🚨 New paper in @nature.com We asked why two hippocampal areas with very different anatomy, CA3 and CA1, often seem to code space so similarly? By recording bats flying up to 200m, we found that the difference was hidden by scale! www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵 1/11

Where, exactly, does learning happen in the brain? Out today in @nature.com, we identify a synaptic locus of birdsong learning and show that the circuit can be tuned to make birds learn faster - but at a cost. Read on👇 #neuroskyence 🧪 #prattle 💬 #bioacoustics Shareable link: rdcu.be/fiyrS

More control wires enable finer control. The Banerjee lab's findings on the neuroanatomical underpinnings of vocal dexterity neatly tie in with a recurring motif in brain evolution: pre-existing pathways can be selectively expanded to increase sensorimotor control and expand behavioral repertoires.

Striking results showing "swimming" brains in fish endocasts, demonstrating that endocasts are a poor predictor of brain morphology in ray-finned fish.

New paper in Animal Behaviour: After centuries of debate, we finally have direct evidence that common cuckoos use different egg-laying tactics 🥚 doi.org/10.1016/j.an... Check the appendix videos! #ornithology #broodparasitism #cuckoo @animbehsociety.bsky.social @ivb-cas.bsky.social

Super interesting paper on the brains of vocalizing seals and sea lions. Highlighting the role of the thalamus for volitional vocal control in both mammals and birds!

For decades biologists assumed ravens follow wolves to their kills. Our paper @science.org shows something different: ravens rarely follow wolves far. Instead they remember areas where wolf kills are common and return to them—sometimes from >150 km away. doi.org/10.1126/science.adz9467 📷Dan Stahler

Neat study suggesting proboscis dexterity is improved by learning in an invertebrate.

Nice commentary on our recent paper on crow stick tool use. To add one piece of information: One of our crows did, in fact, sometimes use the substrate (i.e., the apparatus desk) to adjust its grip—the crow for which stick re-grasping by tossing was too subtle to be reliably detected.

After the Ngogo chimpanzee group killed 21 members of neighboring groups and expanded their territory by 22%, female birth rates more than doubled and infant survival increased sharply—showing clear fitness benefits from intergroup killing. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/TKmf50XuPjY

As a longtime fan of cool papers in @currentbiology.bsky.social, I am really thrilled to see this out! This study sets the stage for understanding the origins of novel (vocal) behaviors. Big shout out to the main architects of this work @xmikezheng20.bsky.social and @cliffscience.bsky.social

Researchers gave female canaries testosterone, which causes them to sing. Two-photon in vivo imaging reveals that songs emerge due to changes in brain cell function rather than by increasing the size of a key brain region, as was once thought. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/pn1750XhFL5

Great Dispatch piece by @milliejohnston.bsky.social et al.. Our crows are very flattered: "Great skill can be found in the dextrous movements of a tool tip. [ ] from cave paintings and papyrus scripts to Da Vinci’s sketches and today’s remote laparoscopic surgery." www.cell.com/current-biol...

🐦 21 species all produce similar whining noises towards their brood parasites 🐦 Found in areas w/dense parasite-host networks 🐦 Playbacks trigger innate recruit response from all hosts 🐦 --> intermediate b/t innate & learned signals! www.nature.com/articles/s41... #prattle 💬 #bioacoustics 2/2

A 2024 study found that ants best humans at tests of collective intelligence. Learn more on #WorldAnimalDay: https://scim.ag/42nMvQJ

🌆🐀Scientific American article about the project we're starting on NYC rats!! scientificamerican.com/article/scie... w/ Emily Mackevicius, Dima Batenkov, @zamakany.bsky.social, @basisresearch.bsky.social Seeking collaborators and funders 🐀🌆

Ein Forschungsteam der @unituebingen.bsky.social zeigt, wie Krähen lernen, ein Stäbchen präzise im Schnabel zu führen, um damit an Futter zu gelangen: 👉 uni-tuebingen.de/universitaet... #Neurobiologie #Biologie #Forschung

New paper on precise tool use learning in carrion crows @currentbiology.bsky.social. We show that—like New Caledonian crows—expert carrion crows pay close attention to the working end of their tool, suggesting tool integration into their peripersonal space. 🧵 & vids! 👇 www.cell.com/current-biol...

Cool new paper on how neurons in my favorite bird's brain encode time. Congrats Millie and Max!! @milliejohnston.bsky.social , @crowbrain.bsky.social

Cool new method (functional ultrasound imaging) now established in the crow by @daliao.bsky.social and colleagues: www.jneurosci.org/content/45/2...

Amazing meeting with amazing people!

Our paper on brain size evolution in birds of paradise was recently accepted! In brief: •BoPs have big brains, comparable to those of medium-sized corvids •Neither absolute nor relative brain size appears to have co-evolved with display complexity doi.org/10.1093/orni...

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

Our first look at midbrain PAG’s role in singing mouse vocal control. When near each other, these mice produce two divergent vocal modes. Same circuits for USVs and Songs—or different ones? Bets were made..some of us bought beers for others! Led by @xmikezheng20.bsky.social & Clifford Harpole. 👇🏽

Nature research paper: Convergent vocal representations in parrot and human forebrain motor networks https://go.nature.com/4iEIBsz

Proud to have contributed to @jiaxuanqi.bsky.social's masterpiece out @nature.com! She shows that dopamine transients track the learned quality of song during juvenile learning and that dopamine release is driven not just by VTA firing, but by a local cholinergic mechanism! (1/x)

Excited to share our latest work! It’s been a great experience working on this (including building a whole new lab!) 😊 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Now published in JCN: "Exploring Anatomical Links Between the Crow's Nidopallium Caudolaterale and Its Song System" In crows (which are songbirds!), we show that the song system is paralleled by the 'general motor system' (cf. Feenders, 2008; Farries, 2001). onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....