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Reposted by Pieter Goltstein

Sainsbury Wellcome Centre @sainsburywellcome.bsky.social · Aug 6

12 leading neuroscientists tackle a big question: Will we ever understand the brain?

Their reflections span philosophy, complexity, and the limits of scientific explanation.

www.sainsburywellcome.org/web/blog/wil...

Illustration by @gilcosta.bsky.social & @joanagcc.bsky.social

Illustration of the brain in blue and yellow

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Pieter Goltstein @xpieter.bsky.social · Apr 3

Some absolutely stunning photos here!

Nature @nature.com · Mar 31

Creepy-crawly courtship, a spacecraft landing on Earth, and aliens?

Check out this month's sharpest science shots, selected by Nature's photo team 📸

https://go.nature.com/4ccTrnz

Incredible close-up of colourful crab spiders — March’s best science images

The month’s sharpest science shots, selected by Nature’s photo team.

go.nature.com

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Reposted by Pieter Goltstein

MPI for Biological Intelligence @mpiforbi.bsky.social · Feb 26

Cortical columns have been known for over half a century. Now, a new study shows for the first time that they also exist in the mouse visual cortex: neurons processing visual input from the same eye are clustered in vertical columns. www.bi.mpg.de/news/2025-02...
@xpieter.bsky.social

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Pieter Goltstein @xpieter.bsky.social · Feb 26

Yes 😁 here is a link to the bsky thread 🧵 bsky.app/profile/xpie...

Pieter Goltstein @xpieter.bsky.social · Feb 25

Can the mouse visual cortex harbor a functional organization for stimulus features? TLDR: Yes, we found ocular dominance columns in this tiny cortical region! Check our paper, open access in @naturecomms.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... and/or read the 🧵 below. @mpiforbi.bsky.social (1/7)

A rotating 3D-rendered volume showing ocular dominance columns as vertically extending structures (red) in the mouse visual cortex

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Pieter Goltstein @xpieter.bsky.social · Feb 26

My colleagues in the @tobiasbonhoeffer.bsky.social department baked a mouse OD columns cake ❤️❤️

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Pieter Goltstein @xpieter.bsky.social · Feb 25

And here the rotating version of the image (1b/7)

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Pieter Goltstein @xpieter.bsky.social · Feb 25

So, it turns out that the mouse visual cortex has a columnar organization for ocular dominance! But what might be the function of such columns in general? We hope that our work inspires further investigation of the molecular, circuits and behavioral aspects of that question. (7/7)

A column-like organization for ocular dominance in mouse visual cortex - Nature Communications

This study reports clusters of ipsilateral eye preferring neurons in layer 4 of mouse visual cortex, extending into layer 2/3 and upper layer 5. This column-like pattern for ocular dominance expands o...

www.nature.com

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Pieter Goltstein @xpieter.bsky.social · Feb 25

What else? Well, in larger mammals, the spatial arrangement of ocular dominance is related to the retinotopic and other feature maps. Interestingly, in mice we could not detect such relationships. (6/7)

From basic feature maps for ocular dominance, azimuth and elevation (top row) we produced computed feature maps for the cortical magnification factor, retinotopic distortion factor and receptive field size (bottom row). These computed features do not systematically differ in, or near, the ocular dominance columns

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Pieter Goltstein @xpieter.bsky.social · Feb 25

Moreover, the clusters we identified in layer 4 extended vertically into layers 2/3 and 5, forming a columnar organization. (5/7)

The spatial pattern of ipsilateral and contralateral eye preferring neurons is similar across the depth of the mouse visual cortex

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Pieter Goltstein @xpieter.bsky.social · Feb 25

We identified the location of these ipsi-patches using a clustering algorithm. But did the data just “type out Shakespeare” by chance? No, neither randomized nor simulated data showed similar spatial distributions for ocular dominance. (4/7)

Different spatial density patterns of ipsilateral and contralateral eye preferring neurons in the mouse visual cortex

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Pieter Goltstein @xpieter.bsky.social · Feb 25

As expected, there was a retinotopic map, but to our surprise, when we inspected the ‘visual response maps’ we also observed clear patches with mostly ipsilateral eye driven responses in layer 4. (3/7)

Neuronal responses in mouse visual cortex color-coded for which eye drives the strongest response, showing an uneven distribution of ipsilateral eye responsive neurons

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Pieter Goltstein @xpieter.bsky.social · Feb 25

How did we find them? Using 2-photon microscopy, we mapped functional properties like retinotopy, orientation tuning, and ocular dominance across a large part of the mouse visual cortex. (2/7)

Four maps of the mouse visual cortex showing the spatial distribution of the response properties 'ocular dominance', 'preferred direction', 'azimuth' and 'elevation'

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Pieter Goltstein @xpieter.bsky.social · Feb 25

Can the mouse visual cortex harbor a functional organization for stimulus features? TLDR: Yes, we found ocular dominance columns in this tiny cortical region! Check our paper, open access in @naturecomms.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... and/or read the 🧵 below. @mpiforbi.bsky.social (1/7)

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Reposted by Pieter Goltstein

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · Feb 19

KM3NeT xkcd.com/3053

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Pieter Goltstein @xpieter.bsky.social · Feb 19

Moment of zen 🏔️🌞

Pieter Goltstein @xpieter.bsky.social · Mar 31

It is spring when nature doesn’t know anymore where not to flower

Pieter Goltstein @xpieter.bsky.social · Jan 21

Winterwonderland 🤩

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