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Reposted by Serena Riccitelli

Allen Institute @alleninstitute.org · 2d

Why do optical illusions work? The culprit may be a group of neurons in the visual cortex that help us fill in missing information.

@markjohnpost.bsky.social for @washingtonpost.com dives into the science and how it could help demystify visual hallucinations: www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...

The origins of hallucinations are traced in specialized brain cells

Researchers used lasers to record and stimulate the activity of neurons in mice to learn how the brain processes and interprets optical illusions.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Annual Reviews @annualreviews.bsky.social · 8d

The 2025 volume of the Annual Review of Vision Science is now online. The most read article so far is "Behavior-Specific Computations in the Vertebrate Retina" arevie.ws/46HMEjd @serenariccitelli.bsky.social @annaintegrated.bsky.social @katrinfranke.bsky.social

TOC: arevie.ws/3Wklava

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International Society for Neuroethology @neuroethology.org · 9d

Some animals are able to use objects in their environment as tools, like 🐒, 🦜 and corvids. In this new report from the Nieder lab, they show that carrions crows, with no tool-use adaptations are able to use a stick as a tool and refine their precision through learning! 🐦‍⬛ www.cell.com/current-biol...

Learned precision tool use in carrion crows

Moll et al. show that carrion crows—which do not habitually use tools in the wild—can be trained to use a stick tool as an extension of their body. Trained crows flexibly adjust tool orientation and d...

www.cell.com

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Georgios Kafetzis @gkafetzis.bsky.social · 26d

👁️The retina — strikingly conserved across vertebrates, but an oddity among bilaterians!

So how did it evolve?

With @mikebok.bsky.social, @neurofishh.bsky.social and @denilsson.bsky.social, we argue that retinal complexity may 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑦𝑒 𝑖𝑡𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
1/n

a black and white dog is sitting on a couch with its tongue sticking out .

ALT: a black and white dog is sitting on a couch with its tongue sticking out .

media.tenor.com

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Santiago Rompani @santiagorompani.bsky.social · 19d

Our EMBL Press office has a nice little article on our recent paper on how the pupil's dynamics shape visual responses in the mouse and human.

A new look at the pupil: more than just a gatekeeper www.embl.org/news/science...

A new look at the pupil: more than just a gatekeeper | EMBL

New research from the Rompani and Asari groups at EMBL Rome suggests that the pupil does more than just respond to light and internal states — it may actively shape our vision.

www.embl.org

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Laura Busse @laurabusse.bsky.social · Jul 10

Seeing the world through the lens of oscillations - we are delighted to share our new paper where we demonstrate that anatomically resolved oscillatory bursts reveal dynamic motifs of thalamocortical activity during naturalistic stimulus viewing (doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...).

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Katja Reinhard @katjareinhard.bsky.social · 25d

Excellent end to the Italian Congress for Neuroscience (SINS) - our postdoc Lucia Zanetti chairing a fascinating session on the retina & beyond together with @serenariccitelli.bsky.social! Well done & thanks to the speakers Stefano Di Marco, @santiagorompani.bsky.social, Norma Kühn & Max Joesch

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Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · Sep 3

The two key studies of the International Brain Laboratory @intlbrainlab.bsky.social are out today!

A brain-wide map of neural activity during complex behaviour
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Brain-wide representations of prior information in mouse decision-making
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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Ivan Alcantara @ivancalcantara.bsky.social · Jul 30

How do animals decide if they should forage for food or stay home to take care of newborn offspring? Whose needs come first? For my PhD work now out in Nature, we examined how hunger and parenting neurons interact and are reshaped postpartum in mice 🧵⬇️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A hypothalamic circuit that modulates feeding and parenting behaviours - Nature

Single-cell transcriptomic analysis of mouse hypothalamus and behavioural experiments show that specific hypothalamic networks regulate conflicting feeding versus parenting behaviours of female mice.

www.nature.com

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Petr Znamenskiy @petrznam.bsky.social · Jul 21

1/ Mapping synaptic connectivity between individual neurons is extremely laborious. We developed BRISC, a new method that makes it possible to map inputs onto 100s of neurons in the same animal in a matter of weeks! Led by Alex Becalick and @antblot.bsky.social. 🧵

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

Barcoded Rabies In Situ Connectomics for high-throughput reconstruction of neural circuits

Sequencing of oligonucleotide barcodes holds promise as a high-throughput approach for reconstructing synaptic connectivity at scale. Rabies viruses can act as a vehicle for barcode transmission, than...

www.biorxiv.org

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Gabriel Stine @gabrielmstine.bsky.social · Jun 23

Our paper on NHP neuropixels is finally out in Nat Neuro! These probes have already been transformative and will usher in a new era of primate neuroscience. I am extremely proud to have played a very small role in this project. I can't wait to see what our community discovers. tinyurl.com/54u3hrj8

Large-scale high-density brain-wide neural recording in nonhuman primates - Nature Neuroscience

Neuropixels 1.0 NHP is a 45-mm, high-density silicon probe capable of recording large numbers of neurons with single-neuron resolution from most areas in a macaque’s brain.

tinyurl.com

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Francesco Papaleo Lab @labpapaleo.bsky.social · Jun 16

Come to Genova in October, 2-day Workshop on Social Behavior and its Dysfunctions. FREE registration, info in the attached Flyer:

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Hannah Payne @hannahpayne.bsky.social · Jun 11

My latest Aronov lab paper is now published @Nature!

When a chickadee looks at a distant location, the same place cells activate as if it were actually there 👁️

The hippocampus encodes where the bird is looking, AND what it expects to see next -- enabling spatial reasoning from afar

bit.ly/3HvWSum

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Tom Baden @neurofishh.bsky.social · Jun 4

Sussex Visions is back!
Tune in on June 26th and onwards, see details below

Michi Forsthofer @mforst.bsky.social · Jun 4

The Sussex Vision Talk series is back! Join us to hear about all things vision, from retina to brain, from invertebrates to human.
www.youtube.com/@badenlab615...
Talks will be live-streamed (and stored) on YouTube, hope to see many of you there. Details on each talk coming soon.

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Katja Reinhard @katjareinhard.bsky.social · May 19

New paper on bioRxiv: "Ambient Light Impacts Innate Behaviors of New-World and Old-World Mice" - together with @farrowlab.bsky.social, with data from NERF master students and two of my lab members! A study across 3 species: Mus musculus, Peromyscus maniculatus & P. polionotus doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Ambient Light Impacts Innate Behaviors of New-World and Old-World Mice

Animals encounter predators and prey under diverse lighting conditions that signal different risks and opportunities, yet how ambient illumination shapes innate approach and avoidance behaviors remain...

doi.org

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Katja Reinhard @katjareinhard.bsky.social · May 30

Now with correct link: Preprint on how to create an equitable and healthy lab environment www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... ! During the SAFE Labs workshop 2024 we came up with concrete action points, summarised in these guidelines for Lab Handbooks github.com/SAFE-Labs-Do...

The SAFE Labs Handbook: community-driven commitments for group leaders to improve lab culture

Creating positive and equitable lab environments has become a growing priority for the scientific community and funders of scientific research. Research institutions typically respond to this need by ...

www.biorxiv.org

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Katrin Franke @katrinfranke.bsky.social · May 15

65 years after Lettvin’s bug detector neurons in the frog retina, we revisit how the retina drives behavior—from reflexes to prey capture to brain-state modulation

New review with @annaintegrated.bsky.social & @serenariccitelli.bsky.social in Annual Review of Vision Science 👇

tinyurl.com/ymp3vs4d

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Marla Feller @mfeller.bsky.social · May 16

This is a fantastic up-to-date summary of modern questions in retinal circuits, clearly presented and with great figures!. Required reading for anyone interested in the amazing computational capabilities of neural circuits. Congrats and a big thank-you to the authors.

Anna Vlasits @annaintegrated.bsky.social · May 16

It was great fun to write this review together with @katrinfranke.bsky.social and @serenariccitelli.bsky.social on behavior-specific computations in the moose retina.

Katrin Franke @katrinfranke.bsky.social · May 15

65 years after Lettvin’s bug detector neurons in the frog retina, we revisit how the retina drives behavior—from reflexes to prey capture to brain-state modulation

New review with @annaintegrated.bsky.social & @serenariccitelli.bsky.social in Annual Review of Vision Science 👇

tinyurl.com/ymp3vs4d

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Serena Riccitelli @serenariccitelli.bsky.social · May 16

Honoured to collaborate with @katrinfranke.bsky.social & @annaintegrated.bsky.social on this review - great teamwork!! Thanks to @annualreviews.bsky.social 📚

Katrin Franke @katrinfranke.bsky.social · May 15

65 years after Lettvin’s bug detector neurons in the frog retina, we revisit how the retina drives behavior—from reflexes to prey capture to brain-state modulation

New review with @annaintegrated.bsky.social & @serenariccitelli.bsky.social in Annual Review of Vision Science 👇

tinyurl.com/ymp3vs4d

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David @dav1dcg.bsky.social · Apr 27

Motor and vestibular signals in the visual cortex permit the separation of self versus externally generated visual motion: doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...

Cells in the primary visual cortex receive running, translation, and visual motion signals to accurately process visual flow information.

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Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · Apr 24

First big new @simonsfoundation.org neuroscience collaboration launches - exciting!! The product of a HUGE competition among the best minds and teams.

Congrats to this group:

www.simonsfoundation.org/neuroscience...

Simons Collaboration on Ecological Neuroscience

The mission of the Simons Collaboration on Ecological NEuroscience (SCENE) is to understand how affordances offered by the world shape representations in the mind and the brain.

www.simonsfoundation.org

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OpenBehavior @openbehavior.bsky.social · Jan 17

The DREAM implant is a novel design for chronic electrophysiology in mice that is lightweight, adaptable, and cost-effective. @ZeroNoiseLab @3DNeuro @DondersInstitute

Read about it in this week's post on OpenBehavior:
edspace.american.edu/openbehavior...

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Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · Feb 2

It's finally out!

Visual experience orthogonalizes visual cortical responses

Training in a visual task changes V1 tuning curves in odd ways. This effect is explained by a simple convex transformation. It orthogonalizes the population, making it easier to decode.

10.1016/j.celrep.2025.115235

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Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · Feb 7

Neuropixels and Optogenetics are delighted to announce the birth of

Neuropixels Opto

Combining high-resolution electrophysiology and optogenetics

Today in bioRxiv

960 sites, 28 emitters, 2 colors

By Lakunina, @karolinazsocha.bsky.social, Ladd, et al

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

(1/2)

A Neuropixels Opto probe with 3 blue emitters and 3 red emitters lighting up in succession, with corresponding neural activity in different layers of the cortex.

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Tamas Dalmay @tdalmay.bsky.social · Feb 12

How do different sensory signals combine in the computation of cognitive maps? I’m thrilled to share our new preprint, in which we investigate this question in the context of the head-direction system:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Joint visual-vestibular computation of head direction and reflexive eye movement

Several cognitive maps have been identified, but what sensory signals drive them and how these are combined are not well understood. One such map, the head-direction representation, is believed to be ...

www.biorxiv.org

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