Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 18h

The transformation from critic to architect is a normal and exciting part of the journey. I wish for you to allow yourself to feel proud and inspired by your findings. You are doing extremely well, and you will be absolutely fine, no matter where you are or what you will be doing!

Your Mentor (4/4)

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 18h

Data will never be perfect or complete, but they are the building blocks we have to build on. Tearing down half-built structure is easy, anyone can do that. The valuable much harder part is to step onto the wobbly foundation and continue building it into a solid house. (3/4)

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 18h

Science can also be painful, full of doubts and agonising uncertainty. During our academic training, we are trained to be highly critical of our conclusions. This is a vital skill in science, too, but it needs to be balanced with building a vision and leaning into the excitement of discovery. (2/4)

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 18h

Dear Student,

It has been wonderful to see you grow from a lab novice into a thoughtful experimentalist. The results you have generated rob me of sleep because I am so excited thinking about the potential that lies in them. Science can be exhilarating! (1/4)

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 20h

📢 Join us at the Crick to start your lab!

💸 Generous core funding to give your ideas wings
🔬 Outstanding facilities to realise your nerdiest dreams
🙌 Supportive colleagues who lift you and your science up

Happy to answer questions! Please repost!

The Francis Crick Institute @crick.ac.uk · 21h

We're now recruiting early career group leaders at the Crick to lead ambitious research programmes and explore bold scientific questions.

Hear our Director, Edith Heard, explain why the Crick is a unique place for curiosity-driven research.

Apply now ➡️ www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...

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Reposted by Katharina Schmack

Ardem Patapoutian @ardemp.bskyverified.social · 2d

Attending #SfN2025 in San Diego☀️? Don’t miss the Dorris Neuroscience Center Symposium at @scripps.edu, happening right before the meeting. A great lineup of speakers to kick off your SfN week. Plan your trip accordingly and register for free here:
www.eventbrite.com/e/dorris-neu...

Please amplify!

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Reposted by Katharina Schmack

Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 4d

Fascinating thread about the identification of one of the first genes with a clear role in human speech and language! Extra credit for those who dig in to find out why its called a "forkhead domain" 🧪

Simon Fisher @profsimonfisher.bsky.social · 5d

Twenty-four years ago today, our paper “A forkhead-domain gene is mutated in a severe speech and language disorder” was published: www.nature.com/articles/350....
A personal thread about the ups & downs of the journey we took to get to that point....1/n
🗣️🧬🧪

Image shows the first two printed pages of the paper “A forkhead-domain gene is mutated in a severe speech and language disorder” by Cecilia Lai and colleagues, published in Nature in 2001 (volume 413, pages 519-523). The abstract reads as follows:
Individuals affected with developmental disorders of speech and language have substantial difficulty acquiring expressive and/or receptive language in the absence of any profound sensory or neurological impairment and despite adequate intelligence and opportunity. Although studies of twins consistently indicate that a significant genetic component is involved, most families segregating speech and language deficits show complex patterns of inheritance, and a gene that predisposes individuals to such disorders has not been identified. We have studied a unique three-generation pedigree, KE, in which a severe speech and language disorder is transmitted as an autosomal-dominant monogenic trait. Our previous work mapped the locus responsible, SPCH1, to a 5.6-cM interval of region 7q31 on chromosome 7. We also identified an unrelated individual, CS, in whom speech and language impairment is associated with a chromosomal translocation involving the SPCH1 interval. Here we show that the gene FOXP2, which encodes a putative transcription factor containing a polyglutamine tract and a forkhead DNA-binding domain, is directly disrupted by the translocation breakpoint in CS. In addition, we identify a point mutation in affected members of the KE family that alters an invariant amino-acid residue in the forkhead domain. Our findings suggest that FOXP2 is involved in the developmental process that culminates in speech and language.

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 6d

A four-panel meme featuring characters from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. In the first panel, Anakin Skywalker, smiling, says, "Mandatory trainings are university policy." In the second panel, Padmé Amidala, also smiling, responds, "And they are evidence-based and effective, right?" In the third panel, Anakin remains silent, still smiling. In the fourth panel, Padmé looks increasingly concerned and repeats, "Right?"

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 6d

🤣

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 7d

Amazing line up - this will be fun!
@bita137.bsky.social
@torbenott.bsky.social
@sthom003.bsky.social
@theborislab.bsky.social

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 7d

Excited to speak in San Diego on Nov 14 at this SfN Sattelite!

If you're curious about cross-species approaches to #psychedelics, #hallucinations and #consciousness, join us! 🐀👤🧠

Limited spots, register here:
hopkinspsychedelic.org/sfn2025

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 8d

Me and my Gucci bag

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 12d

Really enjoyed my weekend read on 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: local recurrence amplifies natural input patterns and suppresses stray activity. This review beautifully argues that sensory cortex itself is a site of memory and prediction. Food for thought on hallucinations!

#neuroskyence #neuroscience

Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 14d

The brain is incredibly densely connected. Human cerebral cortex may have as many as *one trillion* connections.

Most of those cortical connections are recurrent, inside each area. What do they do?

New paper from me in Annual Reviews: 🧪 🧠📈 1/

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Active Filtering: A Predictive Function of Recurrent Circuits of Sensory Cortex | Annual Reviews

Our brains encode many features of the sensory world into memories: We can sing along with songs we have heard before, interpret spoken and written language composed of words we have learned, and reco...

www.annualreviews.org

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 12d

This is the next level of calculated peer review 😂

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 12d

The true peer review signature:

“Overall, this is a great study, but the authors forgot to relate it to previous literature (Reviewer et al. 2008, 2013a, 2013b, 2015, 2018, 2021, 2022).” 🙃

#academsky

Mick Craig @mickcraig.bsky.social · 13d

Do you ever sign a peer review? I reviewed a paper last night and the journal have the option to sign the review. I almost did but then decided against it. #NeuroSkyence

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 14d

This is how I thought the headline would continue:

Dr. Seuss with white hair, beard, and glasses smiling outdoors. Overlaid text in white reads: ‘He was rejected 27 times. He planned to burn his manuscript.’ Below, in red text: ‘Then, his friend invited him to contribute to her Frontiers Special Issue.’ The red text appears edited in.

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 15d

Wow, this is amazing! Brought to you by science 🧪🧠🧬✨ #neuroskyence

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 15d

Huntington’s disease treated successfully for first time in gene therapy trial

UCL trialled hours-long surgical procedure to treat disease which causes dementia and paralysis Huntington’s disease, a devastating degenerative illness that runs in families, has been treated successfully for the first time in a breakthrough gene therapy trial. The disease, caused by a single gene defect, steadily kills brain cells leading to dementia, paralysis and ultimately death. Those with a parent with Huntington’s have a 50% chance of developing the disease, which until now has been incurable. Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 18d

Great thread that explains why I sometimes dread Q&A after cognitive and systems neuroscience talks. 👇

"You say awareness/perception/imagination. But couldn't it all just be attention/motor preparation/memory?"

#neuroskyence

Sam Gershman @gershbrain.bsky.social · 18d

I once saw a (very interesting) talk about sleep in which the speaker started by saying that we don't really know how to define sleep, and then proceeded to operationalize sleep in flies as basically periods when they are still for a long time. This got me thinking...

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 19d

6/ We spend some time in Germany before I travel ahead to start getting us settled in the UK. The giraffe comes with me. We land at midnight. Just Ivana and me, ready to start our new life.

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 19d

5/ The taxi to the airport is waiting. I grab my luggage when I hear the children call out "Ivana! Mom, we found Ivana! We almost forgot Ivana!" And so, Ivana comes along. There's no space left in our luggage, so she travels on my lap.

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 19d

4/ When we pack up our things to move to the UK, Ivana does not make it into the boxes. Instead, she mysteriously ends up on the highest shelf in the corner of a wardrobe we never open.

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 19d

3/ COVID happens and we never make it to the zoo. But the giraffe stays with us, occupying the better part of the children’s bedroom. She is named Ivana.

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 19d

2/ When we lived in the US, we won zoo tickets in a school raffle. To the delight of our children (and the oh no of us parents), the zoo tickets come attached to a big grinning giraffe.

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 19d

1/ This is the first picture I took after arriving in the UK.

Why is a tired, grown-up woman posing in an airport hotel room for a selfie with a giant giraffe?

Here’s our story 🦒

Me, smiling and thumbs-upping, with a large grinning stuffed giraffe face that takes up half the frame.

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Katharina Schmack @kathaschmack.bsky.social · 19d

How does the brain fill in what's missing?

Pattern completion pushes visual cortex into "seeing" what is not there. Great to see this out, congrats to the authors on this impressive work!

#neuroskyence

Nature Neuroscience @natneuro.nature.com · 22d

Neurons in mouse primary visual cortex that respond emergently to illusory contours drive pattern completion

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

Recurrent pattern completion drives the neocortical representation of sensory inference - Nature Neuroscience

Neurons that respond emergently to illusory contours drive pattern completion in V1. Pattern completion in lower cortical areas may therefore mediate perceptual inference by selectively reinforcing ac...

www.nature.com

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