How does an animal choose between exploring for a better food source and taking advantage of a known one? Our recent work in Current Biology demonstrates how recent feeding and metabolic state dynamically influence fly local search. bit.ly/3PfrIv3 #Science #Neurosky #Foraging #Drosophila

Flies beat their wings more than 200 times per second. How do proprioceptors rapidly sense and fine tune the wingstroke? @ellenlesser.bsky.social combined genetic tools with the connnectome to create an atlas of Drosophila wing proprioceptors. @elife.bsky.social elifesciences.org/articles/107...

Great work from Claire, Ravi, and the whole team– the initial lifelong continuous screen of behaving vertebrates provided a wealth of ideas on progression/staging of brain function across lifespan. Behavior is unmatched as a noninvasive quantitative readout of brain function (and, one that matters).

Carolin Warnecke together with Hanna, Dennis, Bene & Kerstin from my lab show that re-exposure to reward diminishes multiple associated olfactory memories. We’re hiring 2 postdocs—DM/email me for details. #Postdoc #Hiring www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Textbooks said neurons don’t burn fatty acids for energy🤔. Our study delivers the first in vivo demonstration that fatty acid oxidation in defined memory neurons fuels memory formation. Closing chapter of my PhD 🥳, out today in Nature Metabolism💥 @natmetabolism.nature.com

How do neural circuits generate the walking rhythm? Using connectome simulations, @sarahpugly.bsky.social found a minimal central pattern generator (CPG) that produces oscillations in leg motor neurons. Same circuit motif for each 🪰 leg. w @bingbrunton.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Check out the newest Editors' (that would be me and Eunjoon Kim) Choice issue in Current Opinion in Neurobiology. Superbly guest edited by Stephen Liberles and @zknight.bsky.social >20 review articles on Interoception www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...

Do flies feel pain? Spooky new preprint from our lab on the cells and circuits that mediate nociceptive behaviors in adult Drosophila, led by graduate student (and newly minted PhD!) @jonesjes.bsky.social. 🪰⚡👻🎃 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Exciting news for #drosophila #connectomics and #neuroscience enthusiasts: the Drosophila male central nervous system connectome is now live for exploration. Find out more at the landing page hosted by our Janelia FlyEM collaborators www.janelia.org/project-team....

What an exciting week!! Thanks to the Learning and Memory Conference and everyone 🙂🙂

Can a PhD hat 👩‍🎓be cooler than this one? Nope. Thanks to my 2nd home (Gerber lab) for making this wonderful journey full of learning and memory. I am wholeheartedly thankful to my mentors, collaborators, advisors, well wishers, LIN, colleagues, friends, my flies, and my family. Thank you 🙏 26/09/25

And here begins the 'LearnMamBo' era! Congratulations @obarnstedt.bsky.social as always!

The first full central nervous system connectome dataset of an adult fly, with the most comprehensive annotation of sensory and motor neurons to date. A heroic effort with contributions from many groups, a product of the collaborative spirit of the Drosophila neuroscience community.

🚨🚨My PhD work pre-print🚨🚨 Check it out 👇👇 'Avoidance engages dopaminergic punishment in Drosophila' It's a great collaborative enterprise and can't thank enough to my mentors and collaborators for the kindest efforts...fingers crossed 🤞🤞

Our new paper out now in Science explores how neural activity in the lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC) *drifts* over time - and *jumps* at key boundaries - to help organize events in memory. 🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Here's a quick summary of what we found 🧵👇

How do brain circuits evolve? We started looking for some answers by using synapse-resolution cross-species comparative connectomics on an entire olfactory circuit 👇 bit.ly/44aVm9E

Excited to share our Science paper on HaloDA1.0-the first genetically encoded far-red dopamine sensor! 🥳It enables powerful multiplex imaging in neurons, brain slices, and live animals.🧠🔬 #GRABsensors #Dopamine www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Nature research paper: Molecular gradients shape synaptic specificity of a visuomotor transformation https://go.nature.com/4jFNOQR

new preprint, led by @ellenlesser.bsky.social, on proprioceptive sensing of the Drosophila wing. tldr, there are a lot of proprioceptors out in the wing and they are wildly diverse and complex (eg, compared to the fly leg). just one example in this image...(1/4) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A projection from the lateral hypothalamus (LHA) to the pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN) prioritizes survival over other needs by triggering safety-directed movement @nkrauth.bsky.social @giachiblue.bsky.social @clemmensenc.bsky.social @olekiehn.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

It is out! Read how you achieve 1.7 mm deep 3-photon imaging in prefrontal cortex with dendritic spine resolution over a week. www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Congratulations to our Human Neural Circuitry team; bit.ly/4dEyX7Z publishes today in Science! This was the hardest challenge of my career, but one of the most rewarding, after years of rebuilding– & expanding my inpatient neuropsychiatry in the service of basic discovery bsky.app/profile/deis...

New preprint from the lab, led by grad student Brandon Pratt, on the encoding properties and sensorimotor function of proprioceptive limit detectors (ie, hair plates) in the fly leg. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Nature research paper: Dopaminergic action prediction errors serve as a value-free teaching signal https://go.nature.com/4kjOtIi

Happy to announce that our paper examining the function of leg mechanosensory neurons by way of their connectivity is finally officially published! rdcu.be/ekqVt

A competitive disinhibitory network for robust optic flow processing in Drosophila #Drosophila

How does a fly’s nervous system differ by sex? 🧠🪰 Led by Tomke Stürner & Paul Brooks, Greg Jefferis’ group, the Drosophila Connectomics group (University of Cambridge) & global colleagues publish a new atlas, revealing sex-specific neurons driving distinct behaviours. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Many animals use "adaptive control" to pursue moving objects, relying on flexible feedback loops to adjust their movement gain over time. But how do neural circuits actually implement this? Here, we show how adaptive control in Drosophila pursuit involves two specialized parallel feedback loops.

Greater mouse-tailed bats crawl backwards over cave walls, and it seems they use their long tails to help feel their way.

Pleased to share the final published version of @glopez.bsky.social's work in @currentbiology.bsky.social! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... "Region-specific nucleus accumbens dopamine signals encode distinct aspects of avoidance learning" Congrats, Gaby!!!

Fly journal is now on BlueSky! The world’s only academic journal dedicated to research on Drosophila & cognate insects. A fully open-access journal that combines rapid publication with high standards of peer-review. For further info and how to submit your work, see the link.

Why do some neurons say “sleep” while others shout “stay awake!” — inside the same brain? In fruit flies, researchers just mapped the molecular chaos behind this nightly tug-of-war. And it’s wilder than we thought. buff.ly/nA9M8EM

Excited to share the sequel to our 2022 paper! In this follow-up, we show that the stable head direction (HD) signals we reported in blind mice rely on stereo olfaction—that is, the comparison of odor info. between the two nostrils. Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵highlights below

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...

Open positions in our lab. Just sayin…

🐝 iBehave Seminar: 'The Neural Basis of the Honey Bee Dance Language' 🔬 Join us for a fascinating talk by Prof. Dr. Barbara Webb @edinburghuni.bsky.social hosted by Prof. Dr. Ansgar Büschges from @unicologne.bsky.social 📅 Feb 24, 2025 | 🕓 16:00 CET 💻 Zoom details: [email protected] #seminar

🚨 Paper is accepted 🚨 I continued it besides my main PhD project. Thanks to everyone involved. It's about 👇 👇 www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...

First post on @bsky.app to announce my first paper published @science.org! How much do we know about how the cortex encodes the same movement when it is performed in arbitrarily different contexts? Find out here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Pleasing to see that our Krashes et al 2009 study in the fly is the way it is in the mouse in 2024/5. www.biorxiv.org/content/bior...

Pls reskeet! Just five more days to apply for this cool (admittedly, I'm biased) and fully-funded #PhD project in our lab!

Looking forward to read that: rdcu.be/d22tH A brief history of insect neuropeptide and peptide hormone research from Dick R. Nässel

Are you aware of our collection of #Drosophila #history articles? Feel free to suggest more!!!!!!!! droso4public.wordpress.com/history/

🚨Preprint🚨 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...