Gareth Ball
@garedaba.bsky.social
220 followers 310 following 31 posts
Neurodevelopmental Modelling @ MCRI in Melbourne. Early brain development, neuroscience, ML.
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Reposted by Gareth Ball
gozziale.bsky.social
🚨 Excited to share the latest preprint form the lab ➡️https://tinyurl.com/32d3be9f

Here we tackle a long-standing chicken-or-egg 🐣🥚question in #autism and developmental neuroscience

➡️ Is excitation–inhibition (E:I) imbalance a "cause" or a "consequence" of #autism?

Check out what we found!
🧵1/n
Reposted by Gareth Ball
biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social
Multimodal imaging of human fetal brain development at the mesoscopic scale using 11.7 T ex vivo MRI https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.08.669657v1
Reposted by Gareth Ball
alexfornito.bsky.social
🔥ATTENTION!🔥

Registration for the 2026 Noosa Brain Workshop is now open!

Join us for some amazing science, sun, and surf in one of Australia's most beautiful beach towns.

Details:
tinyurl.com/arbc5pp6

Check out or incredible list of confirmed speakers. More to come...
Reposted by Gareth Ball
biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social
Expanding canonical cortical cell type markers in the era of single-cell transcriptomics https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.26.672469v1
Reposted by Gareth Ball
debbysilver.bsky.social
Sharing our newest study led by the incredibly talented @federicamosti.bsky.social investigating new molecular mechanisms of human brain development. We discover a human-specific enhancer HAR1984 that influences chromatin looping to promote cortical size and folding! www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
Reposted by Gareth Ball
garedaba.bsky.social
JOB ALERT! We're seeking a postdoctoral scientist to join Developmental Imaging at @mcri.bsky.social in Melbourne.

Role will involve working with international partners on a new project charting brain growth in children with NF-1

Please reach out for more information

www.seek.com.au/job/86090834
Research Officer Job in Parkville, Melbourne VIC - SEEK
We are seeking a Postdoctoral Research Officer to drive international neuroimaging research into childhood NF1 brain development.
www.seek.com.au
garedaba.bsky.social
JOB ALERT! We're seeking a postdoctoral scientist to join Developmental Imaging at @mcri.bsky.social in Melbourne.

Role will involve working with international partners on a new project charting brain growth in children with NF-1

Please reach out for more information

www.seek.com.au/job/86090834
Research Officer Job in Parkville, Melbourne VIC - SEEK
We are seeking a Postdoctoral Research Officer to drive international neuroimaging research into childhood NF1 brain development.
www.seek.com.au
garedaba.bsky.social
Big fan of acronyms
biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social
TRAMFIX: TRavelling Across Melbourne for FIXel-based analysis (a reproducibility study) https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.21.666058v1
Reposted by Gareth Ball
bttyeo.bsky.social
1/11 Excited to share our @Naturestudy led by @leonooi.bsky.social @csabaorban.bsky.social @shaoshiz.bsky.social

AI performance is known to scale with logarithm of sample size (Kaplan 2020), but in many domains, sample size can be # participants or # measurements...

doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Reposted by Gareth Ball
stuartoldham.bsky.social
On Friday/Saturday I have a poster (1205) on our work using generative network models, where I explore how heterochronous spatial gradients constrain brain connectivty 🧠⌛🏳️‍🌈 Also Saturday (11:30am; Great Hall) I have a talk on this work, so make sure you have recovered from club night in time for it!
Reposted by Gareth Ball
stuartoldham.bsky.social
For those at OHBM, check out my posters and talk! Today and tomorrow I (and maybe @garedaba.bsky.social) will be presenting my poster (1012) on our work linking fetal gene expression to neonatal connectome organisation 🧬🧠👶🌐 1/2 #OHBM #OHBM2025 (preprint here www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... )
Reposted by Gareth Ball
biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social
Accurate spatial localization of Allen Human Brain Atlas gene expression data for human neuroimaging https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.02.656812v1
Reposted by Gareth Ball
Reposted by Gareth Ball
stuartoldham.bsky.social
Do you like brain network hubs?🧠🌐✳️Do you like genes?🧬What about neurodevelopment?👶What if I told you the latest work by @garedaba.bsky.social and myself combined all of these?🤯🤯🤯

See Gareth's thread for a primer of our findings, then read the paper for the details!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
garedaba.bsky.social
We think this shows that hub regions begin forming circuits earlier than non-hub regions, affording more time to form the structural foundations of the brain's network.
a woman is talking on a phone and the words i 'm networking are above her
ALT: a woman is talking on a phone and the words i 'm networking are above her
media.tenor.com
garedaba.bsky.social
Hub genes were specifically enriched for subplate neurons, the earliest population of neurons to mature and cirtical for the correct targeting of neural connections, as well as deep layer cortical neurons that connect across cortical areas.
pseudotime plot showing that hub gene expression is increased in layer 5/6 intratelencephalic neurons and subplate neurons Plot showing hub gene expression increases with maturation in subplate neurons
garedaba.bsky.social
We found that, by 20 weeks gestation, future cortical hubs can be identified by increased expression of genes associated with the formation and assembly of neural circuits in the subplate
genes that are associated with network connectivity in the prenatal brain include: AMIGO2, CHST2, NMT2 and EFNA5
garedaba.bsky.social
While core hub connections are formed prior to the time of birth, the mechanism by which they arise are unclear.

We used our recent digital atlas - microBrain - to compare gene expression in cortical areas of the prenatal brain that go on to form network hubs

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
garedaba.bsky.social
Hub connections are critical for the transfer of information across networks, account for significant energy demand, are vulnerable across a range of brain disorders and are strongly constrained by genetics

www.nature.com/articles/s41...