The Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University is hiring! Come and do cutting edge research on the neural basis of natural behaviors at NBB (nbb.cornell.edu). No animal too small, no behavior too strange! Apply here: academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/32592

First whole-brain recording of social sound processing in a vertebrate. Surprises start in the hindbrain; thalamus gates conspecific calls; male and female brains diverge downstream. Work by @joerghenninger.bsky.social, @mh123.bsky.social sky.social and team. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New paper alert! 🚨 We found that the brain's compass is remarkably stable at two scales 1️⃣ the system maintains its internal organization for weeks 2️⃣ It "remembers" its orientation for weeks, even after a single visit This may be key to how the brain aligns its other maps. Paper: rdcu.be/e3waP

Have you ever wondered how the brain should represent the sensory world in order to generate behavior? Read our new preprint: work by Shuhong Huang shuhonghuang.bsky.social with our long-standing collaborator James Fitzgerald at Northwestern.

bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Behavioral alignment as an organizing principle in sensory coding https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.04.703828v1

Nature research paper: Plastic landmark anchoring in zebrafish compass neurons go.nature.com/4qP4HwB

Plastic landmark anchoring in zebrafish compass neurons - Nature

Using two-photon microscopy with a panoramic virtual reality setup, how head direction cells in larval zebrafish integrate visual landmarks and optic flow to track orientation is revealed.

go.nature.com

1/6: New publication from the lab: “Plastic landmark anchoring in zebrafish compass neurons” by Ryosuke Tanaka (@ryosuketanaka.bsky.social) and Ruben is available here: rdcu.be/eX1L4

Plastic landmark anchoring in zebrafish compass neurons

Nature - Using two-photon microscopy with a panoramic virtual reality setup, how head direction cells in larval zebrafish integrate visual landmarks and optic flow to track orientation is revealed.

rdcu.be

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... We had a lot of fun working on this project (led by Itzel Ishida, not on bluesky). Some interesting highlights from the paper -

Neuronal calcium spikes enable vector inversion in the Drosophila brain

In the fly central complex, PFNa neurons switch from firing classical sodium spikes when depolarized to firing non-canonical T-type calcium spikes when hyperpolarized. This bidirectional spiking allow...

cell.com

1/n: A new collaborative preprint from the lab to start the year: "A multi-ring shifter network computes head direction in zebrafish" together with Siyuan Mei, Martin Stemmler and Andreas Herz from the LMU, Munich.

Adam Kampff’s passion for understanding and explaining the world was unmatched. Living by example and not ever compromising on his dreams, Adam was uncanny in making people realize they can learn and understand anything and everything. Keep his dream alive! In his own words: tinyurl.com/ye29csw3

*First preprint from our lab* !!!!! How does the brain learn to anchor its internal sense of direction to the outside world? 🧭 led by Mark Plitt @markplitt.bsky.social & Dan Turner-Evans, w/ Vivek Jayaraman: “Octopamine instructs head direction plasticity” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Thread ⬇️

(1/n) We are excited to share our new paper in Nature Communications, by Hagar Lavian (@hlavian.bsky.social) and team, revealing how the zebrafish brain integrates visual navigation signals! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Visual motion and landmark position align with heading direction in the zebrafish interpeduncular nucleus - Nature Communications

How are various visual signals integrated in the vertebrate brain for navigation? Here authors show that different spatial signals are topographically organized and align to one another in the zebrafi...

nature.com

Thrilled to share that our work is now published in Science! ✨ We found a preference for visual objects in the mouse spatial navigation system where they dynamically refine head-direction coding. In short, objects boost our inner compass! 🧭 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧵1/

Preprint - Excited to present WHOLISTIC, which extends the concept of whole-brain functional imaging to the entire body. Pioneering work by incredibly talented Virginia Ruetten @vmsruetten.bsky.social, this platform reveals whole-organism cellular dynamics in vivo. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Application is open! Come join us and our fantastic line-up of speakers next year in March in Bonn!

Excited to share our latest!! Thanks to everyone involved especially @neurovenki.bsky.social!

Venki Murthy@neurovenki.bsky.social · last yr.

Thrilled to share this work, long time in the making! Carried through creatively by @siddjakes.bsky.social after initial design & piloting by @trackingskills.bsky.social, with help from @trackingactions.bsky.social. Modeling in collaboration with Massimo Vergassola & Nicola Rigolli.

Latest from the lab. Beautiful work from Joanna Lau and a fantastic collaboration with James Fitzgerald. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Supraspinal commands have a modular organization that is behavioral context specific

Lau et al. use calcium imaging and statistical modeling to comprehensively survey reticulospinal activity during diverse locomotor behaviors. They find that a small set of functional modules act combi...

cell.com

@natrevneuro.nature.com just published a beautiful cover for the issue that includes the recent review on analogies in the visual system of vertebrates and invertebrates (@ryosuketanaka.bsky.social). Read it here doi.org/10.1038/s415... Science and Art, what could be better?

Let's share @etlunsford.bsky.social's work : to survive, animals avoid drifting involuntarily in their environment. While humans rely on visual & vestibular cues, birds & fish need to sense complex flow changes of the external fluid (air/water) around them to select motor actions. How do they do?(1)

Preprint Alert! How does the brain distinguish different types of optic flow? We combined CaMPARI2 labeling with single-cell RNA-seq (CaMPARI-seq) to dissect visual circuits in zebrafish. Read the full study here 👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Molecular and functional dissection using CaMPARI-seq reveals the neuronal organization for dissociating optic flow-dependent behaviors

Optic flow processing is critical for the visual control of body and eye movements in many animals. Rotational and translational binocular optic flow patterns need to be clearly distinguished to induc...

biorxiv.org

Are you interested in visual systems? How are they similar or different across species? Read the review by Ryosuke @ryosuketanaka.bsky.social and Ruben published today in @natrevneuro.nature.com. It is available here: rdcu.be/enlpC

Introducing warpfield, an open source Python library for GPU-accelerated non-rigid 3D registration. Warps and aligns gigavoxel volumes within seconds (not hours). For 3D microscopy, region-to-region and cell-to-cell matching. A collaboration with @mh123.bsky.social 🚀 github.com/danionella/w...

If you're planning a course with mathematical methods content, or use such methods in your own work, please take a look at "Mathematics in Biology", by Meister, Lee, and Portugues, published at MIT Press. 1/2 @portugueslab.bsky.social mitpress.mit.edu/978026204940...

Mathematics in Biology

Biology has turned into a quantitative science. The core problems in the life sciences today involve complex systems that require mathematical expression, ye...

mitpress.mit.edu

I bought this book and its great! Highly recommend to have around the lab.

MIT Press@mitpress.bsky.social · 2y ago

"Mathematics in Biology" is a concise but rigorous textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate students across the biological sciences that provides a foundation for understanding the methods used in quantitative biology: @mameister4.bsky.social

Algorithmic dissection of optic flow memory in larval zebrafish https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.15.648832v1

🧠 Interested in a postdoc in neuroscience? Our Department of Computational Neuroethology is hiring for two exciting projects: 🔬 Retinal circuitry evolution 🐟 Mechanistic cognition in Danionella cerebrum mpinb.mpg.de/en/research-... 📅 Apply by May 13 via the Max Planck #PostdocProgram #Neuroethology

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft@maxplanck.de · 2y ago

🚀 Apply now 🚀 The new Max Planck #Postdoc Program offers a guaranteed contract of at least 3 years, targeted mentoring, and career workshops. postdocprogram.mpg.de #ScienceCareer #PostdocProgram

Cornell’s new homepage: RESEARCH MATTERS 🔬🔭🧪⚗️🧬💪😍 www.cornell.edu

1/3 Starting this summer, and after 11 wonderful years in Munich, the Portugues Lab will be starting a new adventure at the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior (NBB) (nbb.cornell.edu) at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.

We are super happy to present our first preprint - the effect of our Rethinking Naturalistic Behaviour Workshop - where we look more critically at the term "naturalistic behaviour" and point to its vagueness and inconsistency in its use! osf.io/preprints/os...

New preprint: a simple method (ADePT) for optical control and recording of activity by axially-decoupling the focal planes for widefield patterned photo-stimulation and two photon imaging. Proof-of-principle analysis of functional connectivity in the olfactory bulb. 1/7 #neuroscience

Axially decoupled photo-stimulation and two photon readout (ADePT) for mapping functional connectivity of neural circuits

All optical physiology in vivo provides a conduit for investigating the function of neural circuits in 3-D. Here, we report a new strategy for flexible, axially-decoupled photo-stimulation and two pho...

doi.org

Stand up for Science, on March 7th, in Boston. Please help spread this widely.

Boston, MA

Location: Massachusetts State House 24 Beacon St, Boston, MA, United States Address: 24 Beacon St., Boston, MA, 02133 Time: 12-4 PM Important information: Please do not fully block the sidewalk, st…

standupforscience2025.org