Horst Obenhaus
@octoscience.bsky.social
890 followers 1.1K following 130 posts
PostDoc at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience at NTNU Trondheim. Whitman Scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, MA. I am studying sleep in octopuses and cuttlefish. 🐙
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Reposted by Horst Obenhaus
beetzjerome.bsky.social
Insect spatial memory is thought to be based on panoramic snapshots that are modelled as retinotopic images. This idea won't allow a distinction of landmarks from the scene. Unexpectedly, our data suggest that 🐝 learn 3D-objects as individual landmarks. #neuroethology
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Horst Obenhaus
clykken.bsky.social
1/8
How can the brain create countless unique memories using a single, universal metric of space? We’ve been waiting for the answer to this for two decades!
Read it here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
octoscience.bsky.social
Wow wow wow, congratulations @clykken.bsky.social and team!!! This is cool.
Reposted by Horst Obenhaus
mariamaly.bsky.social
Excited to release the SPOT grid: a new image set that factorially crosses scene-object & texture-pattern pairings.

We hope these stimuli will be useful to researchers aiming to (partially) disentangle the contributions of lower- and higher-level visual features to behavior & brain activity.

1/
8x8 grid depicting the approach to stimulus creation. Feature pairs are on the axes and images are in the cells. The x-axis represents the high-level feature pairs: setting (green) and object (teal). For example, the first column of images all depict “truck” (object) in “field” (setting) rendered in various textures and patterns. The y-axis represents low-level feature pairs: texture (blue) and pattern (purple). For example, the first row of images all depict different objects and settings rendered as if drawn with crayon (texture) and containing large horizontal edges (pattern).
octoscience.bsky.social
The curtain test! ((:
bejalab.bsky.social
I LOVE their curtain test!!
Reposted by Horst Obenhaus
apeyrache.bsky.social
🚨New preprint alert!

The thalamus has long been seen as a relay of sensory signals to cortex.
But could it also generate its own structured activity?
Our study explores this question in the head-direction (HD) system.

Some explanation 🧵👇 1/13

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Coherent dynamics of thalamic head-direction neurons irrespective of input
While the thalamus is known to relay and modulate sensory signals to the cortex, whether it also participates in active computation and intrinsic signal generation remains unresolved. The anterodorsal...
www.biorxiv.org
octoscience.bsky.social
Come to the MBL in Woods Hole @mblscience.bsky.social for a GRASS FELLOWSHIP @grassfoundation.bsky.social 🦑 🐙🐛
There are two application deadlines this year: Oct 15, 2025 (submit by then to receive feedback on your application!), and Dec 1, 2025 (final deadline). grassfoundation.org/application-...
Grass Fellowship application flyer
Reposted by Horst Obenhaus
bonnbrainconf.bsky.social
Application is open! Come join us and our fantastic line-up of speakers next year in March in Bonn!
Flyer advertising the BonnBrain Conference 2026, "From Genes to Circuits and Behavior".
Reposted by Horst Obenhaus
marineneurolab.bsky.social
We just published our third major funding application, including the evaluation it received, for the benefit of future applicants 🙌

Because #OpenScience is also about sharing ideas and examples that others can learn from 🌟

www.ogrants.org/grants/jacob...
Funding application (RCN, 2024): Deciphering bioluminescent communication in marine annelids · Open Grants
www.ogrants.org
Reposted by Horst Obenhaus
rajatsxn.bsky.social
Check our new preprint where we examine how enriched experiences alter synaptic connectivity and coding sparsity across the neocortex.
biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social
Enriched experience increases reciprocal synaptic connectivity and coding sparsity in higher-order cortex https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.01.673156v1
octoscience.bsky.social
Impressive design!! Repeatability and precision are shown in sample microscopy stage and by laser->fiber coupling. Check it out.

Open Source Motorized XYZ Micro-Manipulator - Affordable sub µm Motion Control
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgQb...

Github: github.com/0x23/MicroMa...
www.youtube.com
Reposted by Horst Obenhaus
biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social
Goal-directed hippocampal theta sweeps during memory-guided navigation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.26.672489v1
octoscience.bsky.social
Great question, and exactly what I’m interested in. Stay tuned for further news (:
octoscience.bsky.social
Jumping spiders, octopuses, who's next! 🤗
octoscience.bsky.social
My pleasure 💙💙💙!
octoscience.bsky.social
Beautiful (:
And great question! Octopuses sleep in dens in the wild, but still: Given how conspicuously it disrupts camouflage, there must be huge (evolutionary) benefit to conserving this sleep phase!
octoscience.bsky.social
One of the “golden videos” that I took during my Grass Fellowship @grassfoundation.bsky.social - active sleep in these little guys is so obvious and flamboyant! @mblscience.bsky.social
nesmicroscopy.bsky.social
🐙 This Octopus shifts from deep to active rest while "dreaming" for #MicroscopyMonday. REM‑like sleep (color bursts and twitches) filmed in real time by Horst Obenhaus @octoscience.bsky.social‬, currently a 2025 Whitman Fellow at @mblscience.bsky.social. #NESM

#Octopus #Neuro #SleepScience #MBL
octoscience.bsky.social
Yep, they drew (sucked?) me back!
octoscience.bsky.social
As for the bar coding: does that idea not generalise beyond discrete event boundaries if, as you describe, various clocks intermingle and thereby produce not repeatable states over time?