25 years ago, we implicated rare variants of the FOXP2 gene in a severe speech disorder. I’ve spent much time stressing that FOXP2, while interesting, is not the mythical “gene for language”. Weirdly, on occasion I also need to explain why it’s not “proof of aliens”. Full disclosure in this 🧵. 1/n 🧪

🔁 LOOPs is at FENS 🎉 we're exited to be represented with several talks by @grohlex.bsky.social, @tobiasstaudigl.bsky.social, and Johannes Letzkus, alongside multiple posters from across the LOOPs consortium. Stay tuned for highlights and updates! #FENS2026 #Neuroscience #SPP2411 #BrainLoops

🔁 LOOPs Webinars! We’ve got an exciting series of talks coming up from leading researchers across neuroscience. Take a look at the schedule below and join us for some fascinating science all year long! 🧠 Don’t miss: June 10th with Dr. Sarah Ruediger 🔗 Register: www.crowdcast.io/c/loops-semi...

Neuropixels + Optogenetics = Neuropixels Opto Combining high-resolution electrophysiology and optogenetics. 960 sites, 28 emitters, 2 colors. Today in @natmethods.nature.com doi.org/10.1038/s415... Thanks to @wellcometrust.bsky.social, @alleninstitute.org, @hhmijanelia.bsky.social & team.

Do not miss the next session of the LOOPS webinar :)

Tympanic hearing is the textbook example to explain hearing. But, many tetrapods lack tympanic middle ear systems. Here, it is modelled whether non-tympanic hearing can be explained with sounds inducing head vibrations that are detected by the inner ear. journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

Check out our new paper on how single neurons in the Auditory cortex encode future vocalizations in bats! Really glad to see this out, and big thanks to @susannebabl.bsky.social and Dennis Röhrig

Today starts the 3rd "Senses in Motion" 👀👂👃🤚👅🧭 conference on "Sensory Processing in Freely Moving Animals" in the Harnack Haus in Berlin @maxplanck.de organised by @sepikeshavarzi.bsky.social , @petrznam.bsky.social and Jason Kerr @mpinb.mpg.de 🧠🧪 ↘️ sensesinmotion.org ↙️

Really inspiring and thought-provoking perspective. Thanks for sharing!

🚨 Nominate a neuroethologist for the Mosaic Prize by May 31! The ISN Mosaic Prize seeks to identify and acknowledge individuals in the neuroethology community for their contribution and commitment to making the research environment more inclusive. For more info: www.neuroethology.org/mosaic-prize/

Rethinking hierarchy: the auditory system as an integrated cortical–subcortical network www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The prize that could make ‘talking to the animals’ a reality Scientists are decoding the chirps, squeaks and calls of finches, bonobos and more in pursuit of a $10m award aimed at understanding how animals communicate, James Tapper reports https://bit.ly/4nDelSF

On central circuit control from my lab, in collaboration with @tonyzador.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨🔄 New LOOPs webinar!! We’re excited to host our May webinar feat. @jasperpoort.bsky.social as he shares insights on how superior colliculus and visual cortex contribute to visual detection during natural behaviour 🧠✨ 🗓️ May 13th, 2026 ⏰ 16:00h CEST 📍 Register: www.crowdcast.io/c/loops-seminars-v2

My newly funded project is now featured on the FU department website! We explore multisensory processing and decision making in bats through a combination of behavioral experiments in the field and neural recordings in the lab 🌿🦇🧠 So excited to get started! www.bcp.fu-berlin.de/news/_2026/2...

How did singing mouse evolve its song? Two research manuscripts published today shed light on peripheral and central circuit modifications underlying this novel vocal capacity.

Really interesting study. Aerial hunting in bats without the stereotyped, highly conserved final buzz phase is a big surprise!

🗓️‼️Reminder: The deadline for the Assistant Professor position at the University of Puerto Rico is this Thursday. Don’t miss your chance to apply! Details here: sicb.org/jobs-and-fel...

⏰ Big update: deadline extended! Submissions invited for Nature Portfolio’s Loops Collection on circuits, feedback & cortical–subcortical loops, guest-edited by @talking-bat.bsky.social, Markus Rothermel & @stefanieliebe.bsky.social 📅 New deadline: August 19, 2026 🔗 www.nature.com/collections/...

How does the medial posterior parietal cortex contribute to temporal order memory? This study shows that population activity in macaque mPPC encodes evolving temporal context during encoding and synchronized retrieval dynamics that predict order judgments. journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

For echolocation-based orientation, a single call get reflected off many objects. @beetzjerome.bsky.social & @talking-bat.bsky.social show that cortical neurons of 🦇 process echoes of a cascade in a "first come, first served" strategy, intensity-independent. journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

Functional cerebellar connectomes interfacing motor adaptation and reinforcement feedback https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.25.714278v1

New paper alert: >80k nacelle-height recordings and stereo-thermal 3D tracks show that bats sing in the rotor-swept zone and circle turbine nacelles. We need smarter, species-sensitive curtailment that aligns both climate and biodiversity goals. #Bats #Conservation 🔗 doi.org/10.1038/s420...

Today, we’re thrilled to report “A right-hemispheric language network at single-neuron resolution”, the first systematic investigation into the #single #neuron correlates of #language functions in the #right #hemisphere of the #human #brain. #neuroskyence 🧪 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

There is still some time to apply for a 3-years PhD position in my lab. If you want to learn how to conduct brain recordings in freely moving bees.

How do fish localize sound without interaural cues? @johve.bsky.social et al. found a behavioral algorithm for directional hearing that predicts behavior from a pressure/motion phase comparison and accounts for how this relationship varies with distance. www.cell.com/current-biol...

🧠🧪🧵1/37 Our new paper on how pinniped (seal and sea lion) brains evolved to unlock vocal plasticity is this week's @science.org cover. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

What was the soundscape in the Jurassic? It is difficult to test how dinosaurs 🦕 sound. Scientists integrated phylogenetics, biomechanics, and simulations, to reconstruct the soundscape created by stridulatory insects 🦗 of the Jurassic. www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-9... #preprint

Neurons whose activity changes during vocalization are widespread across brain areas. Scientists from @talking-bat.bsky.social lab found that the activity of putative inhibitory and pyramidal neurons of bats 🦇 is differently modulated during vocal production. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

3-year Independent Post-doc in Animal Behavior based at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama! Three positions, each including salary & a research budget. Applications due April, 15th. DM if you are interesting in developing a project with us! stri.si.edu/academic-pro...

Check out our March issue! www.nature.com/neuro/volume...

First whole-brain recording of social sound processing in a vertebrate. Surprises start in the hindbrain; thalamus gates conspecific calls; male and female brains diverge downstream. Work by @joerghenninger.bsky.social, @mh123.bsky.social sky.social and team. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Have you ever asked yourself, how insect brains represent places? And whether insects do have place cells? Then move to Germany this summer and start your PhD in my lab. We conduct tetrode recordings from bumblebees that freely forage laboratory mazes. 🧠🐝#BeeSpace @erc.europa.eu @neuroethology.org

⏰ Deadline extended! Submit to @natureportfolio.nature.com’s Loops Collection on circuits, feedback & cortical-subcortical loops, guest-edited by @talking-bat.bsky.social, Markus Rothermel & @stefanieliebe.bsky.social 📅 New deadline: May 19, 2026 🔗 www.nature.com/collections/... Submit now! 🧠🔁

I just finished reading M. Coe’s book on the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphics which was stymied for ~100 yrs by an academic culture that spurned comparative work In the 1960s they embraced such an approach and 30yrs later the script was essentially solved I hope we follow Nanthia’s wise advice

Today is Friday, 13th, and we are missing 13 followers until we reach 1000 😱 Challenge for the end of the week: Can we reach a bluesky community of 1000 neuroethologists!? #Neuroethology 🧠🧪 Please share widely 🫶

Submit to our collection :) This is a fantastic opportunity to publish your work on cortico-subcortical loops

New preprint! We used neuropixels 2.0 in a small microbat (first time as far as I know) to show that: 1) slow and fast spiking neurons in auditory cortex respond differently when bats vocalize. 2) networks of (mostly) fast spiking neurons form right around the time of vocalization.

For decades, imaging has forced the same trade-off: Set a frame rate → sacrifice resolution or field of view to go fast. We break that rule Using an EVENT-BASED CAMERA, we record neural activity without frames. Signals are captured only where and when they occur: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🎉 New Year New LOOPs webinar Join us for our January webinar with Shizuko Hiryu from @doshishauniversity.bsky.social and see how bats “see” with sound and how their biological sonar inspires both biology and engineering. 🦇🧠 🗓️ January 21st ⏰ 10:30 AM CET 📍 Register: www.crowdcast.io/c/loops-semi...

A “universal” pattern of cortical brain oscillations may be less ubiquitous than previously proposed. By @claudia-lopez.bsky.social #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/brain-waves/...

Now out in Evolution @journal-evo.bsky.social Tetrapod vocal evolution reveals faster rates and higher-pitched sounds for mammals 🐘🦉🐸. Mammalian hearing likely allowed the rapid diversification of their vocalizations. Open access here: doi.org/10.1093/evol... #bioacoustics #animalcommunication

**When are brain waves causal???** #neuroskyence arxiv.org/html/2511.06...

🧠📢 New preprint alert Large-scale ephys is exploding but spike sorting remains the computational bottleneck. A 2-hr, 6-probe Neuropixels 2.0 Quad Base session can take over a week to sort on a single machine. Here's a better solution. 🧵 #neuroskyence #compneurosky

📣Join our last 2025 edition of the LOOPs Webinar 🧠➰ This month @agreco.bsky.social will explore how predictive processing shapes vision in both brains and AI - what models like PredNet reveal (and miss), and how new recurrent architectures combine feedback and variability for more robust perception.

This is so cool

Really cool. I wonder how many of these non-spiking neurons exist in the vertebrate brain, although they seem to be more prominent in invertebrates. @earlkmiller.bsky.social maybe these neurons could help understand what oscillations are/aren't doing? (I've been quietly following the discussions)

Textbook neurons are usually spiking. However, there exist plenty of non-spiking neurons whose information transmission is less understood. Shirahata et al. studied Ca-dynamics of non-spiking mechanosensory neurons in crickets that are sensitive to air flow. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Housing non-kin vampire bats evokes vocal convergence, i.e., calls become more similar than before housing the same individuals together. Food-sharing is linked to vocal convergence. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... @royalsocietypublishing.org

Our special issue on Evolutionary Functions of Consciousness, coedited with Tecumseh Fitch and Adina Roskies, now online royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/202... Contributions by (1) Irina Mikhalevich; (2) Eva Jablonka and Simona Ginsburg; (3) Nicholas Humphrey; (cont'd)