Nicolás Vidal-Vázquez (@vidalvazquezn) Bsky

Spatial, temporal and Notch determination of terminal selector expression controls neuronal cell fate in the Drosophila optic lobe - Nature Neuroscience The authors characterized the spatial origin of Drosophila medulla neurons, completing their previous characterization of the temporal and Notch origins of these neurons and allowing them to correlate...

Félix Simon's paper is out in its final form 😍
When we got into (extreme) detail in the temporal and spatial patterning of neuroblasts, Félix asked a simple question "sure, but how does this translate into neuronal cell fate?". www.nature.com/articles/s41...

4 days ago 42 23 3 3

🔈 Heading to Euro Evo-Devo #EED2026 in Glasgow? Don't miss out our Fish Satellite Meeting! Co-organized with Mike Dorrity @mwdorr.bsky.social, Ralf Schneider @ralfschneider.bsky.social, Laure Sanders @lsaunders.bsky.social and Joost Woltering, and with a list of outstanding speakers 👇

5 days ago 14 10 3 1

Postnatal plasticity in the paralaminar nucleus of the pallial amygdala in juvenile swine brain - Brain Structure and Function Brain Structure and Function - The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of immature cells and their phenotype in the pallial amygdala of juvenile swine brains by way of...

Very happy to see our paper on postnatal plasticity in the amygdala of juvenile swine published, with Júlia Freixes and Ester Desfilis @edesfilis.bsky.social and myself as coauthors: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

1 week ago 5 3 1 0

"We cloned the orthologous [enhancer in Tetraodon] & show that it drives dorsal retina-specific reporter expression in zebrafish & mouse. Together, these results identify an evolutionarily conserved regulatory domain controlling retinal axial identity..."

New work from @patyschneider22.bsky.social

2 weeks ago 2 1 1 0

Excited to share our new #preprint uncovering how early human forebrain is patterned.

Compared to mouse, human dorsoventral and anteroposterior telencephalon patterning is strikingly delayed, which is correlated with SHH and FGF signalling differences.
Read it here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

2 weeks ago 31 12 3 3

Insterested in #rhodopsins and #evolution? Looking for a #PhD? We're offering a PhD position combining both - and in deep-sea fish!:-) From protein to genes & evolution (and back). Deadline soon:-) Thanks for sharing! More info: www.fishevo.com/phd-position...

4 weeks ago 3 3 0 0

Lateral view of a preserved croaking gecko (Aristelliger) embryo

I’m so excited to announce our new paper in @journal-evo.bsky.social showing how embryology can help us determine ancestral character states in temporal niche

academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

Collab w/ A Bauer, A Wegerski, @tonygamble.bsky.social, & A Rasys

#GeckoEvoDevo #Aristelliger
1/x

1 month ago 53 24 4 1

Inhibitory neurons are among the most transcriptomically diverse class of neurons in the CNS, with some brain regions having 60+ distinct cell types. Do humans share the same repertoire as rodents? Birds? Fish? 1/13

1 month ago 67 26 3 4

Thrilled to share that our preprint has been accepted in Science Advances! Grateful to an incredible team & collaborators.

Link: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

👏 @annaferraioli.bsky.social @maikekittelmann.bsky.social
@msarscentre.bsky.social @erc.europa.eu @hfspo.bsky.social #ctenophores

1 month ago 69 17 2 2

Muller glia (green) regulate local retinoic acid signalling to specialise photoreceptor outer segments (magenta)for high acuity visual function

Excited to share our new manuscript from the Yoshimatsu and MacDonald labs. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6.... We found that my favourite glial cells can regulate local retinoic acid signalling to specialise cone photoreceptors for high acuity visual function.

1 month ago 34 11 1 1

Final version @nature.com of our paper describing unconventional multicellular development in a choanoflagellate inhabiting an extreme environment. A ton of new data since the first @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social preprint (which we've kept updating).

A brief 🧵 (carried over from the old place)

1 month ago 380 152 16 15

A cell fate specification and transition mechanism for human foveolar cone subtype patterning | PNAS In the central region of the human retina, the high-acuity foveola is notable for its dense packing of green (M) and red (L) cones and absence of b...

I'm excited to share our PNAS paper from 1st author Kasia Hussey. We study how the foveola, the high acuity region of the retina, is patterned by RA and TH. We were surprised to find that cone subtypes appear to convert fates. Our studies are important for AMD sufferers. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

1 month ago 27 11 3 1

The molecular evolution of vertebrate organs Nature Ecology & Evolution - This Review discusses recent advances in the molecular evolution of vertebrate organs, including rates of evolution of organs and cell types, molecular mechanisms...

Our internal organs are evolutionary marvels. New technologies are transforming our understanding of the evolution of vertebrate organs. You can find more by reading here:
rdcu.be/e5EgU
#EvoBio #EvoDevo 🐟🦎🐢🦇🐊🦜

1 month ago 141 54 2 5

Out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social!

A dive into the deep history of vertebrate vision, together with @mikebok.bsky.social, @neurofishh.bsky.social and @denilsson.bsky.social

Photo credit : Vasilis Karkalas

1 month ago 46 22 3 0

Evolution of monoamine reception and its role in cellular contractility.

How do #sponges coordinate their bodies despite lacking neurons and true muscles?

We show that sponges use monoamines to control water flow in their canals — reminiscent of how adrenaline regulates blood vessels.

My PhD story, now on BioRxiv:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
#Evolution

2 months ago 66 22 3 4

1/10 ⏰⏰ New stuff from me &
@tjnear.bsky.social
! We show that sharks themselves might not be a natural group ... it depends on what spots in the genome you analyze!

Preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

2 months ago 56 22 2 4

Hᴏᴡ ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ʙᴜɪʟᴅ ᴀ ʙʀᴀɪɴ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴄᴀɴ ᴄᴏɴqᴜᴇʀ ʟᴀɴᴅ, ᴀɪʀ, ᴀɴᴅ ꜱᴇᴀ? 🧠 It’s not just about adding new parts; it’s about "tinkering" with what’s already there! Our new review dives into Evo-Devo and how small developmental tweaks create many brain forms🦎🐦

2 months ago 5 1 1 0

Abstract submission and registration for the *10th Euro Evo Devo Meeting 2026* at University of Glasgow (June 8-12, 2026) is open. Early bird deadline: March 5, 2026. More info: https://www.evodevoconference26.com/ #conference

2 months ago 7 9 0 1

Oriented cell divisions induce basal progenitors and regulate neural expansion across tissues and species A fundamental role for division orientation in progenitor output driving cortical and retinal growth is revealed.

Happy to announce that our latest paper is now out! Have you ever wondered how neural tissues control their size? In this paper, we show that cell division orientation is critical in both the cortex and retina. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

2 months ago 92 31 5 2

Spatiotemporal coordination of Slit-Robo repulsion and neurturin-Gfrα attraction guides multipolar migration during retinal lamination Multipolar migration is a conserved neuronal migration mode in the developing brain, enabling emerging neurons to navigate in crowded environments and…

Check out the tour de force by @jalehtimaki.bsky.social in its final form: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... . An elegant combination of transcriptomics, F0 screens and high end imaging unravels the cues that guide cells (here retinal horizontal cells) in an increasingly crowded tissue. #proudPI

2 months ago 49 16 2 2

Our new paper: Entropy Sorting Feature Selection (ESFS)

A computational framework for gene selection from single cell data that extracts biological signals in noisy data while avoiding artefacts from conventional dimensionality reduction

A thread
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

2 months ago 26 12 1 1

And finally, we have It out! Do not miss It, If you are into early eye development, GRNs, and eye malformations. Thanks to Javier Macho and the rest of the authors for a terrific job.

2 months ago 21 6 0 1

Morphological, molecular, and functional evidence for a CNS-like oral nerve ring in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis The emergence of centralized nervous systems reflects a major inflection point in evolution, enabling animals to integrate diverse inputs and coordinate complex behaviors. Neural centralization is typically associated with Bilateria, whereas their sister group, Cnidaria (jellyfish, anemones, and corals), has long been thought to rely on diffuse nerve nets mediating simple reflexes. This view, reinforced by limited anatomical and molecular data, has left unresolved whether cnidarians can form localized centers for neural processing, a question sharpened by the growing recognition of their diverse behavioral repertoires. Here we show that the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis possesses an oral nerve ring composed of ganglion-like condensations, a hallmark of centralized organization. These neurons are enriched for excitatory, inhibitory, and modulatory receptors but lack sensory or ciliary markers, yielding a molecular profile most consistent with bilaterian interneurons. Genetic disruption of a conserved inhibitory receptor subunit predominantly expressed in the oral nerve ring delayed the initiation of swallowing in a novel feeding paradigm, demonstrating a potential role in behavioral regulation. Together, these findings provide converging anatomical, molecular, and functional evidence that cnidarians can assemble localized integrative centers, suggesting that key elements of neural centralization predated the cnidarian–bilaterian split. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Stowers Institute for Medical Research

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

2 months ago 9 2 1 0

🧠✨ Older neurons get richer connections in the human brain!
Our new paper is out in Nature Communications.
We reveal a fundamental link between ᴅᴇᴠᴇʟᴏᴘᴍᴇɴᴛ ⛓️ ʙʀᴀɪɴ ꜱᴛʀᴜᴄᴛᴜʀᴇ & ꜰᴜɴᴄᴛɪᴏɴ in the human connectome 🧵👇

2 months ago 19 3 4 0

We are thrilled that our study on the evolution of gene regulation in mammalian cerebellum development – led by @ioansarr.bsky.social, @marisepp.bsky.social and @tyamadat.bsky.social, in collaboration with @steinaerts.bsky.social – is now out in @ScienceMagazine! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

2 months ago 93 36 3 6

ESFS: A Noise-Resilient Framework for Feature Selection and Marker Gene Discovery in Single-Cell Transcriptomics Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) has transformed our ability to resolve cellular heterogeneity, but extracting meaningful signals remains challenging due to technical noise, batch effects, and the limitations of current feature selection methods. We present Entropy Sorting Feature Selection (ESFS), a modular, user-friendly framework that captures multivariate gene expression relationships without imputation or denoising via latent spaces. Across diverse datasets, ESFS improves interpretability and reveals biology missed by standard workflows: identifying coherent developmental programs in eight independent human embryo datasets without batch integration; resolving spatial gene expression in mouse colon obscured by conventional analyses; distinguishing shared and tumour-specific microenvironments in glioblastoma; and disambiguating spatial, temporal, and neurogenic programs in the developing mouse neural tube. By operating in gene expression space, ESFS produces interpretable, biologically meaningful outputs while reducing artefacts introduced by feature extraction. These results position ESFS as a powerful means to uncover relevant molecular signatures in noisy, high-dimensional transcriptomics data. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Cancer Research UK, CC001051 Medical Research Council, https://ror.org/03x94j517, CC001051 Wellcome Trust, CC001051 Wellcome Trust, 220379/D/20/Z European Molecular Biology Organization, 792-2021 UK Research and Innovation, EP/X031225/1

Our latest: A gene selection method for single-cell RNA-seq that identifies developmental & spatial patterns missed by other analysis pipelines

ESFS: A Noise-Resilient Framework for Feature Selection and Marker Gene Discovery in Single-Cell Transcriptomics | bioRxiv www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

2 months ago 29 9 0 0

🧬Euro Evo Devo 2026🦖
University of Glasgow, 9–12 June 2026.

Registration is now open!
Deadline: Thursday, 5 March 2026
registrations.hg3conferences.co.uk/hg3/frontend...

We are organising Symposium S08: “Integrative Perspectives on Craniofacial Evo-Devo”.
We welcome contributed talk submissions!

3 months ago 7 6 0 0

Resolving forebrain developmental organisation by analysis of differential growth patterns - Nature Communications Experiments on the embryonic chick brain reveal distinct directional growth patterns and a tripartite hypothalamus, challenging the classic segmented prosomere model and offering an updated view of ho...

Excited to finally share the final/final.doc version of our paper. It's been a journey, but very proud of the result. Well done to all involved, especially @elsieplace.bsky.social

@kchinnaiya.bsky.social , @thomasdwkim.bsky.social, @sethblackshaw.bsky.social 👏👏

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

2 months ago 15 6 0 0

I am thrilled to share our collaborative work @amphispacelab.bsky.social on the evolution of FoxQ2 genes, now out in @commsbio.nature.com! 🧬🥳

Thank you so much to everyone involved! 🤩 And please feel free to reach out if you have any question or comment!

2 months ago 7 2 1 1

Four camera-type eyes in the earliest vertebrates from the Cambrian Period - Nature Early vertebrates, particularly myllokunmingids, possessed four camera-type eyes (a pair of lateral eyes and pineal and parapineal organs), which indicates that these structures functio...

New paper presenting rather compelling evidence that the stem-vertebrate Haikouichthys had paired lateral and supranumerary medial eyes (!!!), and proposing that the medial eyes may have deep homology with the pineal and parapineal organs.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

3 months ago 66 30 2 8

Posts by Nicolás Vidal-Vázquez