Wait… localized norepinephrine transients in the awake visual cortex?! Who would have guessed this neuromodulatory signal is that spatially precise, right where visual processing is happening. Brain state control just got a lot more local. @ruedigersarah.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fascinating analysis from @jburnmurdoch.ft.com in today's @financialtimes.com Social media is populist and polarising; AI may be the opposite www.ft.com/content/3880... (Paywalled)

‘The UK is saying the same thing as the Taliban’: the women banned from studying in Britain

How psychedelics push your brain to dream while awake – new study theconversation.com/how-psychede...

Congratulations to Ian Thornton and colleagues who published their Mainz-Linez illusion in i-Perception (@pec-ipe.bsky.social): the red dots appears to wave left and right when one looks at one of the black dots, but they actually move straight journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

PSA: One consequence of AI language models is that you should check your spam folder regularly. LLMs can generate targeted/tailored outputs at scale, resulting in a growing overlap between spam and email meant for you. Filters are failing: more spam in your inbox AND more of your mail in spam.

bombs falling to plant democracy! , but instead fertilising despair and taking lives… writing right after hearing that a few days ago bombs landed some 50 m from my father’s office ….

And they bring that knowledge back to the US. We are watching brain science gradually move outside the US, boosted by the efforts of the Trump White House, Russell Vought, Project 2025, and Jay Bhattacharya.

We gave a tutorial on @nwb.org and DANDI at @cosynemeeting.bsky.social this year. If you couldn't make it (or want a refresher), the full recording is up on YouTube. Covers everything from data standardization to finding and reusing public neurophysiology datasets on DANDI.

Occasionally the internet still delivers

I love this dynamic graph (and its message too!)

Today I received a note from a grad student who lives in Tehran. Her note gives you firsthand experience of what it’s like to live in a city that is being bombed, and what it’s like to be young and feel despair about your future. rezashadmehr.blogspot.com/2026/03/hope...

A heartbreaking message from a brilliant med student in Iran, determined to pursue neuroscience. She graduated only one week before the war started and now is volunteering to care for the injured. What would you tell her? (Part #4, especially). Please share your thoughts and comments. #IranWar

Two articles today with opposite takes (on the @theguardian.com and the @financialtimes.com ). But both show a photo of UCL! A highly photogenic university. (PS I prefer the "UK ready" take)

I tracked every keyword in 22 years of Cosyne abstracts to map how computational neuroscience evolved — from Bayesian brains to neural manifolds to LLMs — and where it's heading next.

Breaking News: The Nobel laureate Richard Axel said he was resigning as co-director of a Columbia brain institute over his friendship with Jeffery Epstein.

This is absolutely crazy. theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-...

New paper alert! 🚨 We found that the brain's compass is remarkably stable at two scales 1️⃣ the system maintains its internal organization for weeks 2️⃣ It "remembers" its orientation for weeks, even after a single visit This may be key to how the brain aligns its other maps. Paper: rdcu.be/e3waP

📊 Explore updated data on electricity production in Europe— Electricity is one major part of how we use energy, alongside transport and heating.

Uh oh

As we mark LGBT history month, I reflect on how far we have come, but also how hard-won rights & freedoms are now under threat, especially for trans people, and why @stonewalluk.bsky.social & other LGBT rights groups work is more important than ever.

Actually the view from my office just got more interesting, as the official celebrations of the 200th anniversary now include a pirate projection saying "Free Palestine". Regardless of opinions, may UCL enjoy 200 more years of freedom of speech.

UCL looking gorgeous today, 200 years after its opening. Its design was inspired by Thomas Jefferson's plans for the University of Virginia (which in turn had been inspired by a Roman temple in Nimes, France). UCL's values very much echo those of the Enlightenment. May they long continue to do so.

Today, UCL turns 200. 🎉 For two centuries, our community has opened doors, challenged convention and pushed the boundaries of knowledge across every discipline. Thank you to everyone who’s been part of the UCL story, here’s to the next century. ✨ #UCL200 #LoveUCL

I made a map of 3.4 million Bluesky users - see if you can find yourself! bluesky-map.theo.io I've seen some similar projects, but IMO this seems to better capture some of the fine-grained detail

Goddness, there's lots to say about this. Good to see the case pro laid out in detail. I wonder if Nature will be publishing the counter-argument too? www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The creativity is still mostly human, writes @kenneth-harris.bsky.social. The AI’s strength is relentless, moderately clever trial-and-error in the space of technical solutions. #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/artificial-i...

Some sanity, for a change www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/o...

Today I'd like to honor the memory of my mentor and friend, Roger Tsien, born 1952 February 1. Today would have been Roger's 74th birthday. Most know Roger for his 2008 Chemistry Nobel Prize with Shimomura and Chalfie. Roger made GFP into the versatile imaging method it is now.

I should be proud of being a Fellow of the Royal Society, and yet I'm not. I wonder why.

I had missed this when it came out, and I think it's great news. Publishing false stuff on *cancer* potentially translates to more people dying, and I'm glad to see it now comes with some accountability for the institutions too.

With some trepidation, I'm putting this out into the world: gershmanlab.com/textbook.html It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class. My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.

If the deal between Putin and Trump indeed was: "You can have Venezuela, if I can have Ukraine", Europe had better focus on the latter. Although the Trump regime has stopped direct support for Ukraine already, there are still ways it can further harm Ukraine's position.

Out today in Journal of Vision: Mapping the visual cortex with Zebra noise and wavelets By Sophie Skriabine and Max Shinn, with Samuel Picard and @kenneth-harris.bsky.social doi.org/10.1167/jov....

Earthquake

NYE fireworks < neurons expressing iGluSnFR3! Developed at our Janelia Research Campus, iGluSnFR3 is a fluorescent sensor designed to rapidly detect & image glutamate — our brains' main chemical messenger — allowing researchers to observe (dazzling) neural communication as it happens. 🎆

Adam Kampff prioritized spreading knowledge over publishing flashy papers in prestigious journals, but colleagues say his mark on neuroscience was undeniable. The researcher and educator passed away on 9 December. By Lauren Schneider www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur...

Do direction and orientation preferences form maps in the mouse superior colliculus (SC)? We examined how motion and orientation tuning are organized in SC neurons and their retinal inputs—and how the retinal topography is transformed by collicular circuits. tinyurl.com/mr2zt5rm 🧵👇

I found this article really interesting. Especially the list of criteria [apologies, occasionally I stray from neuroscience]

iGluSnFR4 is now available @natmethods.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... Glutamate indicators with increased sensitivity and tailored deactivation rates 🧪

Great work by @sylviaschroeder.bsky.social and team

Look who's finally on Bluesky! Welcome Hendrikje (and lab). @nienborglab.bsky.social Let's get her follower count up. 🙂

This head is spinning continuously, but we see it rotating back and forth... ...presumably because of our strong prior expectation that faces are convex. This is a very nice example of the Hollow-Face illusion promoted by Richard Gregory: www.richardgregory.org/experiments/

Sequences are everywhere! In every brain region. And are written in stone. Invariant Activity Sequences Across the Mouse Brain. Out today, by Célian Bimbard, with @kenneth-harris.bsky.social. Based on data by Célian and by @intlbrainlab.bsky.social. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Seven feel-good science stories to round up 2025. All too often we forget to celebrate the positives 🧪 #AcademicSky www.nature.com/articles/d41...

This paper by Ken's group seems like a very important follow up to Stringer + Pachitariu et al (consistent a MSc in the lab found that UMAP could capture their data well): "High-dimensional neuronal activity from low-dimensional latent dynamics: a solvable model" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Fully-funded International Neuroscience Doctoral Programme🧠 Champalimaud Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal 🇵🇹 Deadline: Jan 31, 2026 fchampalimaud.org/champalimaud... Research program spans systems/computational/theoretical/clinical/sensory/motor neuroscience, neuroethology, intelligence, and more!!

Ok, this is nuts. Once you see it you cannot unsee it. Do you see it? (OP @drgbuckingham.bsky.social )