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Philipp Brand

@pbrand.bsky.social

950 followers 1.1K following 47 posts

PI of Evolutionary Neuroscience and Behavior Group at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research. Evolution of behavior, neural circuits, chemical senses, and speciation. he/him https://brain.mpg.de/home

brain.mpg.de

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Philipp Brand @pbrand.bsky.social · Jan 8

I'm thrilled to be opening my own lab this Fall at the @maxplanck.de MPI for Brain Research in Frankfurt. The lab is going to investigate the neuronal and genetic underpinnings of behavioral evolution. We are hiring on all levels. Don't hesitate to share widely and reach out if interested.

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Reposted by Philipp Brand

Janelia FlyEM @janelia-flyem.bsky.social · 2d

We're very proud to be releasing the complete male fly CNS connectome!

It's the product of a huge team effort here at Janelia in partnership with the Cambridge Fly Connectomics group (@jefferis.bsky.social and colleagues), plus invaluable collaborators.

More soon...
www.janelia.org/project-team...

Male CNS Connectome

A team of researchers has unveiled the complete connectome of a male fruit fly central nervous system —a seamless map of all the neurons in the brain and nerve cord of a single male fruit fly and the ...

www.janelia.org

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Philipp Brand @pbrand.bsky.social · 9d

hey, please add me if possible
Philipp Brand
philipp . brand at brain . mpg . de
Max Planck Institute for Brain Research
Group Leader
neuroscience, evolutionary biology, speciation, behavior

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Reposted by Philipp Brand

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · Sep 6

Academic authors, here's a peek into the black box of journal publishing from an journal editor if you can bear it:

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Reposted by Philipp Brand

Daniel Kronauer @danielkronauer.bsky.social · Aug 21

If you’re interested in ants, olfaction, gene regulation, or all of the above, here’s a new preprint from the lab for you. It describes an unorthodox mechanism of transcriptional interference by which ant olfactory sensory neurons produce a single functional receptor.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Transcriptional Interference Gates Monogenic Odorant Receptor Expression in Ants

Communication is crucial to social life, and in ants, it is mediated primarily through olfaction. Ants have more odorant receptor (OR) genes than any other group of insects, generated through tandem d...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Philipp Brand

Greg Jefferis @jefferis.bsky.social · Aug 21

Neuronal diversity is written in transcriptional codes 🧬. But what is the logic of these codes that define cell types and wiring patterns?
To find out we built a #scRNAseq developmental atlas of the Drosophila nerve cord and linked it to the #connectome 🪰🧠
#preprint thread ⬇️1/8

ALT text: A UMAP representation of a single cell RNAseq dataset from the Drosophila ventral nerve cord as well as images of the Drosophila nerve cord connectome and different stages of fly development.

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Philipp Brand @pbrand.bsky.social · Aug 21

Exciting new Ruta lab preprint by @annaryba.bsky.social et al. on the neural underpinnings of intraspecific behavioral variation: Strain variation identifies a neural substrate for behavioral evolution Drosophila

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Strain variation identifies a neural substrate for behavioral evolution in Drosophila

Sexual selection acts on heritable differences within species, driving the parallel diversification of signal production in one sex and behavioral responses in the other. This coevolution implies that...

www.biorxiv.org

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 25

New preprint!  

tl;dr — We ran around late at night to record wild rats in NYC and figured out how to quantify their behavior and environment. 🧵

w/ Dima Batenkov, @zamakany.bsky.social, Emily Mackevicius

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Computational Urban Ecology of New York City Rats

Urban rats are highly adaptable, thriving in the dynamic and often inhospitable conditions of modern cities. Despite substantial mitigation efforts, they remain an enduring presence in urban environme...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Philipp Brand

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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Philipp Brand @pbrand.bsky.social · Jun 22

Congratulations, Kip!

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Lucia Prieto Godino @neuroluci.bsky.social · Jun 12

How do brain circuits evolve? We started looking for some answers by using synapse-resolution cross-species comparative connectomics on an entire olfactory circuit 👇

bit.ly/44aVm9E

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Philipp Brand @pbrand.bsky.social · Jun 7

yes, please. thanks : )

Reposted by Philipp Brand

Genetics Society of America @genetics-gsa.bsky.social · May 5

🏅 Congrats to 2025 GSA Medal recipient @nkwhiteman.bsky.social (@ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social)! His research reveals how plants and herbivores co-evolve through chemical warfare. Read more about his career & research: buff.ly/mxnPQon

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Philipp Brand @pbrand.bsky.social · May 8

Congratulations! Can't wait to see what comes next

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Max Farnworth @maxfarnworth.bsky.social · May 7

Really happy to share our new preprint on the central complex of Heliconiini butterflies www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... Check it out!
@neuroethology.org @brainevolutionnews.bsky.social @prelights.bsky.social @tibbe-evolneuro.bsky.social #brainevolution #heliconius #centralcomplex

Distinct evolutionary trajectories of two integration centres, the central complex and mushroom bodies, across Heliconiini butterflies

Neural circuits have evolved to produce cognitive processes that facilitate a species variable behavioural repertoire. Underlying this variation are evolutionary forces, such as selection, that operat...

www.biorxiv.org

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Philipp Brand @pbrand.bsky.social · May 1

Hey, thanks! Looking forward to being back :)

Philipp Brand @pbrand.bsky.social · Apr 24

Congratulations Graham. Excellent news!

Reposted by Philipp Brand

Graham Coop @gcbias.bsky.social · Apr 24

I'm honoured to have been elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. It's a wonderful recognition of all the hard work by the amazing folks in the lab over the years. A huge thanks to them all.

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Daniel Münch @dahaniel.muench.bio · Apr 10

🚀 I’m thrilled to announce I’ve started a tenure track position as Professor for Animal Neurophysiology at @jlugiessen.bsky.social As of April 1, the Münch Lab is open! 🔬🧠🪰 We’ll study chemosensory processing, multisensory integration & feeding in flies. 🎓 PhD position coming soon, stay tuned!

a large group of people are sitting in a lecture hall with a sign that says cbs on it

ALT: a large group of people are sitting in a lecture hall with a sign that says cbs on it

media.tenor.com

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Reposted by Philipp Brand

Marcus Stensmyr @marcusstensmyr.bsky.social · Apr 7

We are looking for a PhD student! If you are interested in Drosophilids, systematics, bioinformatics, fiddling with museum specimens of old/weird flies, and chemosensation, then maybe this is for you! Please rebutterfly(?)! Apply below.
lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

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Philipp Brand @pbrand.bsky.social · Mar 22

a deceptive flower 🌸🪰

Philipp Brand @pbrand.bsky.social · Mar 20

Congratulations to you on having your paper in print!!! beautiful work :)

Philipp Brand @pbrand.bsky.social · Mar 20

🤞

Philipp Brand @pbrand.bsky.social · Mar 20

Congratulations to first authors @rufeili.bsky.social and @tshindmarsh.bsky.social !!!!

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Philipp Brand @pbrand.bsky.social · Mar 20

Here is the paper, worth a read for those interested in behavior, neuroscience, and mating competition: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

www.cell.com

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