Cedric Boeckx
@cedricboeckx.bsky.social
📤 2015
📥 279
📝 734
ICREA Research Professor. Evolution, Genetics, Neuroscience, Linguistic Cognition
pinned post!
First post on this platform 👋. Glad to reconnect with old friends, and also learn from new contacts. Will post about intersecting themes: human evolution, genetics (esp. aDNA), neuroscience & cognition. Currently focusing on brain organoids and early developmental changes that may have had an impact
10 months ago
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Yun S. Song
about 7 hours ago
We are excited to share GPN-Star, a cost-effective, biologically grounded genomic language modeling framework that achieves state-of-the-art performance across a wide range of variant effect prediction tasks relevant to human genetics.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Marco Trizzino
about 1 hour ago
Our study on the role of LTR5HS and SVAs in regulation of human neural crest migration is now published as peer-reviewed paper on
@molsystbiol.org
! Congrats to first author brilliant postdoc Laura Deelen, and all the authors involved!
@imperialsci.bsky.social
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
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Armin Lak
2 days ago
Beautiful and clear results showing that temporal difference error calculation is hardwired in the dopamine/striatum mircocircuits:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
from
@malcolmgcampbell.bsky.social
and
@naoshigeuchida.bsky.social
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A hardwired neural circuit for temporal difference learning
The neurotransmitter dopamine plays a major role in learning by acting as a teaching signal to update the brain's predictions about rewards. A leading theory proposes that this process is analogous to...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.18.677203v1
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Delighted I could join the symposium "Of Cells & Embryos", celebrating
@amartinezarias.bsky.social
's work. Gaudi's Pedrera was the perfect setting. Alfonso opened doors, brought light, and offered new perspectives. (His book, The Master Builder, is excellent. Conversations with him are even better.)
2 days ago
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Denis Jabaudon
3 days ago
Ever wondered how robust cellular identity is to external perturbations? Here we disrupt cellular environmnent in vivo and in vitro, and find cell population specific sensitivities. Environment sculpts development yes, but not all cells are made of the same wood.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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Cell-extrinsic controls over neocortical neuron fate and diversity
Cell-extrinsic cues are key for neocortical cell identity and diversity.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adw0218
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Aurelie Hintermann
5 days ago
Are digits modified fins, or evolutionary innovations? Read how we tackled this old question from a new angle🧪 A story with
@chasebolt.bsky.social
,
@homeobox.bsky.social
and myself, coordinated by
@denisduboule.bsky.social
from
@college-de-france.fr
and published in
@nature.com
today!
#InHoxWeTrust
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Jesse Engreitz
4 days ago
Excited for a major milestone in our efforts to map enhancers and interpret variants in the human genome: The E2G Portal!
e2g.stanford.edu
This collates our predictions of enhancer-gene regulatory interactions across >1,600 cell types and tissues. Uses cases 👇 1/
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Michael Totty
4 days ago
Very excited to share my second postdoc, now out in Science Advances! We used targeted snRNA-seq to profile four major subnuclei of the primate across three species (including humans). 1/13
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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Transcriptomic diversity of amygdalar subdivisions across humans and nonhuman primates
Specialized cell types and links to psychiatric disorders are revealed by genetic mapping of primate amygdala neurons.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adw1029
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Nadav Ahituv
5 days ago
Most neurodevelopmental disorders are caused by having 1 functional gene copy. Using SCN2A, we show that upregulating the functional copy rescues neuronal phenotypes. Amazing work with
@neurobender.bsky.social
led by Serena Tamura, Andrew Nelson, Perry Spratt & others.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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CRISPR activation for SCN2A-related neurodevelopmental disorders | Nature
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09522-w
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Matthew Cobb
5 days ago
Less than a quarter of a century after the completion of ‘the’ human genome, the astonishing UK Biobank database (includes my sister!) has completed the whole genome sequencing of nearly **half a million** participants. An amazing resource.
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Whole-genome sequencing of 490,640 UK Biobank participants - Nature
A study reports whole-genome sequences for 490,640 participants from the UK Biobank and combines these data with phenotypic data to provide new insights into the relationship between human variation a...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09272-9
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Great preprint deepening our understanding of the human nucleus accumbens and its relevance to neuropsychiatric disease 🧪🧠🧬
@prashanthi-ravi.bsky.social
@svitlana-bach.bsky.social
@kr-maynard.bsky.social
@martinowk.bsky.social
@stephaniehicks.bsky.social
@alexisbattle.bsky.social
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6 days ago
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Insightful
@cp-cellreports.bsky.social
study by Chiara Ossala
@stefaniafaletti.bsky.social
@nereokalebic.bsky.social
& collaborators establishing adducins as critical regulators of neural progenitor proliferation and fate 🧪🧬🧠
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
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Adducins regulate morphology and fate of neural progenitors during neocortical neurogenesis
Ossola et al. show that morphoregulatory adducins (ADD1–3) underlie correct basal progenitor morphology and apical progenitor spindle orientation during mammalian neocortical development. Depletion of...
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(25)01047-2
6 days ago
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Jonathan Tsay
7 days ago
The cerebellum isn’t just about coordinating movement. It’s implicated in nearly every domain of cognition—from language to social behavior. But how exactly does the cerebellum contribute to action and cognition? 🧵 Check out our new paper w/ Rich Ivry.
arxiv.org/abs/2509.09818
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Cerebellar Contributions to Action and Cognition: Prediction, Timescale, and Continuity
The cerebellum is implicated in nearly every domain of human cognition, yet our understanding of how this subcortical structure contributes to cognition remains elusive. Efforts on this front have ten...
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.09818
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Kevin Mitchell
9 days ago
This kind of work is really starting to reveal cellular mechanisms of neurodevelopmental disorders in humans
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Terrific resource from
@gleesonlab.bsky.social
A phenotypic brain organoid atlas for neurodevelopmental disorders 🧪🧠🧬🧫
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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A phenotypic brain organoid atlas for neurodevelopmental disorders
Thousands of genes are associated with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), yet mechanisms and targeted treatments remain elusive. To fill these gaps, we present a CIRM-initiated NDD biobank of 352 pu...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.12.675864v1
9 days ago
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Very cool study by
@oyiz.bsky.social
using optogenetics to shed light on how oxytocin signaling regulates vocalization to maintain maternal bonds (with nice write-up by
@bellonec.bsky.social
, “Cries into ties” indeed) 🧪
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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Cries into ties
Oxytocin neurons in mouse pups regulate vocalization to maintain maternal bonds
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea8966
10 days ago
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Another excellent study led by
@astarr2.bsky.social
; here revealing widespread adaptive evolution of human neurons 🧪🧠🧬
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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A framework to detect positive selection using variant effect predictions reveals widespread adaptive evolution of human neurons
Detecting positive selection is essential to understanding evolution. Many methods to detect positive selection use simple classifications of genetic variants (e.g. synonymous/nonsynonymous). Here, we...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.11.675696v1
10 days ago
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Clyde Francks
10 days ago
New
@maxplanck.de
study: We looked for left-right differences of gene expression and cell-type abundances in the brains of MICE 🐭using Xenium
@10xgenomics.bsky.social
. Possible clues to how functional brain asymmetry is supported !!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Short thread below ⬇️
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Great preprint by
@sofievalk.bsky.social
@diedrichsenjorn.bsky.social
@amarquand.bsky.social
& collaborators showing how human cerebellar growth is associated with domain-specific cerebral maturation and socio-linguistic behavioral outcomes 🧪🧠
#cerebellum
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Cerebellar growth is associated with domain-specific cerebral maturation and socio-linguistic behavioral outcomes
The cerebellum's involvement in cognitive functions is increasingly recognized, yet its developmental contribution to cognition remains poorly understood. The cerebellum undergoes rapid development in...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.11.675513v1
10 days ago
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Alessandro Gozzi
12 days ago
🚨 Excited to share the latest preprint form the lab ➡️https://tinyurl.com/32d3be9f Here we tackle a long-standing chicken-or-egg 🐣🥚question in
#autism
and developmental neuroscience ➡️ Is excitation–inhibition (E:I) imbalance a "cause" or a "consequence" of
#autism
? Check out what we found! 🧵1/n
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Science Magazine
17 days ago
New research identifies Galectin-3 as a key regulator of neural development, establishing its contribution to brain growth. Learn more in this week’s issue of
#ScienceAdvances
:
https://scim.ag/46mJrGO
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Great new preprint by
@suelkeekim.bsky.social
N. Sestan and collaborators, probing Human-specific features of the cerebellum by highlighting shared and divergent features across primates — key difference lies in synapse development 🧪🧠🧬
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Human-specific features of the cerebellum and ZP2-regulated synapse development
Understanding the unique features of the human brain compared to non-human primates has long intrigued humankind. The cerebellum refines motor coordination and cognitive functions, contributing to the...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.08.674970v1
13 days ago
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Mick Craig
18 days ago
There's a very cool Buzsaki
#neuroskyence
paper out in Science this week, looking at hippocampal spatial information encoding by multiple interneuron subtypes in parallel. The brilliant
@agonru.bsky.social
and I wrote a wee perspective to go alongside it:
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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Do inhibitory interneurons encode information or just keep the rhythm?
Inhibitory interneurons may help encode the brain’s internal representation of space
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea6738
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New preprint by
@labnowakowski.bsky.social
& colleagues: Sex differences in the developing human cortex intersect with genetic risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, identifying “two points of vulnerability contributing to the sex-biased penetrance in neurodevelopmental disorders” 🧪🧠🧬
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Sex differences in the developing human cortex intersect with genetic risk of neurodevelopmental disorders
Autism is highly heritable and diagnosed more frequently in males than females. To identify neurodevelopmental processes that might present sex-biased vulnerability, we generated transcriptomic and ep...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.04.674293v1
17 days ago
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18 days ago
We are all super happy and proud to see our work on the function and evolution of the
#cephalic
#furrow
published in
@nature.com
. Let me say a few things about the background and history of this work on the
#Evolution_of_Morphogenesis
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“We propose a model in which Transcription Factor binding is not determined by individual binding sites, but rather by the sum of multiple, overlapping binding sites” 🧪🧬
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18 days ago
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International Brain Laboratory
19 days ago
Two flagship papers from the International Brain Laboratory, now out in @Nature.com: 🧠 Brain-wide map of neural activity during complex behaviour:
doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09235-0
🧠 Brain-wide representations of prior information in mouse decision-making:
doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09226-1
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Katerina Harvati
19 days ago
There is still time to apply to these great early career opportunities!! Three Junior Research Group leader positions at the new University of Tübingen Cluster of Excellence 'HUMAN ORIGINS' (in biomechanics, phenotype-genotype interactions, experimental archaeology - see links) Deadline Sept. 10!
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Pierre Vanderhaeghen
19 days ago
New from the lab: Fatty Acid Metabolism Sets the Species-specific Tempo of Cortical Development through Protein Acetylation Dynamics. Led by amazing trio:
@ryo2iwata.bsky.social
, Isabel Gallego,
@emirerkol.bsky.social
, together with
@steinaerts.bsky.social
,
@fendtlab.bsky.social
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Species-specific Rates of Fatty Acid Metabolism Set the Scale of Temporal Patterning of Corticogenesis through Protein Acetylation Dynamics
Developmental processes display temporal differences across species, leading to divergence in organ size and composition. In the cerebral cortex, neurons of diverse identities are generated sequential...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.27.672586v1
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Idoia Quintana-Urzainqui
20 days ago
🧠🦈Excited to present our latest work🧠🦈Interested in brain evolution? And shark embryos? Then read on… Our work sheds light on the deep origins of our brain’s most complex regions.
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Nice piece by
@mathiesoniain.bsky.social
on polygenic prediction of human complex traits using ancient DNA (h/t
@evobioclio.bsky.social
) 🧪🧬
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Polygenic prediction of human complex traits using ancient DNA
Ancient DNA has revolutionized our understanding of human history and clarified many aspects of human evolution on a molecular level. In this article,…
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959437X25000887
21 days ago
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Greg Priest
24 days ago
New study on
#BlueSky
for
#SciComm
. “Bluesky posts demonstrate substantially higher levels of interaction (likes, reposts, replies, and quotes) and greater textual originality than previously reported for X, suggesting both stronger interactive and more interpretive engagement.” 🦋🦫🌱🐋🧪
#philsci
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Research posts on Bluesky are more original — and get better engagement
Bluesky posts about science garner more likes and reposts than similar ones on X.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02741-1
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New preprint from
@kuhlwilm.bsky.social
’s lab: Genomic Landscapes of Natural Selection in Great Apes 🧪🧬
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Genomic Landscapes of Natural Selection in Great Apes
Background: Great apes are a primate clade with unique biological features. The different species and subspecies have adapted to their respective habitats and followed various evolutionary trajectorie...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.29.673040v1
23 days ago
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Very good essay on human non-uniqueness, by
@katewong.bsky.social
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24 days ago
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Reposting this bit of good news (all too rare these days). Congrats to
@richardsever.bsky.social
@johninglis.bsky.social
& the whole
@biorxivpreprint.bsky.social
team, for their vision, dedication and transformative impact (well done
@royalsociety.org
)
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25 days ago
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“A mouse organoid platform for modeling cerebral cortex development and cis-regulatory evolution in vitro” Nice work by
@danielmedinacano.bsky.social
@tvierbuchen.bsky.social
@em6wong.bsky.social
@stadtfeldlab.bsky.social
🧪🧫🧠
www.cell.com/developmenta...
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A mouse organoid platform for modeling cerebral cortex development and cis-regulatory evolution in vitro
Medina-Cano et al. report a new protocol for the reproducible generation of cerebral cortical organoids from mouse epiblast stem cells, which recapitulate the developmental tempo, cytoarchitecture, an...
https://www.cell.com/developmental-cell/abstract/S1534-5807(25)00501-5
25 days ago
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Great thread by
@tdcapellini.bsky.social
highlighting the key questions & findings of their
@nature.com
study about the steps it took us to become bipedal (work led by
@gayani.bsky.social
) — lots of regulatory changes reshaping the ilium 🧪 👇
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25 days ago
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“The evolution of hominin bipedalism in two steps”
@nature.com
study by
@gayani.bsky.social
@tdcapellini.bsky.social
& collaborators 🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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The evolution of hominin bipedalism in two steps - Nature
The human pelvis exhibits distinct spatiotemporal ossification patterns and an ilium cartilage growth plate that is shifted perpendicularly compared with those of other mammals and non-human primates—...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09399-9
26 days ago
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Cedric Boeckx
Richard Sever
26 days ago
Very honored to receive the Royal Society Research Culture Award - this represents the work of a great team who've worked non-stop since we launched bioRxiv in 2013
royalsociety.org/news/2025/08...
www.cshl.edu/inglis-and-s...
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Invisibility cloak pioneer Sir John Pendry awarded Royal Society’s top prize | Royal Society
The Royal Society announces the medals and awards recipients 2025
https://royalsociety.org/news/2025/08/medals-and-awards-recipients-2025/
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“Candidate Denisovan fossils identified through gene regulatory phenotyping”
@david-gokhman.bsky.social
@nadavmishol.bsky.social
@lirancarmel.bsky.social
and colleagues 🧪🧬💀
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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26 days ago
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“An integrated transcriptomic and proteomic map of the mouse hippocampus at synaptic resolution” 🧪🧠🧬 Great study (+resource) by
@evakaulich.bsky.social
Erin Schuman and colleagues
@natcomms.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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An integrated transcriptomic and proteomic map of the mouse hippocampus at synaptic resolution - Nature Communications
Understanding the brain’s diversity requires spatially resolved maps of transcripts and proteins. Here, the authors construct an integrated molecular atlas of the mouse hippocampus revealing loca...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63119-5
26 days ago
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Michael Haslam
27 days ago
New study led by Joanna Baker shows bigger brains and relatively longer thumbs coevolved in primates. Humans have huge thumbs, but only what our brain size (esp. neocortex) would predict. It’s NOT driven by tool use. A fantastic paper with a huge amount of work, and superb data presentation 🧪🏺👍🧠💀🐒🦧
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Human dexterity and brains evolved hand in hand - Communications Biology
Thumbs and brains coevolved in primates. Across living and extinct species, longer thumbs predict bigger brains, highlighting the neural cost of dexterity.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-025-08686-5
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Andreas Horn
about 1 month ago
🚨 New preprint out! 🚨 “Translating the Transcriptome: A Connectomics Approach for Gene-Network Mapping and Clinical Application” 🔗
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
 🧵 A short thread:
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Another great instance of
#introgression
among hominins 🧪
@science.org
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about 1 month ago
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Fernando Villanea
about 1 month ago
Our paper on the evolution of MUC19 in humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans is finally out today in Science! This has been a six-year effort by 13 authors to weave together 3 separate but related evolutionary stories around this one gene (more on thread 🧵).
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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The MUC19 gene: An evolutionary history of recurrent introgression and natural selection
We study the gene MUC19, for which some modern humans carry a Denisovan-like haplotype. MUC19 is a mucin, a glycoprotein that forms gels with various biological functions. We find diagnostic variants ...
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl0882
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🤯-level preprint. Very cool work by
@sebastiancachero.bsky.social
@jefferis.bsky.social
@erikadona.bsky.social
👇
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about 1 month ago
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Greg Jefferis
about 1 month ago
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
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“findings suggest that the bridge that supports spatial and numerical learning in humans is rooted in primate cognition” (Study led by
@cantlonlab.bsky.social
) 👇
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about 1 month ago
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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈
about 1 month ago
Hey everybody!
@drjuliawester.bsky.social
and I have a new paper! We surveyed over 800 scientists, science communicators, and science educators who use social media. Conclusion: Scientists no longer find Twitter useful or pleasant, and many have switched to Bluesky! 🧪🌎🦑
doi.org/10.1093/icb/...
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Scientists no Longer Find Twitter Professionally Useful, and have Switched to Bluesky
Synopsis. Social media has become widely used by the scientific community for a variety of professional uses, including networking and public outreach. For
https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icaf127
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Beautiful work from James Li’s lab, out in
@natneuro.nature.com
, dissecting the role of FOXP genes [mostly, FOXP1 and FOXP2] in regulating Purkinje cell diversity and cerebellar hemisphere developnent 🧪🧠🧬
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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FOXP genes regulate Purkinje cell diversity and cerebellar morphogenesis - Nature Neuroscience
The Li lab mapped molecularly distinct Purkinje cell (PC) subtypes in 3D and linked them to adult cerebellar architecture. They found that Foxp1/Foxp2 are essential for PC diversity and that Foxp1+ PC...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-025-02042-w
about 1 month ago
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