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Joseph D. Zak @josephdzak.bsky.social · 1d

Chicago is definitely burning. Just not in the way the news wants to portray.

Reposted by Joseph D. Zak

Rupinder Kaur, PhD @kaurr.bsky.social · 5d

#Wolbachia has puzzled scientists with its power to rewire insect reproduction. What if I tell you that we found one of the keys Wolbachia use to rewire its host AND a small molecule inhibitor uses this key to mimic what this microbe has mastered for millions of years.

www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Beyond Wolbachia—Can a small molecule control insect reproduction?

Kaur et al. demonstrate reduced histone acetylation as a key mechanism underpinning Wolbachia’s paternal-effect embryonic lethality trait in Drosophila melanogaster. Recapitulation of this trait by in...

www.cell.com

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Reposted by Joseph D. Zak

Evan Schaffer @esschaffer.bsky.social · Sep 5

Very excited to see this out in the world. It was fun to play a (small) part in it.

Herbert Wu @herbertwu.bsky.social · Sep 4

This was a truly collaborative effort and will open new avenues to probe social cognition and collective behavior. Huge thanks to the amazing team who made this cooperation😁 possible! @esschaffer.bsky.social @nuttidanuttida.bsky.social @talmo.bsky.social @nan-mssm.bsky.social (5/5)

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Reposted by Joseph D. Zak

Nicholas Bellono @nbellono.bsky.social · Sep 4

Octopuses sense environmental microbiomes to drive predatory and parental behaviors. Artwork by Lily Soucy. #evolution #sensation #microbiome @cellpress.bsky.social

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Reposted by Joseph D. Zak

Siddharth Jayakumar @siddjakes.bsky.social · Sep 2

Excited to share our latest!! Thanks to everyone involved especially @neurovenki.bsky.social!

Venki Murthy @neurovenki.bsky.social · Sep 1

Thrilled to share this work, long time in the making! Carried through creatively by @siddjakes.bsky.social after initial design & piloting by @trackingskills.bsky.social, with help from @trackingactions.bsky.social. Modeling in collaboration with Massimo Vergassola & Nicola Rigolli.

Mice navigate scent trails using predictive policies

Animals actively sense their environment to extract features of interest to guide behaviors. For mammals, odors are prominent environmental features which are sampled by active modulation of sniffing ...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Joseph D. Zak

Venki Murthy @neurovenki.bsky.social · Sep 1

Thrilled to share this work, long time in the making! Carried through creatively by @siddjakes.bsky.social after initial design & piloting by @trackingskills.bsky.social, with help from @trackingactions.bsky.social. Modeling in collaboration with Massimo Vergassola & Nicola Rigolli.

Mice navigate scent trails using predictive policies

Animals actively sense their environment to extract features of interest to guide behaviors. For mammals, odors are prominent environmental features which are sampled by active modulation of sniffing ...

www.biorxiv.org

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Joseph D. Zak @josephdzak.bsky.social · Aug 20

Proud to share Kai Clane Belonio’s latest work in our lab. Kai showed that induced-depression decreases behavioral tolerance of aversive odorants as well as increases in neuroinflammation in sensory affective areas. Also contributing are @nervenkidd.bsky.social and Eyerusalem Haile.

bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · Aug 20

Neuroinflammation in Olfactory Circuits Underlies Odor Hypersensitivity in a Rodent Model of Depression https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.14.670114v1

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Reposted by Joseph D. Zak

Felix Baier @felixbaier.bsky.social · Jul 23

🚨Very happy that my PhD work is now out in @nature.com!

We discovered that evolution, by acting in the midbrain, shifted the threshold to escape in Peromyscus mice, to fine-tune defensive strategies in different environments

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

This was a truly collaborative effort! 🧵⬇️

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Joseph D. Zak @josephdzak.bsky.social · Jul 2

Some campus brutalism to accompany this brutal heatwave.

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Joseph D. Zak @josephdzak.bsky.social · Jun 26

Good thought, but I don’t know for sure about lipofuscin. I’m not surprised in the least that you see them at 8w. They can be apparent even in juveniles.

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Joseph D. Zak @josephdzak.bsky.social · Jun 26

These are super common especially in the glomerular layer. Tons of autofluorescent accumulation in both red and green. They are aggregations of some sort and often increase with the age of the animal. I assume they are extracellular plaques.

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Reposted by Joseph D. Zak

Joe Walker @evojfwalker.bsky.social · Jun 26

@shawn-anthony.bsky.social helped ~20 undergrads learn transcriptomics in this budget friendly investigation into the dogbane family. A fun way to investigate the molecular evolution of the group. Also, a chance to collaborate with @phylonatworks.bsky.social and Jarrad! doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Going green: Recycling transcriptomes to infer evolutionary relationships, gene duplication, gene tree conflict, and patterns of molecular evolution in the Apocynaceae

Background and Aims: The flowering plant family Apocynaceae exhibits diverse adaptations with biological and pharmaceutical significance, many of which have been studied with RNA-seq. However, despite...

doi.org

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Joseph D. Zak @josephdzak.bsky.social · Jun 24

That lab space looks awfully familiar 🤔

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Reposted by Joseph D. Zak

Izumi Fukunaga @ifukunaga.bsky.social · Jun 13

Animals’ sniffing drives rhythmic input to the olfactory system.

How does this timing contribute to perception, especially beyond first steps of olfactory processing?

We tested this using simple closed-loop optogenetics in our new paper: www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Decoding olfactory bulb output: A behavioral assessment of rate, synchrony, and respiratory phase coding

Neurogenetics; Behavioral neuroscience; Sensory neuroscience

www.cell.com

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Joseph D. Zak @josephdzak.bsky.social · Jun 5

Congrats, Paul! This is fantastic!

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Joseph D. Zak @josephdzak.bsky.social · Jun 3

What a special place. So grateful for all the friendships, learning, and science that fullfilled my time @harvard.edu.

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Joseph D. Zak @josephdzak.bsky.social · May 14

Proud of @nervenkidd.bsky.social (Zach Fyke), a graduate student in our group, for being recognized by @uicbios.bsky.social for both his research AND teaching over the past academic year.

Here are links to some of his recent work:

tinyurl.com/37vw5s5f

tinyurl.com/23zu458t

tinyurl.com/3mmjvw83

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Joseph D. Zak @josephdzak.bsky.social · May 12

Congrats, Rachel! Well-deserved.

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Reposted by Joseph D. Zak

Datta Lab @dattalab.bsky.social · May 9

Maps are everywhere in the brain...and finally we've discovered one in the nose! Led by @davidhbrann.bsky.social, we uncovered the logic that specifies the positions of each of the 1,000 sensory neuron subtypes in the nose and aligns their projections to the brain.👇👃see more details below👃👇

A spatial code governs olfactory receptor choice and aligns sensory maps in the nose and brain

Although topographical maps organize many peripheral sensory systems, it remains unclear whether olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) choose which of the ~1100 odor receptors (ORs) to express based upon t...

www.biorxiv.org

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Joseph D. Zak @josephdzak.bsky.social · May 9

One of our new favorite images for #fluoresencefriday. Graduate student, Lindsay Vivona, labeled fibers from each anterior olfactory nucleus hemisphere as they bidirectionally pass through the anterior commissure. #neuroskyence #olfaction

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Joseph D. Zak @josephdzak.bsky.social · May 9

This NOFO seems to active: grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

PAR-25-234: NINDS Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) for Training of Postdoctoral Fellows (F32 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: NINDS Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) for Training of Postdoctoral Fellows (F32 Clinical Tri...

grants.nih.gov

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Reposted by Joseph D. Zak

Carles Bosch @carlesbosch.bsky.social · May 1

#preprint:

We mapped the structure and function of olfactory bulb circuits with in vivo 2-photon microscopy and synchrotron #Xray holographic nanotomography.

doi.org/10.1101/2025...

@yuxinzhang.bsky.social @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social @apacureanu.bsky.social
@crick.ac.uk @esrf.fr

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Joseph D. Zak @josephdzak.bsky.social · Apr 30

Now in its final form, our recent work on how olfactory transduction currents help ensure sparse sensory coding. Led by a post-bac Kai Clane Belonio and a graduate student, Eyerusalem Haile, this was a group effort by the entire laboratory.

www.jneurosci.org/content/45/1...

Amplification of Olfactory Transduction Currents Implements Sparse Stimulus Encoding

Sensory systems must perform the dual and opposing tasks of being sensitive to weak stimuli while also maintaining information content in dense and variable sensory landscapes. This occurs in the olfa...

www.jneurosci.org

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Reposted by Joseph D. Zak

Alexander Mathis @trackingskills.bsky.social · Apr 22

My lab has several postdoctoral fellow and software engineering positions available. Please email me if you’re interested.

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Reposted by Joseph D. Zak

The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · Apr 16

Olfactory neuroscientists have known for a while that their stimuli stink. A new analysis illuminates the extent of the problem.

By @callimcflurry.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/olfaction/sm...

Smell studies often use unnaturally high odor concentrations, analysis reveals

It’s time to fashion olfactory neuroscience stimuli based on odor concentrations in the wild, say study investigators Elizabeth Hong and Matt Wachowiak.

www.thetransmitter.org

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