Well my flight still hasn't left Chicago but we did sit on the tarmac for 2 hours and I learned how to English paper piece. Behold my first little bit in all its glory

Revisiting albums from the early aughts, and Chorus of One by Strike Anywhere is still a banger.

Sometimes the world does need a Dr. Mario adjacent quilt.

A spatially resolved transcriptomic atlas of the primate amygdala (human, macaque, and baboon) now out in Science Advances (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...). The amygdala contains 32 types of neurons with many neuron types specific to particular subdivisions. Lots of updates from the preprint!

New funding opportunity from the BRAIN Initiative! Applications due Oct 28! grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Five year outcomes for Vercise deep brain stimulation (DBS) in Parkinson's disease are in, and they look very good. Specific features: independent control of each contact, rechargeable batteries, directional leads to steer current and MRI compatibility. @parkinsondotorg.bsky.social

New paper! Kudos to first author Jaeeun Lee, who is a fantastic and hard working student. We showed that at photoreceptor presynapses, ELFN1 enrichment depends on postsynaptic mGluR6. www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...

Stoked to see this paper finally out! It answers two big questions: where visual objects are encoded in the brain, and how head-direction cells get oriented using visual landmarks. Super fun collaboration with @mace-lab.bsky.social and Stuart Trenholm. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

@blackinneuro.bsky.social celebrates its fifth anniversary and announces the HBCU-MINDS Network, an initiative focused on building neuroscience research infrastructure, expanding graduate training and increasing opportunities at HBCUs. By @jheannellejohnson.bsky.social #BINW25 bit.ly/3JZJSOB

A molecular atlas of cell-type specific signatures in the parkinsonian striatum. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.09.675138v1

Spent the last week "replicating" several sabersem presentations from the last sabersem. Was pretty fun! Going to highlight each one I did here. Shoutout to @srbrown70.bsky.social for the list of slides, very helpful. if you want the repo, it's here github.com/nickwan/2025...

Finished memory quilt ♥️

After a lifetime of sewing, decades using sewing machines, I have finally met my match in a long arm machine. Yesterday for the first time I sewed through one of my fingers, entry and exit wounds and let me tell you. That shit hurts.

Reconstructing long-range axons from dense brain images is tough. This study introduces a novel method that separates axon identification from global statistical rules, showing big improvements over existing tools for mapping neuronal projections. buff.ly/OBKr9cM

Neural networking night season 2 Come hangout with the neuroscience community from Paris. First negroni is free!

Back at the farm

Soap is ready! Coming to your mailbox soon!

In our next Light Conversations webinar on Friday, 5 September, #OPG_Optica authors Joseph Lukens and Hsuan-Hao Lu will discuss the principles, recent advances, and future of quantum information processing. This webinar is free to attend. Register here: https://bit.ly/4fPHHZM

Selfishly, I’ll plug our tool LLM agent in system #AmadeusGPT - which lets you vibe code your behavioral analysis ;) and even gives you interpretable and verifiable outputs! www.mackenziemathislab.org/amadeusgpt

National Parks and cryptid queen size quilt. First ever done on my new-to-me long arm machine, which is so dang fun.

We are thrilled to announce that OneNeuro Co-Director Patricia Janak, Ph.D., has been elected as the 2026-2027 President of the Society for Neuroscience (SfN). @janaklab.bsky.social View the official announcement: www.sfn.org/publications...

Congrats to this neuro-leaning @simonsfoundation.org physics & math collaboration on the science of learning. NeuroAI - exciting! www.simonsfoundation.org/2025/08/18/s...

So proud of my trainee, @ericjordahl.bsky.social , for being selected as an HHMI Gilliam Fellow! Your dedication to outreach and your relentless pursuit of inclusive excellence are unmatched! You are so deserving of this honor!!!!!!! www.hhmi.org/programs/gil...

Hello Dublin.

Public access to the first fly connectome that spans the whole CNS - BANC!: codex.flywire.ai?dataset=banc Different from prior connectomes - it is brain + cord (think spinal cord) We use it to ‘embody’ the system and find it resembles ‘subsumption architecture’ doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Metformin, the first line drug for Type 2 diabetes, has been used for 60 years without a clearcut mechanism of action. It turns out it's not just reducing glucose output from the liver. Metformin also works via the brain www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Some parts of the Drosophila olfactory circuit have evolved more than others, according to a new comparison of two fruit fly species’ connectomes. By @martajhill.bsky.social #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/connectome/c...

#OCaMP is now on bioRxiv and reagents are available on #Addgene! 🧪 A sensitive orange fluorescent calcium ion indicator for imaging neural activity www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

HELLO DC DENIZENS. YE SWAMP PEOPLES. HEAR YE! I will be giving a BOOK TALK at The People's Book in Takoma Park! With the wonderful, wild, delightfully weird Kali Holder! It is FREE! September 25, 7pm peoplesbooktakoma.com/event/animal...

New lab paper by @merridee.bsky.social identifying a novel role for VTA GABA neurons in behavioral flexibility GABA, but not dopamine, neuron activation correlates with behavior when cues unexpectedly shift from predicting punishment to predicting reward www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

It is now bedtime, thanks everyone for the 12+ hrs of sleep. Appreciate you

I am so tired. Each like = 15 minutes of sleep.

📢 Calling all senior neuro postdocs: SYNAPSES brings postdocs from around the world to Yale to share their work during an in-person symposium on October 23, 2025. Apply today to present your research, talk with faculty members in 1:1s, & interact with Yale postdocs! 🧠🧪 Deadline Sept 7. #neuroskyence

I’m elated to share our latest publication - out now in @natmentalhealth.nature.com! www.nature.com/articles/s44... - tour de force by @leahbanellis.bsky.social @brainandstomach.bsky.social and the rest of the VMP team!

The ACNP Global Scholarship Application link is OPEN! The ACNP 64th Annual Meeting is January 12-15, 2026, in Nassau, Bahamas. The deadline to apply is August 15, 2025, at 5:00pm Central. Don’t miss out! #ACNP2026 Click here for more info: tinyurl.com/j8a9zybu#ACNP2026

Existential dread never sounded more joyful or uplifting than it does in the hands of PUP. The Canadian pop-punk group confronts world-weary discontent with deadpan humor, hard-earned wisdom and a lot of heart.

I’m excited to share my final co-first author paper from my postdoc in Dan Dombeck's lab! We explored how behavior, senses, and neurons influence how much information in the brain changes over time. www.nature.com/articles/s41... #science #research #neuroscience #hippocampus #placecells

Plastic stuff in my brain? no thanks (just kidding, sounds like cool results) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Looking for the obit of a friend who passed last week and stumbled upon an AI-slop obituary page that had a photo of him scraped from the web and a completely nonsense generic obituary. Y'all. Do better.

Ryan’s paper out in Neuron (bit.ly/3IICGFX). He derived bona fide parvalbumin (PV+) cortical interneurons from hPSCs, one the slowest developing neurons, and could capturing interneuron-related disease phenotypes linked to schizophrenia - including impaired gamma-oscillations - in his assembloids.

Register for the August 5 @sfn.org webinar exploring the intersections of neuroscience with fields such as ethics, law, and policy. Hear strategies for trainees navigating emerging career paths in neuroscience and society. #neurosociety #neurolaw #neuroethics #trainees

Hey Psychology folks, I was wondering if there are any good alternatives to Coglab for letting students run experiments in classes. I'd like to avoid asking them to pay $100 apiece.

Apply for a Professional Development Award by this Sunday, July 27!

"They lived in darkness. A new Labubu would be their light."

1/ Mapping synaptic connectivity between individual neurons is extremely laborious. We developed BRISC, a new method that makes it possible to map inputs onto 100s of neurons in the same animal in a matter of weeks! Led by Alex Becalick and @antblot.bsky.social. 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Embodiment is the concept that the function of the brain is inexorably shaped by the body, a lens that is often neglected when neuroscientists study specific brain subsystems, write @bingbrunton.bsky.social and @tuthill.bsky.social. #neuroskyence #neuroai www.thetransmitter.org/neuroai/brea...