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 ⬇️

"Part of maturing as a field is to recognize its history: to decide what to keep, & what we must outgrow, both in how we train the next generation of researchers & in how we help the public make sense of our past." @dr-appie.bsky.social's nuanced take on social science genetics, well worth a read.👇🧪

This goes to eleven.

Applications open for fully funded 4-yr positions in the unique interdisciplinary program of the @maxplanck.de School of Cognition. Pursue a passion for science at the forefront of fundamental & applied research, mentored by a network of world renowned researchers.🧪 cognition.maxplanckschools.org/en

Excited by the revelation, just 6.5 hours into my 7-hour overnight flight, that the headrest of my seat could be cleverly folded inwards on each side, thereby enhancing comfort & facilitating sleep.

Extraordinary resource! "Comprehensive recordings from 621,733 neurons in 297 brain areas of 139 mice (12 labs) performing a decision-making task with sensory, motor & cognitive components: a public dataset to understand how computations distributed across & within brain areas drive behaviour."👇🧪

A reminder that there is no scientific basis for attempts to define people in terms of “good” or “bad” genes - these are discredited views in service of racist ideologies. For the consensus from the experts, see e.g. this 2020 @geneticssociety.bsky.social statement: www.ashg.org/publications... 🧬🧪

"While present in all mammals, the HAR123 enhancer rapidly evolved since humans diverged from chimpanzees. Human HAR123 uniquely regulates many genes involved in neural differentiation. HAR123-knockout mice exhibit impaired cognitive flexibility & shifts in neural-glia ratios in the hippocampus." 👇🧪

Saw this today and smiled. Correlation or causation?

Developmental stuttering involves speech disfluencies (blocks, prolongations, repetitions). We sequenced all protein-coding genes of 85 parent-child trios in which the child stuttered, & found (likely) pathogenic DNA variants in 4 genes also implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders. New paper:👇🗣️🧬🧪

Delighted to see work led by Hayley Mountford @hayleymountford.bsky.social published today. rdcu.be/eA8G0 We used MTAG to increase gene discovery for dyslexia: 36 new regions; ~30 new genes from gene-based tests; several sig biological pathways @profsimonfisher.bsky.social @schoolofppls.bsky.social

Statements like "X% of trait Y of an individual can be attributed to their genetic makeup" promote fundamental misconceptions about the nature of genetic effects. Here's one of my prior short threads explaining the issue:

About that mysterious new project in my department....

"Using multi-unit recording we found that inner speech is robustly represented in motor cortex, & decoded imagined sentences in real time. We demonstrate strategies to prevent brain-computer interfaces from unintentionally decoding private inner speech." Fascinating new @cp-cell.bsky.social paper:👇🧪

So many good ones!! This one’s a personal favourite mostly because the dino science peeps saw it and decided, yeah… that sounds about right.. and now the caudal spikes of stegasaurids are technically termed thagomizers 🤓

Happy Birthday Gary Larson, 75 years old today. A perfect excuse to celebrate his tireless efforts documenting major breakthroughs in science, including this pivotal moment for language research:

If someone you know buys into claims about "genetic optimization" of embryos using polygenic scores of cognition, just send them our 2024 paper on Beethoven & musicality. We wrote it to help communicate limits of individual-level genetic predictions & complexity of links between DNA & behaviour. 🧪👇

Fascinating that archeological evidence suggests cats may have first begun domesticating humans as far back as 9,500 years ago. #InternationalCatDay

The Myth of the Designer Baby A genomics firm saying they can help parents with “genetic optimization” of their embryos is tone-deaf Silicon Valley marketing trampling over legitimate science. Parents should be wary. www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-... (h/t @justincaouette.bsky.social)

In another milestone for human genetics, the world's largest set of whole-genome DNA sequences now encompasses data from nearly half a million people, described in this new @nature.com paper from @ukbiobank.bsky.social: 🧪👇

Just like every researcher in the field of genetics, I have my own 2-metre-high kinetic double-helix in the garden at home, to give me comfort & inspiration when a manuscript is rejected. 🧬

Not sure who came up with "Manhattan Plot", but in 2014 I coined the alternative term "Nijmegen Plot" (inspired by the Dutch town where I live) to describe underwhelming results from our earliest genome-wide association scans of language/reading traits.

Exciting paper on genetic influences on speech fluency, out now in @natgenet.nature.com. In a big step forward for the field, genome scans of almost 100,000 people with self-reported stuttering, & 1 million controls, identify 57 associated loci. Great work by @piperbelow.bsky.social & her team.🗣️🧬🧪

Hello, I am a neuroscientist in a movie. I make statements that sound deeply profound but are at the same time completely vacuous. A distinguished expert of my field, I confidently assert that people use only 10% of their brains & that increasing this percentage can unlock superhuman abilities.

Telomere-to-telomere DNA sequencing is set to transform the field of human genetics in coming years. For a flavour of what's coming, see this exciting work on nearly complete genomes of 65 individuals from diverse populations, out today in @nature.com by @glennislogsdon.bsky.social & colleagues. 👇🧬🧪

All cats are scientists, I will not be taking questions at this time.

The Max Planck Society @maxplanck.de today launched its Transatlantic Program, aimed at strengthening scientific collaboration with US partners, while at same time creating new opportunities for talented researchers at multiple career stages, from PhD through to group-heads & directors. More info 👇🧪

"It might seem like our senses are transparent windows through which the world pours itself directly into our mind. But how things are is very different. The objective world exists, but what we experience is always an active construction." @anilseth.bsky.social on science of perceptual experience.👇🧪

Revealing ancestral evolutionary patterns of the human brain at cell-type resolution, through comparative genomic analysis of open-chromatin regions across apes, old world monkeys & new world monkeys. New integrative paper from @konopkalab.bsky.social in @natcomms.nature.com. 🧠🧬🧪

Forty years after Svante Pääbo kicked off this extraordinary field of science, today sees report of the first whole-genome sequence of an ancient Egyptian (from 2855–2570BCE). Exciting work from @pontus-skoglund.bsky.social, @flinklinus.bsky.social, & co at @ljmuofficial.bsky.social, @crick.ac.uk.🧬🧪

Very much looking forward to welcoming the excellent @cedricboeckx.bsky.social to Nijmegen to give our July 1st @mpi-nl.bsky.social Colloquium. Cedric's innovative research weaves together ancient genomes, brain development in a dish, & evolution of human language. www.mpi.nl/events/mpi-c...

Science, art, humanity, & interior decorating - a brief thread. 👇

For various reasons, photos/videos of this meeting are doing the rounds on news & social media. But my eye is drawn to the background; this is the "DNA salon" installed in the Dutch Royal Palace in 2019, including art representing the sequence of FOXP2, a gene for which I have a certain fondness. 🧬🗣️

How children master language in early life is one of the central questions of human biology. My fab colleague & friend @carorowland.bsky.social has an important new framework paper, which she breaks down in this fascinating thread. Big implications for how we think about genetic contributions too.👇🧪

"Language is unique among communication systems, many elements are learned & transmitted across generations. Investigating directed & surrounding vocal communication in human infants & infants of wild nonhuman great apes revealed that humans receive dramatically more infant-directed communication."🧪

Must-read piece from @carlbergstrom.com & @jbakcoleman.bsky.social. A highly lucid & articulate call to keep humans at the heart of scientific activity. Particularly love this quote from historian David McCullough: “Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard.” 👇🧪

Rosa's excellent @cp-trendsgenetics.bsky.social piece on genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of speech, language & reading traits offers a nice opportunity to (re)post a selection of the research articles she covers. (And we are only just getting started!) .... 🧪1/n

Highly recommend this superb forum article on genomics of human communication traits, free to read in @cp-trendsgenetics.bsky.social. Beautifully succinct & accessible overview by @rosagisladottir.bsky.social on where the field is now & where it's heading. 🗣️💬🧠🧬🧪 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Initiatives like this have potential for big positive impacts on health. There are also many thorny issues to address: ethics, data protection, professional & public understanding of what DNA can tell us etc. I wonder if we're ready for a world where every newborn has their whole genome sequenced.🧬🧪

What is common knowledge in your field but shocks outsiders? This.

Wow. "In 2021, a team of researchers suggested that an unusual skull unearthed in northeastern China belonged to a previously unknown species. New papers in Science & Cell conclude this was Denisovan. It makes the stunningly complete skull of ‘Dragon Man’ the only Denisovan skull known to science."🧪

"The human niche began to expand substantially ~70ka, driven by increased use of diverse habitats, from forests to deserts. Humans dispersing out of Africa after 50ka had distinct ecological flexibility as they encountered climatically challenging habitats." New from @elliescerri.bsky.social & co.👇🧪

This is a great thread from Simon. I'd add here that coding genes don't even necessarily specify protein sequence, but a set of possible sequences, some of which are picked out in a contextual, cell-type specific manner by alternative splicing. And...

Your genome is not a blueprint. A thread about misleading metaphors in science communication. 🧬🧪 1/n

Our manuscript is desk-rejected; editor says it doesn't fit journal scope. We submit elsewhere. [days pass] Unsolicited email from editor of original journal; they stumbled on our exciting BioRxiv preprint, think it's a great fit, & would we consider submitting to them? Reader, it's the same paper.🙄

As I've said before, it's only a dire wolf if it comes from the Late Pleistocene epoch, otherwise it's just sparkling dog. 🧪

"Language-related neural specialisation in humans likely evolved through gradual strengthening of a pre-existing connection rather than arising de novo." Important conclusion from state-of-the-art neuroimaging in wild & captive chimpanzees by @ybecker.bsky.social, @alfredanwander.bsky.social & co.👇🧪

Analysis of two-call vocal combinations in >4,000 utterances recorded from 53 wild chimpanzees suggests they use multiple combinatorial mechanisms, allowing encoding of many more meanings than the number of call types. Newly published @taichimpproject.bsky.social study led by @tozbu.bsky.social. 👇🧪

"Chimpanzees drum with non-random timing & rhythms differ between subspecies. The team say this sheds light on evolutionary origins of a feature that sits at the heart of human social behaviour from conversation to music-making." New from @nakedprimate.bsky.social @andrearavignani.bsky.social & co🧪

Fab initiative for boosting science beyond borders. New call is open for MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships (€404 million for ~1650 projects) to help researchers acquire new skills, develop careers, & gain international, interdisciplinary, & intersectoral experience in other countries. Closes Sept 10th.🧪