🪰 How do dozens of tiny fly muscles cooperate to move a leg? We’re excited to share the first 3D, data-driven musculoskeletal model of Drosophila legs based on Hill-type muscles, running in OpenSim and MuJoCo simulation environments. Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2509.06426

Thanks Misha for the shout-out! It has been a truly mind-opening journey. WHOLISTIC is one step towards whole-organism neuroscience and a true physiological observatory - with extensions on the way! I am continually amazed by what the data reveals - so much remains to be discovered and mined.

Preprint - Excited to present WHOLISTIC, which extends the concept of whole-brain functional imaging to the entire body. Pioneering work by incredibly talented Virginia Ruetten @vmsruetten.bsky.social, this platform reveals whole-organism cellular dynamics in vivo. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Hey spinal/ventral nerve cord folks. we’re organizing this cross species “cords” meeting @hhmijanelia.bsky.social . Hurry up and upload your abstracts. As a trainee these were my favorite meetings (small and focused) where I got the most useful feedback. DM in case of any Qs.

Nice article in the transmitter about connectome-enabled brain models, covering @lappalainenjk.bsky.social’s work with @srinituraga.bsky.social and colleagues!!

The MICrONS papers are finally out. Very happy to have been part of this. Joint work of so many labs lead by @andreastolias.bsky.social and Xaq Pitkow. Large scale efforts and data resources like these combined with cutting edge AI methods are great avenues to drive neuroscience forward.

🚨iGluSnFR4 is finally out!🚨🧪 We present iGluSnFR4f and 4s, a novel pair of genetically-encoded glutamate indicators designed for high-fidelity imaging of synaptic activity in the living brain. ⬇️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🎥 Below: iGluSnFR4s detecting minis in cultures w/ TTX #Neuroscience

Igor Siwanowicz of @hhmijanelia.bsky.social captured these photos of pollen grains on the sigma of a morning glory flower. This is part of the early stage in creating a seed, it might also be the reason why you can’t stop sneezing!

Thrilled to share the latest paper from the lab! Huge congrats to first author Dr. Celine Drieu and the amazing team of Ziyi Zhu, Sarah Elnozahy, Joy Wang, Aaron Wang, and Kylie Fuller! Lots of fun stuff in the paper so check it out - and let us know what you think :)

🥼 Janelia researchers led by @boazmohar.bsky.social @nspruston.bsky.social @rhodamine110.bsky.social & @svoboda314.bsky.social @alleninstitute.bsky.social have developed a new imaging tool that maps brain-wide changes in neuronal connections. 🧠 🔗 www.janelia.org/news/new-ima...

Can you spot the difference between the cells on the left and right? Read on for the solution (and a preprint announcement)… 👇 1/6

🪰A connectome of the fruit fly visual system & classification of its 53K neurons unlock new possibilities for probing vision in fruit flies hhmi.news/3XyqYCy 🔗Read more about these #openscience tools from our FlyEM Project Team & collaborators, first published as a 2024 #preprint: hhmi.news/4iIsavL

I know there's a 𝒍𝒐𝒕 going on right now, but I couldn’t be prouder to share this long-incubated labor of love: the complete connectome of the male 𝐷𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑜𝑝ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑎 optic lobe 🧠🪰 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I am sadly not at #Cosyne2025, but if you are, don't miss @sarahpugly.bsky.social's wild poster on how she used connectome simulations to discover a central pattern generator circuit that controls the fly walking rhythm. A collabo w @bingbrunton.bsky.social. Poster 2-042. Fri 3/28 (1:15-3:45pm)

There's a Korean soap opera on Netflix (When the Stars Gossip) which has *Drosophila courtship in space* as a major plot point (Ep 2). They have Michael Reiser & lab's flight arenas (you can see Janelia & MIchael's initials on the panels). Great way to learn about Drosophila courtship!

Join us for the CAJAL NeuroAI summer course in Lisbon July 14-Aug 1. We have a great line-up of speakers from a diverse range of topics across NeuroAI. Check out our website for more details and help us spread the word: cajal-training.org/on-site/neur... Applications are due March 7!

Really excited for this 3 week NeuroAI summer school in Lisbon! We have course faculty from a range of neuro domains (language, vision, decision making, memory), and neuro levels (low level to cognitive). There will also be a project advised by our exciting lineup of course faculty! Come join us!

We‘re organizing this year’s Cajal NeuroAI summer course at Champalimaud in Lisbon. We have an amazing lineup of speakers across several computational approaches and species. Please repost to spread the word and/or apply!

This summer course is going to be awesome! Please repost and tell your students/postdocs/everyone to apply. We have lots of excellent faculty as well as lectures on #connectome modeling by yours truly and Jonathan Pillow.

I enjoy @markdhumphries.bsky.social's annual review every year-- this year particularly excited for the coverage of fly connectomics, and the shout-out to our paper on our task-trained and connectome-constrained model of the fly visual system @lappalainenjk.bsky.social @srinituraga.bsky.social!

Learn about the periodic ER organization along neurites in insects and vertebrates and its potential role in long-range Ca2+ signal integration www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... by the fabulous @lorenabenedetti.bsky.social and friends.

Just in time for your holiday reading, Janne’s @lappalainenjk.bsky.social blogpost on his recent work with Srini @srinituraga.bsky.social et al! Happily holidays!

Thanks for the shoutout, @tyrellturing.bsky.social!

We’re #hiring Theory Fellows. 🥼 Our Computation & Theory research area is recruiting early-career scientists to test theories, collaborate across research areas & tackle fundamental questions in biology. Apply by Jan. 7 ➡️ janelia.link/theoryfellow... #computationalbiology

Horace Barlow, by all accounts, was thinking about 30 years ahead of his time. Here is a transcript of the opening keynote I gave at a symposium honoring Horace's scientific legacy: markusmeister.com/2024/12/14/h....

Scientists - consider writing up your research for Frontiers for Young Minds (if you are brave enough to face kid reviewers 😉). Here's how: kids.frontiersin.org/participate/... Like Liza Fazio! @lkfazio.bsky.social Or Yann LeCun! @ylecun.bsky.social kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10....

We're at the threshold of understanding intelligence itself. The convergence of neuroscience and AI has created an unprecedented opportunity — but our research ecosystem isn't built to seize it. We need a new model that matches the scale of our ambition... 🧵

This paper is magical.

Fresh off the press, our work on wing deployment in Drosophila 🪰: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Work by: Simon Hadjaje, Ignacio Andrade-Silva, Marie-Julie Dalbe and Raphaël Clément

Come join us at @hhmijanelia.bsky.social if you’re interested in helping build a whole animal model of the fruit fly!

We welcome our next Keynote Speaker, Srini Turaga, for a talk on "Simulating the brain and body of the fruit fly".

First BlueSky post 🙂 Thanks for linking to our work modeling the fly visual system!

Excited to have this paper out (rdcu.be/d0T3Y)! In it, we focused on how flies know what to attend to in a complex environment (like below)? We uncovered neuronal pathways through which social states (like aggression 🥊) modulate visual processing in #Drosophila. #WomenInSTEM #neuroscience 🧪 1/

🪰New research led by Sr. Group Leader Gerry Rubin & Postdoc Katie Schretter (@ceschretter.bsky.social) uses the fruit fly connectome & genetically modified flies developed at Janelia to uncover how aggressive female fruit flies regulate their vision to focus on what’s important. hhmi.news/3ZBi33g

Here are some important populations of columnar neurons in the #Drosophila right optic lobe, from the #connectome released in April 2024 again. Note the subtle variations in morphologies. I made this video with Michael Reiser ( @michaelreiser.bsky.social), using neuVid driving #Blender.