The supply of blood to brain tissue is thought to depend on the overall neural activity in that tissue, and this dependence is thought to differ across brain regions and across brain states. However, studies supporting these views have measured neural activity as a bulk quantity and related it to blood supply following disparate events in different regions. Here we measure fluctuations in neuronal activity and blood volume across the mouse brain, and find that their relationship is consistent across brain states and brain regions but differs in two opposing brainwide neural populations. Functional ultrasound imaging (fUSI) revealed that whisking, a marker of arousal, is associated with brainwide fluctuations in blood volume. Simultaneous fUSI and Neuropixels recordings showed that neurons that increase activity with whisking have distinct haemodynamic response functions compared with those that decrease activity. Their summed contributions predicted blood volume across states.Brainwide Neuropixels recordings revealed that these opposing populations coexist in the entire brain. Their differing contributions to blood volume largely explain the apparent differences in blood volume fluctuations across regions. The mouse brain thus contains two neural populations with opposite relations to brain state and distinct relationships to blood supply, which together account for brainwide fluctuations in blood volume.

How does blood flow relate to brain activity? We discovered that it reflects two neural populations affected oppositely by arousal. Together, they explain neurovascular coupling in all brain regions and brain states!

Out today in Nature: rdcu.be/fdC2A

@uclbrainscience.bsky.social

Molecular and functional dissection using CaMPARI-seq reveals the neuronal organization for dissociating optic flow-dependent behaviors - Nature Communications In this study, the authors develop CaMPARI-seq to link neural activity with molecular profiles in larval zebrafish. They identify inhibitory pretectal neurons required for optomotor response, revealin...

Molecular and functional dissection using CaMPARI-seq reveals the neuronal organization for dissociating optic flow-dependent behaviors: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Infant Brains Tick at 4Hz – Resonance Properties of the Developing Visual System

A ~4 Hz EEG response in infants (8-month-olds) emerges independently of visual stimulation frequency.

elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

Developmental characteristics of spontaneous activity and functional connectivity in the fetal brain Abstract. Investigating the developmental characteristics of fetal brain functional activity and connectivity is crucial for understanding normal developme

Developmental characteristics of spontaneous activity and functional connectivity in the fetal brain

"As the fetal gestational age increased, spontaneous brain activity ↓ in the bilateral thalamus and ↑ in the bilateral anterior cingulate cortex."

academic.oup.com/cercor/artic...

Applying for an ERC grant in the 2027 competitions: what you need to know The ERC plans to launch the grant competitions under its 2027 Work Programme between July 2026 and June 2027, with the calls for proposals introducing several changes to the eligibility rules for appl...

I don’t know if you saw the MASSIVE news announced by @erc.europa.eu today: from now on, if you get a B at step 1 you are eligible to apply at N+3(!!!) years. Say you got a B in STG2026 step 1, you thought you could apply in STG2028, but no: only in STG2029! erc.europa.eu/news-events/...

GitHub - dav1dcg/wcr-python: Analysis of whole-cell patch-clamp recordings in Python Analysis of whole-cell patch-clamp recordings in Python - dav1dcg/wcr-python

These findings provide insight into how alcohol engages mesocortical circuits, with potential relevance to the behavioral effects of alcohol intoxication.

Code for patch-clamp analysis is also available here:

github.com/dav1dcg/wcr-...

Activation by alcohol of prefrontal layer 5 pyramidal neurons depends on ascending dopaminergic input Short-term alcohol exposure modulates activity in reward-related regions such as the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and in executive cortical regions such as the prefrontal cortex (PFC), potentially con...

What happens in the prefrontal cortex when alcohol kicks in?

Our new paper is out! We show that acute alcohol activates layer 5 pyramidal neurons in the prefrontal cortex, and that this activation requires dopaminergic signaling from the ventral tegmental area.

www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...

Functional synaptic connectivity shapes spine stability in the hippocampus - Nature Communications In this study, the authors find that synaptic strength predicts spine size and long-term stability via in vivo imaging together with optogenetic stimulation in awake mice. While individual synapses sh...

Functional synaptic connectivity shapes spine stability in the hippocampus

"Spines with large responses exhibited larger volume and higher stability compared to unresponsive spines."

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

Millimeter-scale selective amplification in the developing visual cortex

"cortical networks are preferentially activated by inputs aligned to endogenous recurrent subnetworks" in the immature ferret visual cortex.

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

REM-sleep twitching in adults and the maintenance of specialized sensorimotor systems Blumberg et al. present video evidence of twitching during adult sleep in a diverse sample of animals. Adult twitching appears to selectively involve appendages used for active sensing, mirroring thei...

New paper (with lots of cute animal videos!)

Ever watch your dog "run" while asleep and wonder what’s going on in their brain? In Current Bio we suggest that those twitches aren't just leaky dreams—they’re a vital maintenance system for the most precise movements

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Wanna do neuroscience in Paris but can't find interesting lab?

Want to come do a sabbatical but don't know who to collaborate?

Check this webpage aggregating ~all the neuroscience labs (+200) in Paris.

⚠️only the information of 'verified' profiles is reliable⚠️

Please retweet 🙏

parisneuro.fr

A neuron type-specific microexon in Ank3/ankyrin-G modulates calcium activity and neuronal excitability - Nature Communications Here researchers reveal a microexon in the Ank3 gene encoding Ankyrin G allows cortical interneurons to fine-tune calcium signaling and firing, revealing the contribution of alternative splicing to th...

Full online version of our AnkG E35a paper is finally out!

E35a is a microexon highly included in GABAergic neurons. Surprisingly, deleting E35a increases their excitability and Ca²⁺ activity without AIS changes, pointing instead to disruption of intracellular Ca²⁺.

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

The subiculum: cell-type-specific composition, computation, and function: www.cell.com/trends/neuro...

"The subiculum, the primary hippocampal output region, exhibits rich excitatory neuron diversity that contributes to organizing information flow to downstream brain regions."

Youthful antics predict lifespan? Using machine learning & continuous recordings of #killifish behavior from adolescence until death, @brunetlab.bsky.social & @deisseroth.bsky.social find early-life behavior predicted future lifespan! Now published @science.org: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧪 1/2

Noradrenergic infraslow rhythm during sleep is the critical link between heart-rate dynamics and memory consolidation

elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

Resources for faculty job applications and starting a new lab I will soon hit the academic job market, and hopefully not be crushed by it (the academic job market is tough!) Fortunately, there are now fantastic resources from researchers and institutions that…

New blog post: Resources for faculty job applications and starting a new lab

Suggestions are welcome!

spikesandbursts.wordpress.com/2026/03/15/r...

GitHub - dav1dcg/neuro-notebook-templates: Jupyter notebook templates for processing and analyzing neuroscience data. Jupyter notebook templates for processing and analyzing neuroscience data. - dav1dcg/neuro-notebook-templates

Take a look at the new "Python4Neuro_2026" notebooks with basic tutorials and exercises for patch-clamp and two-photon calcium imaging analysis in Python.

You can launch the notebooks in Google Colab using the links in the README.

github.com/dav1dcg/neur...

If you like AnkG and alternative splicing, check out how this newly identified Ank3 microexon mainly affects GABAergic neurons’ excitability without altering the AIS!

Sincerely happy to have been part of this collaborative project captained by Chaolin Zhang!

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

A human electrophysiological signature of Fragile X pathophysiology is shared in V1 of Fmr1-/y mice - Nature Communications Kornfeld-Sylla et al reveal how alpha brainwaves are altered in children and adults with Fragile X Syndrome (FXS) and find parallel changes in alpha-like rhythms in juvenile and adult FXS model mice, ...

A human electrophysiological signature of Fragile X pathophysiology is shared in V1 of Fmr1-/y mice

"...show in males with fragile X syndrome (FXS) that alpha oscillations in humans and alpha-like oscillations in the visual cortex of Fmr1-/y mice are slowed..."

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

Triggering action potentials of a single neuron by multiphoton excitation elicits visually guided behavior

"disruption of a single neuron within the ensemble temporarily paralyzes the entire ensemble and suspends behavioral responses to visual stimuli"

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

Visual experience exerts an instructive role on cortical feedback inputs to the primary visual cortex: doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

Dual color 2P to measure the tuning properties and retinotopic organization of inputs from the LM visual area in L1 of V1 in mice reared wearing goggles

🔬🧠 Releasing the 1.0 version of #Suite2p and THE PAPER w/ @marius10p.bsky.social! Now with GPU acceleration. Want to use Suite2p but don’t have 100,000 neuron recordings? We show you how to get those with a standard 2p microscope #neuroscience #imaging #neuroAI www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🚨 new work from the lab on how eye movements 👀 versus orofacial movements influence 🐭 visual cortex activity 🧠 #neuroscience #behavior #neuroAI

Muscarinic Acetylcholine Receptor Activators as Transformative Therapeutics for Schizophrenia While traditional antipsychotic drugs provide symptomatic relief for positive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia, many patients are refractory to traditional antipsychotics. Furthermore, these me...

Muscarinic Acetylcholine Receptor Activators as Transformative Therapeutics for Schizophrenia

Review Article

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Rising Stars: In vivo monitoring of neurochemical dynamics by genetically encoded neuromodulator sensors Dr. Yulong Li received his undergraduate education in biophysics and physiology at Peking University, and subsequently completed his Ph.D. training un…

Rising Stars: In vivo monitoring of neurochemical dynamics by genetically encoded neuromodulator sensors

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Sleep-dependent infraslow rhythms are evolutionarily conserved across reptiles and mammals Nature Neuroscience - Bergel et al. show that an infraslow rhythm connecting the brain and body during sleep is shared by lizards, mammals and birds, revealing an ancestral process and reshaping...

⚠️ New paper alert and what a way to end 2025! 🎉
Happy to share our story “Sleep-dependent infraslow rhythms are evolutionarily conserved across reptiles and mammals.” published today in Nature Neuroscience.

Sleeping dragons 🦎 and functional ultrasound!
Read the full paper here: rdcu.be/eWJHb 1/8

Patch-clamp data analysis in Python: dataframes and statistics In this blog, you can find tutorials for analyzing electrophysiological properties using Python and the software Clampfit (see full list here). In the end, you generally get tabular data with numer…

Patch-clamp data analysis in Python: dataframes and statistics

spikesandbursts.wordpress.com/2025/12/28/p...

Spatially heterogeneous acetylcholine dynamics in the striatum promote behavioral flexibility - Nature Communications Striatal cholinergic interneurons promote flexible behavior by unknown mechanisms. Here, authors show that spatially heterogeneous acetylcholine signals promote adaptive lose-shift choices in response...

Spatially heterogeneous acetylcholine dynamics in the striatum promote behavioral flexibility

Rewarded outcomes evoked phasic decreases in acetylcholine, whereas unexpected non-reward following reversal triggered widespread increases that predicted lose-shift behavior
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Modulation of metastable ensemble dynamics explains the inverted-U relationship between tone discriminability and arousal in auditory cortex Papadopoulos et al. report an inverted-U relationship between tone discriminability and arousal in mouse auditory cortex. A spiking network model with clustered connectivity explains the effects via m...

Modulation of metastable ensemble dynamics explains the inverted-U relationship between tone discriminability and arousal in auditory cortex

Tone discriminability exhibited an inverted-U with arousal, which could be reproduced in a clustered spiking network model.

www.cell.com/neuron/abstr...

Norepinephrine-mediated arousal fluctuations drive inverted U-shaped functional connectivity dynamics

"we found arousal modulated inverted U-shaped global functional connectivity (FC) dynamics, peaking at middle arousal level"

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