Interesting papers on astrocyte ultrastructure and function Astrocytes are brain cells that are often completely overlooked and dismissed or, in the opposite extreme, presented as mysterious devices that somehow solve all problems of computational neuroscie…

New blog post, where I highlight a few interesting papers on astrocyte ultrastructure and function, with papers from the labs of Moritz Helmstädter @mhlab.bsky.social, Kristen Harris, Andrea Volterra, Karin Pernet-Gallay, and Hailan Hu: gcamp6f.com/2025/11/14/i...

Enhanced #Notch dependent gliogenesis and delayed physiological maturation underlie neurodevelopmental defects in #LoweSyndrome

By Y. Sharma, P. Raghu et al @ncbsbangalore.bsky.social

🗞️ doi.org/10.1038/s443...

One of the most rewarding aspects of this work is watching neurons and astrocytes come alive through calcium imaging!
Left: 90 day old iPS derived neurons showing spontaneous activity; right: astrocytes migrated out from brain orgs show robust Ca activity as well!

Very excited to share that my PhD work is out!

Neurons carry ~5,000–10,000 molecules of PI(4,5)P₂ per μm² of membrane. What happens to human brain development when that number changes? I address this using a disease-in-a-dish model of Lowe Syndrome:
www.embopress.org/doi/10.1038/...

Ion Channels and Receptors as Determinants of Microglial Function Microglia provide immune surveillance of the CNS. They display diverse behaviors, including nondirectional and directed motility of their processes, phagocytosis of targets such as dying neurons or su...

Do human iPSC derived microglia also possess similar electrophysiological properties?

www.cell.com/trends/neuro...

Revised evolutionary relationships within Brachycera and the early origin of bicoid in flies Mulhair et al. uncover a functional bicoid in non-cyclorrhaphan flies, pushing the gene's origin back by ∼20 million years. Reassessing the Diptera phylogeny using the largest dataset to date permits ...

Latest work out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social

We find the fly development gene bicoid is much older than previously thought (~20 million yrs older!) 🪰🧬

To pinpoint its origins we tackled the Diptera phylogeny, providing some resolution (many open questions remain).

🔗 tinyurl.com/2vyuevpy

Promoter editing generates stable setpoints of gene expression - Nature Biotechnology Precise control of transgene expression remains a challenge in engineering primary cells for diverse applications. We developed DIAL, a promoter editing framework that transmits transient inputs into ...

Research Briefing: Promoter editing generates stable setpoints of gene expression www.nature.com/articles/s41...
rdcu.be/eK2FW

Beautiful live-cell imaging of lysosome tubulation along microtubules in this work just out from @lysoluis.bsky.social et al:
rupress.org/jcb/article/...

Morphological heterogeneity of human astrocytes in cerebral organoids www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09....

A phenotypic brain organoid atlas for neurodevelopmental disorders www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09....

How did life get multicellular? Five simple organisms could have the answer Single-celled species that often stick together in colonies have researchers rethinking the origin of animals.

For some three billion years, unicellular organisms ruled Earth. Then, around one billion years ago, a new chapter of life began

go.nature.com/3JyRV4S

Brain Surfaces of 70 primate species

1
To predict the behaviour of a primate, would you rather base your guess on a closely related species or one with a similar brain shape? We looked at brains & behaviours of 70 species, you’ll be surprised!

🧵Thread on our new preprint with @r3rt0.bsky.social , doi.org/10.1101/2025...

That’s so amazing! Looking forward, good luck!

Are there established protocols to generate entorhinal neurons from iPSCs in the dish?

Thank you for the insight! Any marker you you suggest that can be used to definitively mark their presence? The induction is using small molecule approach.

Does TFAP2 work in your case for positively marking them? Also any idea on how *not* to get these in 2D neural inductions?

Fast, accurate, and versatile data analysis platform for the quantification of molecular spatiotemporal signals AQuA2 is a powerful data analysis platform that decomposes time-lapse imaging datasets into elementary signaling events, allowing for accurate quantification of spatiotemporal molecular activity patte...

Excited that my co-first author manuscript is now published! Special shoutout to Xuelong Mi in Guoqiang Yu's group, who did all of the development of this fantastic tool, which I’ve applied to segment neuromodulatory and astroglial calcium signals. www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Congratulations! 🎉

Congratulations! 🎉

Congratulations to the team!

The nuclear matrix stabilizes primed-specific genes in human pluripotent stem cells - Nature Cell Biology Ma et al. show that heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein U promotes the primed state in human pluripotent stem cells by interacting with nuclear matrix protein, Matrin-3, and regulating primed-spec...

☕️Ma et al. show that heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein U promotes the primed state in human #pluripotent stem cells by interacting with #NuclearMatrix protein, Matrin-3, and regulating primed-specific genes.
👉https://rdcu.be/ebq0W
bit.ly/4iiVHLV

PTEN mutations impair CSF dynamics and cortical networks by dysregulating periventricular neural progenitors - Nature Neuroscience The authors show PTEN mutations, which can cause both congenital hydrocephalus and autism spectrum disorder, disrupt CSF homeostasis and brain connectivity in mice. Reducing mTORC1 activation ameliora...

PTEN mutations impair CSF dynamics and cortical networks by dysregulating periventricular neural progenitors 🧪🧠

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

Genetically encoded biosensor for fluorescence lifetime imaging of PTEN dynamics in the intact brain - Nature Methods A first-in-class fluorescence lifetime-based FRET sensor for phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) enables the dynamic monitoring of PTEN activity in cultured cells and in vivo with high spatiotempora...

I started my lab more then 4 years ago, and we have endured some very challenging times ever since.…I am very excited to share the first paper from my lab, published now in @naturemethods.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Voltage-gated ion channel diversity underlies neuronal excitability and nervous system evolution www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02....

Network-aware self-supervised learning enables high-content phenotypic screening for genetic modifiers of neuronal activity dynamics High-throughput phenotypic screening has historically relied on manually selected features, limiting our ability to capture complex cellular processes, particularly neuronal activity dynamics. While r...

I am excited to announce the release of our BioRxiv preprint: “Network-aware self-supervised learning enables high-content phenotypic screening for genetic modifiers of neuronal activity dynamics”. 1/

Simultaneous profiling of native-state proteomes and transcriptomes of neural cell types using proximity labeling Deep molecular phenotyping of cells at transcriptomic and proteomic levels is an essential first step to understanding cellular contributions to development, aging, injury, and disease. Since proteome...

New preprint! A really fun project spearheaded by amazing graduate student @christinaramelow.bsky.social and a collaboration with Srikant Rangaraju's group.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Special Issue: Glial omics: Unraveling mechanisms in health and disease: Glia: Vol 73, No 3 Glia is the top neurobiology journal for research into glial cells (also called gliocytes or neuroglia). Articles cover all aspects of glial cell biology in health and disease.

#GliaPapers #GliaSpecialIssue
SPECIAL COVER

SPECIAL ISSUE: Glial omics: unraveling mechanisms in health and disease
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/10981136...

Editorial Unboxing “Omics” in Glial Biology to Understand Neurological Disease here - onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

As promised, here is our NEW preprint on CELL CYCLE ASSOCIATED PIP2 NUCLEAR METABOLISM by our SUPER postdoc Toni Gañez, who knows all the secrets of FUCCI reporters 👇
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Vertebrate Embryonic Cells Will Become Nerve Cells Unless Told Otherwise The past few years have witnessed a significant change in the understanding of how the vertebrate nervous system forms during embryogenesis. More than seventy years since Spemann and Mangold first dem...

One of those classical papers that anyone interested in iPSC-NSC biology should read.

Vertebrate Embryonic Cells Will Become Nerve Cells Unless Told Otherwise: Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

WEBseq share freely

Hi #neuroscience community! This is one of my favorite posts ever. In close collaboration with @liddelowsa.bsky.social and Ye Zhang, we've built a new tool that we are eager to share! www.webseq.net