Jimmy Dooley
@jimmycdooley.bsky.social
Purdue Assistant Professor seeing how infant movements teach our brains about our bodies. At home, I'm ~2.5 years into an 18+ year developmental experiment named Elaina. Views are my own (but think what it says about society that I have to say that...)
Do you work with Rats? Do you do developmental manipulations? Are you tired of locating cortical areas via trial and error? Well, SUFFER NO MORE, FRIENDS! Step right up the see the brand-new, handy-dandy Top-Down Developmental Cortical Atlas! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
I can say that this absolutely delivers on the promises of developmental neuroscience and pretty pretty pictures!
Meike van der Heijden@meikeesther.bsky.social · 3mo agoNew Preprint: Competitive Olivocerebellar Input Selection Promotes Resilient Circuit Formation -- Join the ride for some developmental neuroscience, stay for some pretty pictures. doi.org/10.64898/202...
Big thanks to @sfnjournals.bsky.social for highlighting our upcoming paper! We’re mapping out how the distinct building blocks of REM sleep—tonic and phasic dynamics—actually develop and organize in early life. Can’t wait for the final version to drop soon!
SfN Journals@sfnjournals.bsky.social · 4mo ago#JNeurosci: Findings in developing infant rats from Kobrossi and Dooley provide a framework for understanding how REM sleep supports developmental plasticity throughout early life. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2176-25.2026
This has been a long time coming - but our M1 Development/M1-RN paper is finally out in its final form! Rather than re-hash the original story, I'm going to talk about one of the biggest reviewer-suggested additions, as well as some unpublished data! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Motor cortex activity during sleep and wake movements sharpens across development but continues to lag the red nucleus - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Motor cortex activity during sleep and wake movements sharpens across development but continues to lag the red nucleus
nature.com
Jimmy Dooley@jimmycdooley.bsky.social · 2y agoFirst paper out of my lab is on bioRxiv! First, a super clickbait-y description. We stuck an electrode in a rat pup’s primary motor cortex and recorded lots of spikes. You’ll never guess what happened next… www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
I keep going back to how tough it would be to explain REM sleep and twitching to an alien (assuming they don't do it too, which maybe isn't a given)
Current Biology@currentbiology.bsky.social · 5mo agoTwitching during REM sleep is important for honing the sensorimotor system during development in humans and other animals. But why do adults twitch during sleep? Check out this review by James Dooley & colleagues www.cell.com/current-biol...
New paper (with lots of cute animal videos!) Ever watch your dog "run" while asleep and wonder what’s going on in their brain? In Current Bio we suggest that those twitches aren't just leaky dreams—they’re a vital maintenance system for the most precise movements www.cell.com/current-biol...
REM-sleep twitching in adults and the maintenance of specialized sensorimotor systems
Blumberg et al. present video evidence of twitching during adult sleep in a diverse sample of animals. Adult twitching appears to selectively involve appendages used for active sensing, mirroring thei...
cell.com
New preprint! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... You've heard the phrase “sleep like a baby” - but what does it actually mean? Turns out, infant sleep is way different from adult sleep. And we still don’t understand the journey from infancy to adulthood. tl;dr babies are not just tiny adults 1/x
They did more than compare these two species - they crossed them! Super super cool sounding paper that must've been an unimaginable amount of work
Kelsey Tyssowski@kelseytea.bsky.social · 11mo ago🧠🌟🐭 Excited to share some of my postdoc work on the evolution of dexterity! We compared deer mice evolved in forest vs prairie habitats. We found that forest mice have: (1) more corticospinal neurons (CSNs) (2) better hand dexterity (3) more dexterous climbing, which is linked to CSN number🧵
I think the fact that this post is resonating so strongly says something very important about present-day academia. Just had a DM convo with Mike about it - we've both had people tell us "your postdoc is your best stage in academia" - an idea we agree with (but wish wasn't the case...)
PessoaBrain@pessoabrain.bsky.social · 11mo agoMichael X Cohen on why he left academia/neuroscience. mikexcohen.substack.com/p/why-i-left...
An argument always worth repeating. @marksblumberg.bsky.social I read this entire thread in your voice.
Gregory Kohn@kohngregory.bsky.social · 11mo agoThis is an awe-inspiring and fascinating study that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. However, the overall framing in terms of "innate versus learned” is unnecessary. The innate versus acquired dichotomy is outdated and has been for a long time. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
If you are funded by NIMH and only received 85% of your budget this year (like we did), check era commons to see if you have a new award notice. We just got the remaining 15% today.
Two years of (non-federal!) funding for the lab! Should be able to fund science and (nearly) all salaries in that time. I guess people weren't lying - you need at least 10 rejections before the funding gods give you a win.
Look what just moved to the top of our labs summer journal club reading list. Can't wait to take a look! So far, gorgeous visuals!
Britton Sauerbrei@brittonsauerbrei.bsky.social · last yr.1/N How do neural dynamics in motor cortex interact with those in subcortical networks to flexibly control movement? I’m beyond thrilled to share our work on this problem, led by Eric Kirk @eric-kirk.bsky.social with help from Kangjia Cai! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
An editorial from the lab was published today about a recent paper published in the journal Sleep that characterizes the development of PGO waves. It's short, so if you have ~5 minutes, go ahead and click through. Still, a quick summary in the 🧵 that follows. academic.oup.com/sleep/articl...
Building the dream: uncovering the development of REM sleep’s features
Imagine a factory that builds cars. Raw materials come in one end, the individual components are progressively assembled, and complete cars come out the ot
academic.oup.com
Sky's are likely turning colors tonight. If you're in the Midwest, you should have cloudless sky's tonight - take a look at 10-11pm. And even if you can't see anything, point your phone to the northern skies, just in case
Swapna Krishna@swapnakrishna.com · last yr.Aurora alert! It’s possible the aurora boralis may be visible tonight as far south as Alabama. Start looking tonight after dark around 10 pm (I’ve attached both the NOAA and University of Alaska maps, the former is always very conservative with view lines) www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/...
There's a very decent case to be made for no AI overviews for medical searches. Someone is going to search for this and panic...
If you rely on Federal funding, read this. And read it again next week, when it's updated to reflect today's budget requests
Ed Yong@edyong209.bsky.social · last yr.I urge everyone to read Unbreaking’s new page on everything the govt is doing to destroy & diminish medical research funding. It’s the best thing I’ve read on this topic: @lizneeley.bsky.social & co have such done an incredible job. unbreaking.org/issues/medic...
In late January, I said we were "still exploring" a cool thing we found in RN. Well, we're back, and we've got movement kinematics (thanks to @deeplabcut.bsky.social)! (You can find all the details in our updated bioRxiv paper, linked below) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Subcortically generated movements activate motor cortex during sleep and wake in rats through postnatal day 24
During early postnatal life, cortical motor control emerges from complex interactions between cortical and subcortical circuits. Although activity dependent processes are essential for primary motor c...
biorxiv.org
Jimmy Dooley@jimmycdooley.bsky.social · 2y agoFinally, one more cool thing we found in RN (that we’re still exploring!) In M1, neurons either responded to wake movements or didn’t. But in RN, some neurons showed a “bimodal response” to wake movements. Some wake movements drove the RN neuron, while others inhibited it. What’s going on here?
Another paper showing that circuits are never as straightforward as we'd assume... From the abstract: "The data suggest Purkinje cell spike activity changes cannot accurately predict nuclei cell changes" If it can't be straightforward, at least it's endlessly fascinating.
Meike van der Heijden@meikeesther.bsky.social · last yr.Purkinje cells form inhibitory connections on cerebellar nuclei cells. So, when Purkinje cells fire abnormally, as in disease states, we should see the inverse in nuclei cells, right? Well - it may not be so straightforward: tinyurl.com/PCtoNC @fralinbiomed.bsky.social @vtneuroscience.bsky.social
I think i saw someone else post this same idea a little while ago...
Blake Richards@tyrellturing.bsky.social · last yr.Dear neuroscientists, The brain cannot generate information about the world de novo, it's impossible. All the brain can do is: 1. Selectively remove info that is irrelevant. 2. Re-emit info previously absorbed via evolution or memory. Our brain never "creates" information. Never. 🧠📈 🧪
A huge majority of Americans (77%) oppose the cuts to medical research that the current administration has made. (Source: Wash. Post/ABC/Ipsos poll)
If we get a few more papers like this, saying "we pay too much attention to cortex" is going to stop being a hot take...
Earl K. Miller@earlkmiller.bsky.social · last yr.Neurons just keep mixing their selectivity. Whisking and locomotion are jointly represented in superior colliculus neurons journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... #neuroscience
I think this is an important message (and an underappreciated one). It's hard to do, but ignoring the framing (that this is a reduction in spending) ignores the larger point that all of the "savings" are being offset by other increases.
John Green@johngreensbluesky.bsky.social · last yr.Is DOGE cutting the size of the federal government? No. www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpNg...
I just finished @johngreensbluesky.bsky.social's book "Everything is Tuberculosis". It's excellent. As a scientist, it's easy to think that once we have a cure, the hard work is done. But this book gives a tragic counter example of why that isn't true. As he writes: Today, the cause of TB is us.
In my systems neuroscience class the week after next, we're going to discuss receptive fields and neural coding. Does anyone know of a basic (and ideally math-light) overview on rate codes, time codes, etc?
Love that this paper made the developmental connection! Subcortical motor structures can do more than we give them credit for.
Jason Keller@neurojak.bsky.social · 2y ago(1/11) Today I preprinted a lot of work from my postdoc with @dudman.bsky.social, which started with a question of how the nervous system balances flexibility with efficiency of learning. The thread below gives some background.... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
First paper out of my lab is on bioRxiv! First, a super clickbait-y description. We stuck an electrode in a rat pup’s primary motor cortex and recorded lots of spikes. You’ll never guess what happened next… www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Subcortically generated movements activate motor cortex during sleep and wake in rats through postnatal day 24
During early postnatal development, cortical motor control emerges from complex interactions between cortical and subcortical circuits. In primary motor cortex (M1), we know that this process depends ...
biorxiv.org
If you study sensorimotor neuroscience there's still a chance to get on this starterpack!
Juan Gallego@juangallego.bsky.social · 2y agoSince this is getting busier, here's the #sensorimotor starter pack again go.bsky.app/U4oyFgw There's still room to add more people, so ask to be added if not on the list
That moment when someone else beats you to posting about your own paper... Proper runthrough to come, but for now: At 24 days old, M1 neurons should be JUUUST about ready to put the M in motor cortex. So how do they compare to a more mature motor nuclei in brainstem? Click the link to find out!
David Schoppik@schoppik.com · 2y agoHere's a fun paper that examines the emergence of responses in rat motor cortex (M1); not only do they accompany movement, but they also correlate with spontaneous twitches rats make in their sleep. Lots more within: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
