Arrival of chilly weekend mornings = start of my puzzle season

The brain is over 50% lipid—but this vital component remains a mystery. JAX scientist Kristen O’Connell uses high-res mass spectrometry to study how these molecules support memory and cognition—and what happens when they don’t. 🧠 go.jax.org/OConnell

Our paper using endoscopic in vivo calcium imaging to uncover how neuronal population dynamics in the prelimbic cortex track attention and task engagement during the rodent continuous performance test (rCPT) is now online www.nature.com/articles/s41...

For #FluorescenceFriday - one of my favorites from the archives of a neuron ⚪ and astrocyte 🟢 co-culture. Image credit to Stephanie Page and former research assistant Beth Pattie 🧠🔬🧪

The winner of OneNeuro's October #FotoFriday #FluorescenceFriday contest is "Purkinje cell complex spikes & simple spikes," submitted by Chenhao Bao in the Cullen lab at JHU Biomedical Engineering. @thecullenlab.bsky.social @chenhaobao.bsky.social Complete gallery: www.oneneurojhu.org/art/

#NIHfunding via the HEAL initiative for the PRECISION Human Pain Network has yielded a massive increase in data on human sensory neurons. One of the most amazing collaborations I've been part of. Data sharing across 4 centers, insights from experts across the network that really moved the needle.

Our new manuscript, led by Emily Corrigan, examines inhibitory neuron diversity across approximately 160 million years of evolutionary divergence, as part of BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network (BICAN) developing brain atlas package: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I love to see the endoplasmic reticulum (ER, cyan) hitchhiking over microtubules (MTs, orange). Also the membrane dynamics are lovely. It's been a while, but here we are for a late #fluorescencefriday with some #microscopy #scicomm #scisky @cellcommlab.bsky.social focalplane.bsky.social 🧪🔬

my first #FluorescenceFriday post! Mouse hippocampus showing microglia, a lysosomal marker (CD68), and Aggrecan, a perineuronal net component. 😍 Image by Dr. Julia Dziabis!

Check out this sneaky lamin A knockdown cell (pink dot) swimming against the tide (migration into gap) & slithering between its sisters. It also slides over another nucleus that deforms underneath it. MCF10A cells, #Spirochrome SPY650-DNA, 20 min time-lapse, taken on a #Zeiss #CellDiscoverer7.

Happy #FluorescenceFriday from these primary astrocytes grown on glass slides and robotically stained on the Biocare Oncore Pro X! 🧠🔬🧪 Cyan = GFAP Royal Purple = ALDH1L1 Salmon = Nuclear Counterstain

Slick-H/M83 mice injected with alpha synuclein preformed fibrils. Magenta pS129 and yellow for eGFP driven by the Thy-1 promoter. blue nuclei #fluorescencefriday courtesy of Vlad Novikov. Shaz and Nadia from the @mind-western.bsky.social

How do VTA DA neurons sculpt downstream representations to reinforce actions? VERY excited about our new preprint (by Alex Pan Vazquez & @czimmerman.bsky.social )

Happy to share that our paper characterizing PrL dynamics during sustained attention is finally out. This work was a collaboration between the @martinowk.bsky.social and Greg Carr groups at @lieberinstitute.bsky.social . www.nature.com/articles/s41... #Calicumimaging #miniscopes #rCPT #PrL

Apparently the postings are up for several NIH director positions. Deadlines between 11/14 and 11/21. hr.nih.gov/careers/care...

This is a glimpse of the cytoskeletal structures we found doing U-ExM in more than 200 species, now in Cell🤩: shorturl.at/6oHvi Amazing collaboration between @centriolelab.bsky.social , @dudinlab.bsky.social and @gautamdey.bsky.social labs. I believe last one is a 🕷️ #FluorescenceFriday #Microscopy

🌀🌪️A fluorescent cyclone in a beaker!🌪️🌀 Fluorescein fluorescence visualized the stirred liquid. #FluorescenceFriday #RealTimeChem #Chemistry #SciArt #SciComm

Flashback #FluorescenceFriday to some of the first light-sheet imaging we were doing. Video shows the collecting duct system of the developing kidney labeled with a pan-cytokeratin antibody. Courtesy of former talented technician Deanna Hardesty.

Check out some #CoolScienceImages (with music by The Faim) from the @natureportfolio.nature.com collection of the BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network (#BICAN). www.nature.com/collections/... #neuroscience #FluorescenceFriday 🧪

I encourage every PhD student to set up an academic website, even if they don't feel like they have a lot to put on it. Why? Helps to get discovered by search engines and establish a search-friendly presence. What platforms work well for simple websites and are cheap (or better yet, free)? 👀

Had the most rewarding time at the HTNA #cshlcourses It was fun science-ing all day/night for 2wks to learn modern viral, whole 🧠 imaging & barcode-based seq approaches to understand neuroanatomy/function. Inspired & energized as I think of all the ways these tools can be applied in my own work!🧪 1/

Congratulations to the 2025 SfN award & prize recipients! Their dedication to advancing the understanding of the brain paves the way for future discoveries. SfN looks forward to celebrating their achievements at #SfN25. Learn about the recipients. 🔗 vist.ly/4cni8 #neurosky

Please help spread the word to all who will be in San Diego on Sunday, Nov. 16th. As part of SFN, SFN's scicomm arm is sponsoring an event. It's me, Shrek Chalasani (Salk), Kumar Narayanan (UIowa) and the brainfacts.org team. Short talks; trivia; lots of fun. Join us! It's free. Register here.

Our paper using endoscopic in vivo calcium imaging to uncover how neuronal population dynamics in the prelimbic cortex track attention and task engagement during the rodent continuous performance test (rCPT) is now online www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Article here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

This week, we published in @science.org an article outlining the current ethical and societal implications of research involving human neural #organoids and #assembloids, their transplantation, and highlighted potential next steps.

For #FluorescenceFriday - one of my favorites from the archives of a neuron ⚪ and astrocyte 🟢 co-culture. Image credit to Stephanie Page and former research assistant Beth Pattie 🧠🔬🧪

Scientists feel that the pressure to publish is rising, but that the time and resources they have to do the necessary research are falling, according to a survey of 3,200 researchers go.nature.com/4hNDvuN

Thrilled to start my Group Leader adventure with these and other great scientists!

My new ImageJ / Fiji toolkit is out 🔥! The goal is to make image handling & visualization easy, with an intuitive interface! Install it on Fiji with the "Image Viewer" update site #microscopy #ImageJ #FluorescenceFriday #microscopyMonday imagej.net/plugins/imag...

#FluorescenceFriday A sky of light within ✨ This is the ganglion cell layer of the avian retina. The nerve fiber layer lies beneath like a soft green current, carrying quiet signals forward. Sometimes to see the universe with its beautiful scattered stars, one only has to look inside.

#FluorescenceFriday @arvoinfo.bsky.social scientific image contest (voting link below) 👇👁️👇: microglia imaged in the retina, color-coded for depth ARVO Image Contest www.arvo.org/news/scienti... @flaumeye.bsky.social @cvsuor.bsky.social @urochestersmd.bsky.social @urneuroscience.bsky.social

The BIG DRG paper is now up on @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... so many people worked so hard to make this happen. Props to the whole PRECISION Human Pain Network.

🌌 A strong geomagnetic storm is forecast tonight! 🌝 Currently expected to peak 8–11 PM ET & again before sunrise Fri. Aurora may reach our region, especially on long-exposure shots! 📸 All the details: www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025...

Still think brain regions don’t exist? That everything is everywhere? That cell types don’t matter and that everything is a dynamical phase portrait? Wrong. Interconnected brain modules exist at the level of fine grained transcriptomics. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Whole-cortex in situ sequencing reveals input-dependent area identity www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Two neurons went into a bar...

The last two cells I patched! They are by no means my best fills, but definitely the most memorable. Also a reminder to new patchers that lousy fills do not indicate bad cells- some of my best recordings didn’t have great fills. (Ah I miss patching🥹) #patchclamp #electrophysiology

AAVs are crucial vectors for delivering biosensors into neurons! Using AAV delivery, we perform two-color imaging of calcium and potassium transients in neurons. These AAVs are now available from @braincase.bsky.social www.ebraincase.com/news/new-pro...

Excited to share that the second project from my time at @lieberinstitute.bsky.social with @lcolladotor.bsky.social is now published! This was such a rewarding collaboration to be part of. 💡🧠 Huge congrats to @lahuuki.bsky.social and all co-authors!

Congratulations to our habenula team! We've learned a lot about working in this tiny brain region. Here we characterize the molecular signatures of human habenula cell types and transcriptomic changes associated with schizophrenia. Stay tuned 👀 for more exciting habenula findings in the near future.

Another excellent position at UT Dallas, this time in the Biological Science Dept: jobs.utdallas.edu/postings/30702 Our Neuroscience and Biological Sciences faculty are closely intertwined and collaborative creating a great place to launch your independent lab!

Proud to announce our paper ‘Transcriptomic Analysis of the Human Habenula in Schizophrenia’ from @lieberinstitute.bsky.social is the cover article for the November issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry! 🧠 #HabenulaLIBD #snRNAseq #Habenula doi.org/10.1176/appi...

Congrats to @lahuuki.bsky.social and many members of @kr-maynard.bsky.social and @lcolladotor.bsky.social teams in our division who contributed to this study! Really excited to see this paper now published with contribution of data resources for molecular profiles of human habenula cell types 🧠🔬🧪

HL60 cells take on so many fun shapes as they migrate! This #InsightFromImaging data features cells prepared by Leanna and imaged on the @aicjanelia.bsky.social LLSM by @cmhobson.bsky.social

Thanks to @nataliematosin.bsky.social and Sophie Debs for highlighting our work in their editorial “Unlocking the Molecular Secrets of the Human Habenula” 🔗 doi.org/10.1176/appi...

Our #Habenula #singlecell and differential expression data is available to explore via our interactive websites 💻 #opendata github.com/LieberInstit...

We used #eQTL analysis to examine how SNPs relate to gene expression in #Habenula, 7 eQTLS genes were identified in differential expression, and 16 eSNPs were schizophrenia GWAS risk SNPs. Nine new schizophrenia colocalized genes with genetic risk were identified

We also profiled habenula-enriched tissue from schizophrenia and control donors using bulk RNA-seq #Transcriptomics, generating a unique dataset to identify disease associated molecular changes. PCA with bulk data from other regions shows #Habenula as an outlier

We’ve created a #snRNAseq molecular atlas of the human Habenula to understand neuronal diversity on a molecular level in this unique brain region. Our snRNA-seq data on 7 control donors yielded 16k nuclei and 17 clusters, including 7 lateral & 3 medial Hb neuron populations 🧪