New preprint from our lab on bioRxiv: “Stoichiometric transcription factor partnerships control GABAergic neuron fate allocation” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... A great collaboration with @annrosebright.bsky.social, Connor Lynch, @chr-mayer.bsky.social, and many others.

Last spring I taught a graduate course built on the idea that 𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘈𝘐 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭, not a novelty: 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗔𝗜 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵—all the course materials are now public. Take it, use it, adapt it for your own students or your own research. barbagroup.github.io/mae6291-genai/

Our latest: Minimal essential requirements for neural tube self-organisation How does a single cell give rise to a tissue with the right cell types in the right proportions? We deconstruct and rebuild a self-organising tissue from first principles A thread🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Pretty cool!!

Great paper on developmental gene expression patterns underlying species-specific cortical features (with a nice combination of tools and datasets) By @itsmeawais.bsky.social @estherkli.bsky.social @djabaudon.bsky.social @silvianeuro.bsky.social @mveronicapravata.bsky.social and colleagues 🧪🧠🧬

First 22 hours of zebrafish development. Credit to @zebrafish007.bsky.social at #WeinsteinLab. #ZebrafishZunday 🧪

Free and open-source images, icons, and tools for creating scientific illustrations doi.org/10.59350/5zt... 🧪

I'm SO excited to see this new paper from our lab's first PhD graduate @wangjianxiong.bsky.social. An outstanding student with a promising career ahead! A PCP-independent role for Prickle1 in junctional neural tube formation. 🧪🐣 Check it out: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New paper out in @cp-cellstemcell.bsky.social. We uncover unexpected complexity in how metabolism changes when the embryo implants or when stem cells exit naive pluripotency, revealing a central role for dynamic TCA cycle rewiring in cell fate decisions. www.cell.com/cell-stem-ce...

1/ 97% of cortical PNNs are on PV interneurons. But PNN-positive and PNN-negative PV cells don't split into two groups — they sit at different ends of a transcriptional continuum of fast-spiking specialization. New preprint 🧵

Excited to share our new study on how the brain generates placebo pain relief! We developed a mouse model that recapitulates key features of human placebo analgesia, then used it to identify causal circuitry. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... today.ucsd.edu/story/neurob... 1/n

Form follows function, or function dictates form? 📢Preprint: we build Perturb-CLEAR, in vivo screen of neuroanatomy! Disease perturbations produce selective morphology-RNA changes that RNA impact alone cannot predict. Was led by the invincible grad student Boli Wu! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

For decades, molecular biology and human genetics have been built around measurements of average gene expression. That was partly conceptual, but also technological: for a long time, the mean was the quantity we could measure most reliably. Our new preprint argues that this framework is incomplete.

💯@newyorker.com @paulnoth.bsky.social

@ravenwallace.bsky.social @themindwanders.bsky.social This study provides elegant evidence that motor learning is associated with the re-instatement of large-scale neural manifold structures. However, interpreting these manifolds as the retrieval of a stored motor plan may not be necessary.

A latent space thermodynamic model of cell differentiation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.04.709512v1

New paper from the lab led by @ericmulhall.bsky.social addresses how PIEZO1 and PIEZO2 are tuned to different types mechanical forces. From nanometer-scale super-resolution microscopy to in vivo experiments, links single-molecule observations to physiological function. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A nice shift in perceived colour between central and peripheral vision. The fixated disc looks purple while the others look blue. The effect presumably comes from the absence of S-cones in the fovea. From Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt: arxiv.org/pdf/2509.115...

This paper on how the brain may do gradient descent is very cool: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The ggseg ecosystem finally has a proper home! 🧠 For those who don't know, ggseg is an R package ecosystem for visualizing brain atlas data. Think ggplot2, but for brains. #rstats #neuroimaging #openscience

1/ Our new study, led by Jingwen Ding, examines the role of transcription factors during human neurogenesis to identify gene regulatory networks influencing cell fate, maturation, and subtype specification www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I don’t worry about AI taking my job. I worry about AI destroying the very thing that makes my job make sense.

A read only for the DRG nerd: "Spatial organization, chromatin accessibility and gene-regulatory programs defining mouse sensory neurons". www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Not all pain is created equal: stepping on a nail feels different from a stomachache. We know there are many nociceptor types, but a key question remains: how is mechanical pain encoded across the body by those sensory neurons? Our new work helps answer this. 1/8 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

#Mastodon, the Command Center for Large-Scale Lineage-Tracing Microscopy Datasets, is finally heading for publication (well, let's see). To #cite or not to cite shall no longer be the question 🙃, because the #preprint. Software is available in every #Fiji near you. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Happy to see this out w/ @epsteinstatgen.bsky.social and @davecutler.bsky.social (paper: doi.org/10.1093/bioi...)! We tackled the problem of identifying dysregulated pathways (i.e. differentially co-expressed) in gene expression studies. We show that differential co-expression arises ...

Also, here’s an accessible video intro:

Enteric neurons join the pain conversation! New paper shows that cholinergic circuits in the colon signals through DRG pathways, especially after inflammation. www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

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.

Circuit-specific gene editing for precision modulation of neuronal activity with CRISPR-rabies virus https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.03.686433v1

Our latest "Dynamic Landscape Analysis of Cell Fate Decisions: Predictive Models of Neural Development From Single-Cell Data" A rigorous mathematical foundation for Waddington's landscape to study cell fate decision making Applied to ventral neural tube development www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Thrilled to share my main postdoc work with @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social We used genomic barcoding + scRNAseq in chick & human embryos to reveal a lineage architecture that reshapes how we understand neural tube development & cell fate decisions 🧵👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New preprint from the spinal cord group at Glasgow. Anatomical and functional characterisation of spinal circuits for cold, from sensory neurons to the brain…..https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.03.680240v1

Dynamic and non-uniform expression of key transcription factors provides novel insights into the emergence of neural crest cells at the neural plate border https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.03.680132v1

Ultrasensitive proteomics uncovers nociceptor diversity and novel pain targets https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.20.677124v1

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Now out in @nature.com: Our study discovering a neural circuit in Drosophila that predictively inhibits proprioceptor axons during voluntary leg movements, such as walking and grooming. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Newest paper from the lab, looking at how somatosensory neuron development and function is altered in a Pten haploinsufficient model of ASD. Work was all done by @alefdzphd.bsky.social, who just started an independent position at UTRGV. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Excited to share our hot-off-the-press @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social that explores how PRC1-mediated H2AK119ub deposition safeguards lineage fidelity during forebrain development. Fantastic work by @lucyadoyle.bsky.social and our colleagues & collaborators. 🥳🧬🧠🔬 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Very important @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social‬ report #mechanochemical signalling control fate transitions www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... w/ wide/significant implications. Perhaps the clearest indication so far of HOW #NotInTheGenes cell interactions mechanical pattern gene expression #MustRead

We developed a transgene-free method to isolate neural crest cells using antibody labelling + FACS — tested in Podarcis muralis. It works as well as transgenic tools, opening doors for NCC research in non-model species! Link in comment. #DevBio #scRNAseq #NeuralCrest #EvoDevo

Our paper in Journal of Pain challenges old labels: TrkB isnt just an A-LTMR marker. Its truncated isoform is expressed and functional in trigeminal nociceptors, opening new avenues for studying the receptor in pathological pain #painresearch www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

My Penn Biostatistics colleague Mingyao Li & two of our Biostatistics PhD students, Kyle Coleman & Shunzhou Jiang, have helped co-lead a new article published in Nature presenting spatial single cell transcriptomic characterization of brains of developing fetuses www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Why does the forebrain expand dramatically while other neural regions grow less? Our new publication reveals progenitor metabolism critically shapes region-specific brain growth. Thread below. authors.elsevier.com/a/1k-udL7PXu...

Some exciting #PainResearch / #Neuroskyence from @alexchesler.bsky.social & co!

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Baffling… It’s like cutting off one leg because you find shoes expensive.

Hey #deconvolution fans! 👀 We’ve got an exciting new publication for you: a benchmark of 6 popular deconvolution methods on a multimodal human brain #DLPFC dataset 🧠🧬 Now out in Genome Biology: doi.org/10.1186/s130... @lieberinstitute.bsky.social @jhubiostat.bsky.social

Inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines bidirectionally modulate amygdala circuits regulating anxiety: @cellpress.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

How is the input of the different kinds of primary sensory neurons responding to heat and mechanical stimuli summarized in the spinal cord? Check out our recent study. www.nature.com/articles/s41...