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Jennifer Bussell PhD

@jenbussell.bsky.social

2.4K followers 1.8K following 55 posts

Neuroscientist studying information seeking and curiosity via mouse models in the Axel lab at Columbia University. Formerly at Vosshall Lab at Rockefeller University. Mom in Brooklyn, former S Carolinian www.jenniferbussell.org .. more

Political science 68%

Sociology 15%

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Jennifer Bussell PhD @jenbussell.bsky.social · Oct 14

Absolutely thrilled to share my postdoc work in the Axel lab. We found odor-evoked representations of the intrinsic value of information in mouse orbitofrontal cortex and showed that mice desire knowledge as its own reward. Now on bioRxiv! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Representations of information value in mouse orbitofrontal cortex during information seeking

bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution

www.biorxiv.org

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell, Kevin J. Anchukaitis

Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 18h

MIT says no to the Trump admin higher-ed compact clearly and emphatically. Other universities would be well served to read, remix, and respond similarly.

"In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences."

orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell, Brian A. Nosek, Janet Murray , and 1 more Jennifer Bussell, Brian A. Nosek, Janet Murray, Michael W. Kraus

Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 18h

MIT Rejects the Compact!
I am so proud.
"The document also includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution. And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief ...

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 1d

A dual information seeking strategy improves imprecise human inferences outside the explore-exploit tradeoff https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.08.681186v1

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

Patrick Piantadosi @ppiantad.bsky.social · 1d

for anyone interested in the amygdala and risky decision-making, check out our new preprint: biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

amygdala neurons track reward-seeking actions, and punishment risk dramatically alters this function. lots of other (BLA-accumbens!) data included.

Risk reshapes amygdala representation of choice

Modifying behavior in response to changing environmental conditions is a crucial adaptive function. This capacity is exemplified when animals curtail pursuit of a valued outcome that risks being punis...

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

Alicia Izquierdo @aliciaizquierdo.bsky.social · 2d

🎇 Excited to finally share JL Romero Sosa’s publication! Results are from single-cell imaging in different subregions of rat frontal cortex during ✨de novo learning. Spoiler: everything is not everywhere all at once www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Neural coding of choice and outcome are modulated by uncertainty in orbitofrontal but not secondary motor cortex - Nature Communications

Neural mechanisms underlying flexible learning and decision-making are not fully understood. Using single-cell calcium imaging, authors here found that neurons in orbitofrontal and secondary motor cortex exhibit complementary roles in reward learning, with neurons in the former exerting a sustained role in conditions of uncertainty.

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell, Kate Starbird

Peter Butler @peter-butler.bsky.social · 3d

Bloomberg research found wholesale electricity up ~270% in areas near data centers

It doesn't seem like nearly enough people are taking it seriously

One A.I. image isn't too much energy, but 5 million videos? Per day/hour/minute whatever. It's not sustainable

www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

AI Data Centers Are Sending Power Bills Soaring

Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That’s being passed on to customers.

www.bloomberg.com

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 3d

Hippocampal Fos-expressing neurons stably encode boundaries in novel environments https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.06.680713v1

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell, Gavin A. Schmidt

Rosa Lafer-Sousa @rosalafersousa.bsky.social · 3d

Over the weekend ICE abducted an NIH contractor when he showed up to a courthouse for his green card hearing. He is documented. His wife is a citizen.

He is also member of the skeleton crew of animal care staff that works through a shutdown, to ensure the health and wellbeing of research animals.

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell, Karen Benjamin Guzzo

NPR @npr.org · 3d

Inspired by a military strategy to ward off disease-carrying mosquitoes, researchers see if the technique will help cut malaria infections in little ones. n.pr/3IwwWQc

Babies take a lesson from soldiers in the war against malaria

Inspired by a military strategy to ward off disease-carrying mosquitoes, researchers see if the technique will help cut malaria infections in little ones.

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 3d

To celebrate the first anniversary of the release of FlyWire, we asked nine neuroscientists to share how they are using connectome data in their research and what they hope is in store for the future of fly connectomics.

By @franciscorr25.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

bit.ly/3Wx5nt3

How FlyWire is redefining Drosophila research, one year in

Nine Drosophila researchers share how the connectome transformed the field and what additional new tools they would like to see.

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

Janelia FlyEM @janelia-flyem.bsky.social · 5d

We're very proud to be releasing the complete male fly CNS connectome!

It's the product of a huge team effort here at Janelia in partnership with the Cambridge Fly Connectomics group (@jefferis.bsky.social and colleagues), plus invaluable collaborators.

More soon...
www.janelia.org/project-team...

Male CNS Connectome

A team of researchers has unveiled the complete connectome of a male fruit fly central nervous system —a seamless map of all the neurons in the brain and nerve cord of a single male fruit fly and the ...

www.janelia.org

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

Nature Neuroscience @natneuro.nature.com · 7d

Characteristic facial features in mice simultaneously encode not only currently used decision variables but also independent and unexpressed ones, and these features partially originate from neural activity in the secondary motor cortex

@fannycazettes.bsky.social

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

Facial expressions in mice reveal latent cognitive variables and their neural correlates - Nature Neuroscience

The face reveals more than just emotion. Cazettes, Reato and colleagues show that subtle facial movements reveal hidden cognitive states, reflecting the brain’s ongoing computations and offering a noninvasive window into unexpressed thoughts and decisions.

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

Dawei Bai @daweibai.bsky.social · 7d

New paper: the ‘Double Ring Illusion’!
Does the visual system integrate *intuitive physics*? This new illusion developed by Brent Strickland and I offers a straightforward demonstration – one that you can experience yourselves!
Demos in thread👇
[1/6]

Jennifer Bussell PhD @jenbussell.bsky.social · 11d

Amazing news, congratulations!!

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · 11d

“It’s hard to know if I should close down my existing projects and/or redouble my efforts writing new grant applications,” Joshua Jacobs, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University, told @thetransmitter.bsky.social.

By Natalia Mesa

www.thetransmitter.org/funding/nih-...

NIH awarded 37 percent fewer neuroscience-related grants in 2025 than in past years

But the agency has spent nearly its entire budget for this fiscal year, which ends tomorrow.

www.thetransmitter.org

Reposted by Lisa W. Fazio, Jennifer Bussell, CARMEN DRAHL , and 1 more Lisa W. Fazio, Jennifer Bussell, CARMEN DRAHL, Zen Faulkes

Bethany Brookshire @beebrookshire.bsky.social · 14d

In reporting this piece on the new trial for a Huntington's treatment, I was struck by one thing in particular:

The joy.

One of my sources wept for joy. He has spent his entire career studying this disease, he said it was the happiest day. www.sciencenews.org/article/hunt...

Huntington's progression slowed by experimental gene therapy

An experimental gene therapy slowed Huntington’s by up to 75 percent in a small clinical trial. While not a cure, it may give patients longer lives.

www.sciencenews.org

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

Steve Maren @stevemaren.bsky.social · 15d

Isn’t it weird that 27 years of important behavioral neuroscience work published from 1973-2000 in Psychobiology has been disappeared because it isn’t on PubMed? That’s 100s of papers that the field has no knowledge of….

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

eartha mae @endoeartha.bsky.social · 15d

Very excited and proud to share my postdoctoral research with @neurrriot.bsky.social looking at the context-specific encoding of social behavior 💃🕺 in hormone-sensitive, large-scale brain networks in mice!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

#neuroskyence #compneurosky 🧪
1/12

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 15d

Articles of Impeachment for RFK, Jr. introduced

thehill.com/policy/healt...

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

Jessica Lussenhop @jlussenhop.bsky.social · 15d

This is EXTRAORDINARY impact, driven by the Pulitzer Prize-finalist journalism of @deldeib.bsky.social. At a time when so much is being dismantled, it is incredible to see something like this launching to improve health outcomes for moms and babies: www.propublica.org/article/nih-...

NIH Launches New Multimillion-Dollar Initiative to Reduce U.S. Stillbirth Rate

Clinical teams across the country are forming a five-year, $37 million consortium to research stillbirth, a long-neglected public health concern. “There’s no question that the ProPublica reporting was...

www.propublica.org

Reposted by Kim L. Scheppele, Jennifer Bussell

Science Magazine @science.org · 16d

U.S. court orders NIH to restore killed grants to California researchers. https://scim.ag/46xy9hY

U.S. court orders NIH to restore killed grants to California researchers

Judge says district court is proper forum to protest mass grant terminations

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

Brian Trainor @briantrainor.bsky.social · 17d

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.

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

Qingqing Zhang @qqzhang.bsky.social · 18d

Does predictive coding work in SPACE or in TIME? Most neuroscientists assume TIME, i.e. neurons predict their future sensory inputs. We show that in visual cortex predictive coding actually works across SPACE, just like the original Rao+Ballard theory #neuroscience
www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Jennifer Bussell PhD @jenbussell.bsky.social · 21d

Congrats!!

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

Nature Neuroscience @natneuro.nature.com · 22d

A pair of papers on using holographic optogenetics and compressed sensing for connectomics:

Rapid learning of neural circuitry from holographic ensemble stimulation enabled by model-based compressed sensing

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

Rapid learning of neural circuitry from holographic ensemble stimulation enabled by model-based compressed sensing - Nature Neuroscience

The authors develop a new computational system for high-throughput mapping of synaptic connectivity using two-photon holographic optogenetics and intracellular recordings.

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell, Yue Wu

Thomas Luo @thomas-zhihao-luo.bsky.social · 23d

How does the brain decide? 🧠

Our new @nature.com paper shows that neural activity switches from an 'evidence gathering' to a 'commitment' state at a precise moment we call nTc.

After nTc, new evidence is ignored, revealing a neural marker for the instant when the mind is made up.

rdcu.be/eGUrv

Transitions in dynamical regime and neural mode during perceptual decisions - Nature

Simultaneous recordings were made of hundreds of neurons in the rat frontal cortex and striatum, showing that decision commitment involves a rapid, coordinated transition in dynamical regime and neura...

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

Abhilasha Joshi, PhD @rhythmicspikes.bsky.social · 23d

1/
🚨 New preprint! 🚨

Excited and proud (& a little nervous 😅) to share our latest work on the importance of #theta-timescale spiking during #locomotion in #learning. If you care about how organisms learn, buckle up. 🧵👇

📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
💻 code + data 🔗 below 🤩

#neuroskyence

Jennifer Bussell PhD @jenbussell.bsky.social · 25d

Wow congrats! Phenomenal news

Reposted by Jennifer Bussell

Rolling Stone @rollingstone.com · 27d

Neuralink, Elon Musk, and the Race to Put Chips In Our Brains

Though brain chips are all over TV and the news now with Neuralink, scientists like those at Caltech have been working on the technology for decades. And some question Musk’s approach.

Read: www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Reposted by Kim L. Scheppele, Jennifer Bussell, Scott A. Imberman

STAT @statnews.com · 28d

A frenzy of grantmaking in August has the NIH seemingly on pace to spend its entire $47 billion budget by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30
www.statnews.com/2025/09/12/n...

After lagging far behind, NIH now seems on pace to spend its entire $47 billion budget by Sept. 30

A frenzy of grantmaking in August has the NIH seemingly on pace to spend its entire $47 billion budget by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30

www.statnews.com