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Scott Pluta @scottrpluta.bsky.social · 14d

And maybe an espresso, too?

Scott Pluta @scottrpluta.bsky.social · 15d

Pretty tired from a 12km loop yesterday from highland base camp to Hveradalir in Kerlingarfjöll. Worth the pain, though.

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Oded Rechavi @odedrechavi.bsky.social · 28d

Full professor complaining to an assistant professor on how hard it is to get funding nowadays

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Scott Pluta @scottrpluta.bsky.social · Jul 11

There isn't a self-generated (optic flow coupled to locomotion) stimulus in these datasets, which I believe is the crux of the Keller lab argument. But, there are many studies showing enhanced activity to the oddball. I've not a fan of that approach. Sensory predictions are driven by movement, IMO.

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Aaron Milstein @neurosutras.bsky.social · Jul 8

This will devastate all of my colleagues that do neuroscience in mice. Drugs don't always translate from mouse to human, But 90% of our genes are shared. They allow recordings and manipulations that cannot be done in humans. We will cede discovery to Europe and China with this unnecessary handicap.

NIH announces end to funding for animal-only studies - Drug Discovery and Development

Drug Discovery and Development covers strategies and technologies related to pharmaceutical research and development and drug formulation.

www.drugdiscoverytrends.com

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Scott Pluta @scottrpluta.bsky.social · Jun 16

What are the needs of humanity?

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Scott Pluta @scottrpluta.bsky.social · Jun 9

Very interesting.

I was hoping you would say something about this impending manuscript, tho.

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Scott Pluta @scottrpluta.bsky.social · Jun 9

Manuscript? 👀

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Adam Sternbergh @sternbergh.bsky.social · Jun 5

must be incredibly frustrating and disheartening to have federal funding that was promised to you for important work suddenly and arbitrarily ripped away

Best of Dying Twitter @bestofdyingtwit.bsky.social · Jun 5

“In light of the President's statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately”

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Kate Jeffery @katejj.bsky.social · Jun 2

UK neuroscience graduates! PhD opportunity here at Glasgow SPN: www.findaphd.com/phds/project... Closing date July 4

Converting percepts into actions in the visual cortex and superior colliculus. at University of Glasgow on FindAPhD.com

PhD Project - Converting percepts into actions in the visual cortex and superior colliculus. at University of Glasgow, listed on FindAPhD.com

www.findaphd.com

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Jimmy Dooley @jimmycdooley.bsky.social · May 30

In late January, I said we were "still exploring" a cool thing we found in RN.

Well, we're back, and we've got movement kinematics (thanks to ‪@deeplabcut.bsky.social‬)!

(You can find all the details in our updated bioRxiv paper, linked below)

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

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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · May 26

Large-scale projects run the risk of stifling scientific independence. Instead, let’s explore alternative mechanisms of collaboration, writes @neuralreckoning.bsky.social.

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/funding/neur...

Neuroscience needs to empower early-career researchers, not fund moon shots

Large-scale projects run the risk of stifling scientific independence. Instead, let’s explore alternative mechanisms of collaboration.

www.thetransmitter.org

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@LaBonneLaB @labonnelab.bsky.social · May 19

It is beyond disturbing when the NIH and HHS Directors do not understand that animal models are essential in research

www.statnews.com/2025/05/19/a...

There is no replacement (yet) for animal models in medical research

The NIH is “reducing animal use in research.” But there is no replacement for animal models.

www.statnews.com

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Scott Pluta @scottrpluta.bsky.social · May 17

Other great examples are in the whisker system where the sensory nerve is cut, but movement signals persist. Such as pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40011781/

Brain-wide presynaptic networks of functionally distinct cortical neurons - PubMed

Revealing the connectivity of functionally identified individual neurons is necessary to understand how activity patterns emerge and support behaviour. Yet the brain-wide presynaptic wiring rules that...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Scott Pluta @scottrpluta.bsky.social · May 17

Ideally, you eliminate sensory feedback during the movement, allowing you to observe the residual motor efference. The best example is in weakly electric fish. Nathan Sawtell and Curtis Bell is a place to look in that regard.

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Hayley Bounds @hayleybounds.bsky.social · May 15

Excited to share my PhD paper! In it, we use targeted 2-photon optogenetic stimulation to determine how V1 activity is read-out in a detection task. We found that network influence, not visual coding properties, predicted the impact of ensembles on behavior - contradicting our expectations (1/5).

Neuron @cp-neuron.bsky.social · May 15

Online now:

Network influence determines the impact of cortical ensembles on stimulus detection

By photostimulating specific visual cortical ensembles, Bounds et al. discovered that an ensemble’s impact on local neural activity, not its visual encoding properties, predicts its impact on stimulus detection. Their analysis reveals that mice use a generalizable, albeit suboptimal, perceptual readout strategy of summing all V1 activity to detect stimuli.

dlvr.it

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Nature Neuroscience @natneuro.nature.com · May 16

Bilateral integration in somatosensory cortex is controlled by behavioral relevance 🧠🧪

@scottrpluta.bsky.social

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

Bilateral integration in somatosensory cortex is controlled by behavioral relevance - Nature Neuroscience

How sensory signals from both sides of the body are integrated into a single percept is not well understood. Park et al. show that callosal signaling supports the integration of bilateral tactile stim...

www.nature.com

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Scott Pluta @scottrpluta.bsky.social · May 15

How is this not obvious to everyone but maybe a first year student?

The brain can hallucinate, but calling that hallucination information might be a stretch.

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Scott Pluta @scottrpluta.bsky.social · May 14

I'm really proud of my two graduate students, Hyein and Hayagreev, for getting this challenging and exciting project across the finish line. We reveal the state-dependent logic that underlies callosal signaling between the somatosensory cortices. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Bilateral integration in somatosensory cortex is controlled by behavioral relevance - Nature Neuroscience

How sensory signals from both sides of the body are integrated into a single percept is not well understood. Park et al. show that callosal signaling supports the integration of bilateral tactile stim...

www.nature.com

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Ian Oldenburg @ianoldenburg.bsky.social · May 13

The Oldenburg lab is looking for another postdoc! If you want to use holographic optogenetics to answer questions about neural codes let me know. We like shooting lasers and thinking about movement.

We're located at Rutgers in Piscataway NJ (its like ~45 min from NYC).

oldenburglab.com/positions/

Positions

Join the lab We are looking for curious, motivated, and talented people from all different backgrounds to join our team at all levels. Mentoring is simply one of the best parts of being an academic sc...

oldenburglab.com

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Scott Pluta @scottrpluta.bsky.social · May 2

May 2021, shortly after we finished building automated boxes for training mice to perform bilateral discrimination using active touch. The first paper is finally dropping soon.

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PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · Apr 20

Our latest editorial in defense of vaccines and vaccination, introduces two Perspectives in this issue on priorities for outbreak vaccination, as well as the important successes of vaccines to date

Please read and spread the word 🙏🏻!

Nonia Pariente @npariente.bsky.social · Apr 20

Vacciness have saved > 6 lives/min in the last 50 years, yet their importance & safety is often questioned

“We should not allow misinformation, disinformation, ignorance and defunding to hinder vaccine development, deployment and use”

My latest @plosbiology.org

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Vaccines work… and do not cause autism

Vaccines have saved millions of lives, yet their importance and safety is repeatedly in question. W e cannot let disinformation campaigns get in the way of global public health – it is not time to def...

journals.plos.org

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Earl K. Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social · Apr 21

New results!
Evidence for an active handoff between cerebral hemispheres during target tracking
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#neuroscience

Evidence for an active handoff between cerebral hemispheres during target tracking

The brain has somewhat separate cognitive resources for the left and right sides of our visual field. Despite this lateralization, we have a smooth and unified perception of our environment. This rais...

www.biorxiv.org

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Lauren Kreeger @laurenkreeger.bsky.social · Apr 18

Thrilled that our paper has been published in @elife.bsky.social
doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

We ask: how can a neuron integrate information across multiple time scales?

Twist: This neuron has extreme properties that helps it work ~300x times faster than neurons in the hippocampus

Summary 🧵to follow

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Ann Clemens @annmclemens.bsky.social · Apr 17

My lab @kinshiplab.bsky.social is recruiting a postdoc 🚨 with Sept start date

Preference for in-vivo ephys / circuits experience / interest in applying quantitative methods to natural social behaviour.

Funding & visa fees for 1-yr with possible extension. Send me your CV & visit kinshiplab.org

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