroscience, Neurobiology, MD/PhD and postdocs!

At #SfN25 Early Career session! Come to find me if you want to have an evening chat about the life without cortex, or the slowness of our being! I’ll be at the poster board B9 from 7:45-8, 8:15-8:45!

I’m off to #SfN2025! Grateful for the TPDA sponsor from @sfn.org. I will present in two sessions, details below. I’m seeking 2026 postdoc positions to continue research in animal cognition/naturalistic behaviors—if you’re looking for a neuroethologist and a mouse whisperer, come to see me!

I will give a 10-minute talk this Saturday at the annual @caltech.edu outreach fair about our @mameister4.bsky.social recent publication "the unbearable slowness of being!" Why do our brains process just 10 bits/s? Check it out! explore.caltech.edu

Explore Caltech

Explore Caltech on Saturday, October 11, 2025

explore.caltech.edu

What's better than having photos featured on their website @caltech.edu? local.caltech.edu/visit/wildlife I only picked up #wildlife photography a year ago, but the nature encounters along the way have been so rewarding! #nature #birds

Thank YOU for putting in the tremendous effort to write on such an important topic for scientists and the public alike! I know academics are busy, but we need more of us writing books. This will inspire and motivate more brilliant brains to tackle big science questions.

Nicole Rust@nicolecrust.bsky.social · last yr.

This was my dream for Elusive Cures: to provide fodder for discussions like these. I'm overjoyed to see it realized. I don't think Panagiota is here? But @jieyusz.bsky.social is involved too. Thank you both 🙏.

A full-brain load at an amazing cognition conference! Great meeting so many scientists with shared research interests — and #bird obsessions 🧠🐦 Conference birding is real! Some highlights from the stunning research environment at @hhmijanelia.bsky.social

Heading to @hhmijanelia.bsky.social this weekend for the MCN! 🧠✈️ I’ll be presenting a poster on Wednesday, repping @caltech.edu Neuroscience (seems like I might be the only one!). Hit me up to chat about Manhattan Maze 🗺️, acortical mice 🐭, 10 bits/s 🔢, and all things cognition!

Manhattan Maze was the finalist for the Caltech 3-minute thesis competition! Check out the fantasy version of our mouse study: 🐭 www.youtube.com/live/3eS2jj8...

Three Minute Thesis

YouTube video by caltech

youtube.com

My first outing of "The Unbearable Slowness of Being" at the Caltech Chen Neuroscience Workshop today! What does living at 10 bits/s mean for humans, flies, mice, and crows? More here: jieyusz.github.io/talks/2025_c... Thanks to Profs. @cfcamerer.bsky.social & Carlos for the invite!

I'm so heartbroken to see all the homes destroyed by the firestorms in Greater Los Angeles —for both people and wildlife. This palm tree on @caltech.edu campus was once a food bank for resident acorn woodpeckers. My photo was taken just five days before the disaster. #wildfires #birds

@caltech.edu might be a small campus, but never short of wildlife! Here are some #wildlife photos I took over the past few months /n #addBirder #birds

I wrote about a scientific paper called “The Unbearable Slowness of Being” which finds that the human brain’s throughput is just 10 bits per second. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/s... 🧪

Human Thought Is Far Slower Than Your Internet Connection (Gift Article)

A new study is “a bit of a counterweight to the endless hyperbole about how incredibly complex and powerful the human brain is,” one researcher said.

nytimes.com

Congrats to @jieyusz.bsky.social and @mameister4.bsky.social on their Neuron paper unpacking an unresolved paradox in neuroscience. It's terrific to see it capture the public imagination, including Scientific American. www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-...

The Human Brain Operates at a Stunningly Slow Pace

The brain is sometimes called the most complex machine in the known universe. But the thoughts that it outputs putter along at a trifling 10 bits per second, the pace of a conversation

scientificamerican.com

Attached is a piece of art by me for "The Unbearable Slowness of Being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?" Hope this will inspire you to think about the brain from a new perspective!

Markus Meister@mameister4.bsky.social · 2y ago

The unbearable slowness of being: Humans still clock in at just 10 bits/s. Even after peer review :) Share link: authors.elsevier.com/a/1kHVa3BtfH.... ArXiv: arxiv.org/abs/2408.10234

"[It’s] the largest unexplained number in brain science. I feel like neuroscience should pay more attention to it ..." said Marcus Meister when @claudia-lopez.bsky.social sat down with him and @jieyusz.bsky.social for a Q&A about the brain's information-processing rate. #neuroskyence bit.ly/3ZXxWTf

Explaining ‘the largest unexplained number in brain science’: Q&A with Markus Meister and Jieyu Zheng

The human brain takes in sensory information roughly 100 million times faster than it can respond. Neuroscientists need to explore this perceptual paradox to better understand the limits of the brain…

bit.ly

This upcoming winter term @caltech.edu, I’ll lead an undergraduate tutorial on "The Ethology of Learning"👇! It’ll run 10 weeks (1-hour lectures + 2-hour readings per week). Suggestions for readings + nominations for guest lectures are welcomed! Things to do over the holidays...