BREAKING NEWS The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel “for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.”
Marcos Aranda
@marcosaranda.bsky.social
Studying effects of light on physiology and behavior | Postdoc at the Schmidt lab | Northwestern University
Science peeps: Looks like SciENcv updated the digital certificate used to sign Biosketch and Current & Pending documents without notification. The old certificate expires Saturday, September 26, 2026. SciENcv docs before that date may fail validation in eRA Commons delaying or blocking submission.
New tenure track position call for cognitive science at UCSD: apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF04633
Assistant Professor in Cognitive Science
University of California, San Diego is hiring. Apply now!
apol-recruit.ucsd.edu
A new paper came out this week from our lab in @devbiol.bsky.social. This was work I started as a post-doc with @kevinmawright.bsky.social. Here, we investigated the role of Gbx2 and Robo receptors in dendrite stratification of amacrine cells in the retina. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
I’ve spent much of my career studying the eye, but having a dear friend diagnosed with an inherited retinal disease has made this work feel much more personal. Please consider helping us reach our VisionWalk goal, every donation big or small counts: give.fightingblindness.org/fundraiser/7...
Washington VisionWalk 2026
{{MetaTags.description}}
give.fightingblindness.org
How your email finds me: It doesn't. Outlook is down 🙃
The US National Science Foundation will award about 30% fewer new research grants this fiscal year than in the last one, Nature has learnt. go.nature.com/3UcGoNW
Exclusive: NSF set to issue lowest number of new grants in four decades
The US science-funding agency is withholding $1 billion of its budget so that the money can go to a special White House project.
go.nature.com
And now (a much-improved) version -- thank you, reviewers! -- is published in Glia -- onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Müller Glia–Vasculature Interactions in the Developing Retina
Retinal vascular layers form normally despite loss of cholinergic retinal waves. Müller glial processes contact endothelial tip cells early and form Aquaporin-4-enriched endfeet. Glial endfoot c...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Marla Feller@mfeller.bsky.social · 8mo agoPosting on behalf of (soon-to-be) Dr. Samira Monshietehadi (not on Bluesky) -- "I’m very excited to announce that my PhD thesis project is now a preprint! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6.... We show how Müller glia engage with growing retina vasculature in an activity-independent manner."(1/11)
Two-photon calcium imaging. What makes for good data? How can we optimize experiments to get good data? New post labrigger.com/blog/2026/07... and new free web apps from @filip-tomaska.bsky.social (1/8)
The Neuroscience Department at UC Berkeley is hiring an Asst Professor in Computational Neuro. All areas of computational/theoretical neuro are welcome. Deadline Oct 30. Join our neuroscience community! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05446 #AcademicJobs #Neuroscience #NeuroJobs
Assistant Professor - Computational Neuroscience - Department of Neuroscience
University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!
aprecruit.berkeley.edu
I've got a new chapter out, Insights Into Retinal Remodeling In Retinal Degenerative Disease: bryanwjones.com/2026/07/insi...
Light gates hormonal modulation of threat avoidance in female mice https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.08.736856v1
Buenos Aires, we're coming to you! Join us at Fundacion Instituto leloir for an interactive workshop on how to explore and use cell type taxonomy data and tools from the Brain Knowledge Platform. 🎟️ Registration is free 🔗 https://bit.ly/4xBXKD1
New bioRxiv preprint! How does hormonal state shape decisions about danger? We show that threat avoidance in female mice is dynamically tuned by progesterone through a melanopsin-dependent visual circuit. Surprisingly, the same circuit drives opposite behavioral effects in males and females 🦅👁️🧠
Light gates hormonal modulation of threat avoidance in female mice
Animals must constantly calibrate the costs and benefits of exploration of an environment based on expectations of danger. These decisions are strongly shaped by past experience of perceived threats w...
biorxiv.org
The latest result from a fun ongoing collaboration! @mbeyeler.bsky.social @michaelgoard.bsky.social @spencerlaveresmith.bsky.social
Spencer LaVere Smith@spencerlaveresmith.bsky.social · 4mo agoEcological Visual Processing in the Mouse - with @michaelgoard.bsky.social @crisniell.bsky.social @mbeyeler.bsky.social Visual computations that are engaged in ecological contexts: active sensing, motion processing, scene analysis, distance estimation, and spatial perception. doi.org/10.1146/annu...
A really nice new paper in Cell Reports from Kat Daly on M4 ipRGCs. One of the themes I've loved watching over the past decade is the transformation of melanopsin biology from a niche circadian photopigment into a major player in image-forming vision. 1/5 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
Just joined this platform and excited to share our recent article in JBR! 🧠⏰ We propose a new framework for defining clock neurons across the brain using a multiscale approach. Congrats to Burgundy Walters and Shubham Garg! Read it here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... @journals.sagepub.com
Excited to share our latest work at the @ircm.bsky.social in Montreal 🇨🇦! Looking forward to the discussions and connecting with the great scientific community there
Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM)@ircm.bsky.social · 5mo agoCONFÉRENCE | «La lumière module le comportement d'évitement des menaces à long terme» Une conférence (en anglais) de Marcos L. Aranda, PhD, Chercheur associé, Département de neurobiologie, Université Northwestern, États-Unis. 📅 Lundi 15 juin, 11h30 à l'IRCM 🔗En savoir plus : bit.ly/4uDddko
New study led by Ning Shen w/ @phruzycki.bsky.social: a genome-wide in vivo CRISPR screen in a retinitis pigmentosa mouse model identifies genes whose loss accelerates photoreceptor death. Overexpressing two, UFD1 and UXT, preserves photoreceptors, retinal function, and vision. 🧵
Light influences how the brain processes and recalls threats, shaping risk avoidance behaviors and potentially informing understanding of anxiety-related disorders. doi.org/hbvb67
Light impacts how the brain perceives and remembers threats, study suggests
Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered that light plays a key role in how animals perceive environmental threats, findings that have the potential to improve the understanding of risk avoidance behaviors and related disorders in humans, according to a study published in Nature Communications.
medicalxpress.com
Achucarro International Glia School is back! #AIGS26 Registration period is already open, and the final programme accessible. Looking forward to this edition in #Plentzia www.achucarro.org/gl... #astrocytes #microglia #oligodendrocytes #glialcells
My second paper as a postdoc in the lab of @tiffmschmidt.bsky.social is out! In this work, we developed a novel behavioral paradigm to study how light shapes long-term threat avoidance 🐭🦅 through a retina–thalamic–limbic circuit 👁️🧠 Excited to share it! 🙌🏼 👉🏼 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Light tunes long-term threat avoidance behavior in male mice - Nature Communications
In this study, the authors describe how light shapes a long-term threat avoidance behavior via a visual circuit linking the eye with the limbic system in mice.
nature.com
A new paper from my lab. I will have a full description soon. rdcu.be/eX1Ld
ipRGC properties prevent light from shifting the SCN clock during daytime
Nature - The inability of intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells to shift the circadian clock in the suprachiasmatic nucleus during daytime is caused by light-dependent depolarization...
rdcu.be
Finally out! We studied the retinas of the longest-living vertebrate, the Greenland shark, and found that the retinas remain remarkably healthy in animals around 150 years old. What is the mechanism? It may be a highly efficient DNA repair system. Enjoy! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
My job: studying how light shapes behavior. His job: saving the world.
Want to hear about amazing research in ophthalmology? Register for the first inaugural Southwestern Vision Science Summit coming March 28, 2026! events.utsouthwestern.edu/event/southw...
Southwestern Vision Science Summit (SVSS)
events.utsouthwestern.edu