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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson
@jakefwatson.bsky.social
900 followers 460 following 58 posts
Neurophysiologist @ ISTAustria Synapses, microcircuits, hippocampus. Google Scholar: https://bit.ly/jakefwatson Research summary: www.synapticarrangements.org
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · 9d
And you'll find the preprint explainer here:
jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · Oct 27
Recording synaptic minis (mEPSCs)? We have a new paper trying to better understand how recorded datasets match synaptic changes. In short, they don't..
More info below, and the preprint here:
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.10.26.620084v1
Simulated mPSC data
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · 9d
Our paper on 'mini analysis' is now published in @jphysiol.bsky.social
If you are recording mPSCs or sPSCs, I hope this helps with analysis. Interpretation of these datasets is not as easy as it seems..!
Happy to discuss if you are interested
physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/...
‘Mini analysis’ misrepresents changes in synaptic properties due to incomplete event detection
Abstract figure legend Summary of the study where simulated recordings (left) were used to characterise the effect of incomplete detection on mini (mPSC) analysis. Recording noise levels (red) determ...
physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
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Reposted by Jake Watson
beatrizherguedas.bsky.social
beatrizherguedas.bsky.social @beatrizherguedas.bsky.social · 24d
Extremely happy to share our lab’s first paper now published in @NatureSMB! We determined the cryo-EM structures of GluA4, both alone and in complex with TARP2, capturing the receptor in different functional states.
natsmb.nature.com
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology @natsmb.nature.com · 24d
New online: GluA4 AMPA receptor gating mechanisms and modulation by auxiliary proteins
GluA4 AMPA receptor gating mechanisms and modulation by auxiliary proteins
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, Published online: 15 September 2025; doi:10.1038/s41594-025-01666-7Vega-Gutiérrez et al. present cryo-electron microscopy structures of GluA4-containing AMPA receptors, which are key for brain signaling. They show GluA4-specific conformations and explain how subunit composition shapes receptor architecture, dynamics and function.
go.nature.com
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Reposted by Jake Watson
timothyoleary.bsky.social
Timothy O'Leary @timothyoleary.bsky.social · Sep 4
Finding correlates of the same signal in different brain areas is not evidence against specialisation, it is evidence for interconnection.

When I flush my toilet, the level in the tank and the flow rate in the supply pipe become perfectly correlated. Yet these toilet areas have distinct functions.
benhayden.bsky.social
Ben Hayden @benhayden.bsky.social · Sep 4
Sad day for peope who still believe brain areas are the primary organizational units of function in the brain.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A brain-wide map of neural activity during complex behaviour - Nature
The International Brain Laboratory presents a brain-wide electrophysiological map obtained from pooling data from 12 laboratories that performed the same standardized perceptual decision-making task i...
www.nature.com
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Reposted by Jake Watson
mojtabart.bsky.social
mojtabart.bsky.social @mojtabart.bsky.social · Aug 20
Are you passionate about advancing cutting-edge imaging technologies, and combine expansion microscopy with the power of AI@HHMI to unlock new biological discoveries? If you’re ready for a creative,and impactful journey, we’d love for you to apply!
hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Extern...
Research Specialist - Expansion Microscopy
Primary Work Address: 19700 Helix Drive, Ashburn, VA, 20147 Current HHMI Employees, click here to apply via your Workday account. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus is a pio...
hhmi.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · Aug 4
Hi Pablo - if you still need the info, this pattern is very nice staining of the mossy fibre tract (DG output). Your protein seems to be specific for granule cell axons!
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · Aug 3
Glad you enjoyed it John!
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · Aug 2
Thanks!!
jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · Aug 2
There is a lot more on cell and synaptic properties in the full paper, but this data adds to the emerging picture of heterogeneous excitatory neurons... many interesting cell and circuit features can be revealed only by diving into the (often complex and confusing) heterogeneity of the brain!
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · Aug 2
Inhibitory wiring also had a surprise. Spontaneous GABAergic input was strikingly coincident on PNs of the same subclass, suggesting specific wiring of interneurons into each PN type - for layer-specific control! @zhihaozheng.bsky.social has now visualized this wiring in his beautiful connectomics
Composite figure showing (upper left), spontaneous PSC recording with correlated input into specific cells (purple). Cross-correlograms (lower) showed specific coincident input at t=0 onto pairs of PNs of the same subclass. Quantification (upper right) confirmed this effect, which could be blocked with the GABAAR antagonist GABAzine (purple).
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · Aug 2
Deep and superficial PNs had a surprise in their recurrent connectivity: superficial PNs connect broadly, but deep PNs show little local connectivity back to superficial cells. This suggests that deep PNs form their own subnetwork, perhaps 'associating the associations' made in superficial CA3..
Composite figure showing staining (lower) and schematic (upper left) of a multicellular recording containing two PN subtypes (superficial, red; and deep, blue). Right: Connectivity measurements within and between subtypes show similar connectivity from superficial cells to both other superficial cells and deep cells, whereas deep cells preferentially connect to other deep cells.
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · Aug 2
Across the brain, PNs show a lot of heterogeneity. In CA3 it’s clearest on the deep-superficial axis, and we see 'deep bursting' PNs that have been shown before. From hundreds of recorded cells, these are clearly a distinct subclass in our hands, but are not strictly 'athorny' as has been suggested.
Collection of figures showing (upper left), multicellular patch-clamp recording pipettes in tissue, (lower left) example superficial (red) and deep (blue) pyramidal neuron stainings, with indicated thorns (arrowhead), and (right) graph of burst firing frequency for CA3 pyramidal neurons showing segregation of two subclasses.
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · Aug 2
Our work looking into heterogeneous pyramidal neurons (PNs) in hippocampal CA3 is now online @cp-cellreports.bsky.social: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... With a pile of multicellular recordings from mouse CA3, we characterised the recurrent network at the single cell level...
Cell-specific wiring routes information flow through hippocampal CA3
The hippocampus, critical for learning and memory, is dogmatically described as a trisynaptic circuit where dentate gyrus granule cells (GCs), CA3 pyr…
www.sciencedirect.com
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · Jul 20
This may help, depending on your chosen ally: ivaprime.com
IVA Prime
ivaprime.com
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · Jul 18
If you are interested in a position working on the coolest new developments in connectomics - take a serious look at this. Incredible technology development opportunity, working with a super nice scientist! Check out the paper here if you haven’t seen it yet: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · Jul 15
Really beautiful hippocampal connectomics from @zhihaozheng.bsky.social et al. Such high quality data shows many interesting circuit wiring surprises - an incredible resource to digest! Great also to see the parallels with our physiology work on neuronal heterogeneity
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Connectomic reconstruction from hippocampal CA3 reveals spatially graded mossy fiber inputs and selective feedforward inhibition to pyramidal cells
The mossy fiber (MF) connections to pyramidal cells in hippocampal CA3 are hypothesized to participate in pattern separation and memory encoding, yet no large–scale neuronal wiring diagram exists for ...
www.biorxiv.org
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Reposted by Jake Watson
Vitor Lopes dos Santos @vitorlds.bsky.social · Jun 5
I'm pleased to share our new work, “Spatio-temporal organization of network activity patterns in the hippocampus”, out in @cp-cellreports.bsky.social !
With Demi Brizee & David Dupret, we track how oscillations and spiking behaviour map onto hippocampal layers using an LFP-based embedding.

(1/13)
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · May 9
If you are using IVA Cloning for your plasmid work... there is a cool new tool to make primer design very easy: ivaprime.com
The explanation paper is here: academic.oup.com/nar/advance-...
IVA Prime: automated primer design for in vivo assembly cloning
Abstract. Molecular cloning through in vivo assembly (IVA) is an efficient homology-based approach that can achieve complex cloning operations in a single
academic.oup.com
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · May 8
Incredibly impressive and powerful new method - connectomics with light microscopy! Congrats @mojtabart.bsky.social, Hans Danzl and team @istaresearch.bsky.social ! It works incredibly well - we will keep using this magic, and recommend you do too!
Light-microscopy-based connectomic reconstruction of mammalian brain tissue - Nature
A technique called LICONN (light-microscopy-based connectomics) allows mapping of brain tissue at synapse level and simultaneous measurement of molecular information, thus enabling quantification of c...
www.nature.com
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Reposted by Jake Watson
gordfishell.bsky.social
Gord Fishell @gordfishell.bsky.social · May 3
Given all that is going on consider this quote from Bertram Russell's 1930 book The conquest of Happiness:
“The man who can be interested in the structure of atoms or the way in which a beetle navigates, is likely to get a joy in life which no amount of success in the pursuit of power can give. ”
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · Apr 16
..and it is not every meeting that your first task for the day is trying to keep up with Brazilian football on the beach!
rhythmicspikes.bsky.social
Abhilasha Joshi, PhD @rhythmicspikes.bsky.social · Apr 13
We are on for #Day4 at the #Neural Mechanisms of #cognitive Function at Pipa, Brazil 🇧🇷

Respecting local tradition the first session was ⚽️ 🏖️🏆🥇

Great to play with @melgaby.bsky.social after 8 years! (of course he’s as competitive as ever 😅)

@jakefwatson.bsky.social @tristan-geiller.bsky.social ⭐️
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · Apr 16
A heartfelt thanks to all the organisers for bringing together a fantastic community of students and speakers for an incredibly inspiring meeting!
@vitorlds.bsky.social
@rhythmicspikes.bsky.social
Andressa Radiske
& Caro Gonzalez
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · Apr 16
The Neural Mechanisms of Cognitive Function meeting in beautiful #Pipa has sadly come to an end, but this meeting has given me new faith that really fascinating and innovative science is fully compatible with a kind, considerate, and supportive atmosphere! #BeNiceAndEnjoyYourScience
A group of conference organisers, speakers, and students at lunch in Pipa!
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · Apr 14
And finally talk 20 was @rhythmicspikes.bsky.social herself presenting beautiful data asking really insightful questions on how brain activity is linked to location and movement during memory tasks!
Presentation introduction slide and presenter giving a great talk!
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jakefwatson.bsky.social
Jake Watson @jakefwatson.bsky.social · Feb 28
Striking insights into the information content of hippocampal subpopulations! A really stunning example of how understanding discrete cell types brings coherence and clarity to complex neuronal activity. Congrats to all
lmprida.bsky.social
Liset M. de la Prida @lmprida.bsky.social · Feb 26
New from the lab!! 👉🏼 authors.elsevier.com/a/1kgT43BtfH... 📝 @cellpress.bsky.social We discovered that genetically-defined neuron types in the hippocampus form unique manifolds! Dual color imaging, chemogenetics and topological analysis all at once! With Juan Gallego @juangallego.bsky.social
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