🧵 New preprint led by @bingbrunton.bsky.social, @elliottabe.bsky.social, @lawrencehu.bsky.social

We gave a worm brain control of a fly body and it walked

What did we learn? Nothing, other than deep reinforcement learning is effective

We call it the digital sphinx

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

Flexible, abstract rhythm perception in bumble bees Flexible, abstract rhythm perception underpins human music, dance, and speech, but thus far, it has only been demonstrated in a few birds and mammals. In this work, we show that bumble bees also form ...

What do The Bee Gees and bumblebees have in common? Both bees have rhythm!🕺🪩🐝 check out this new paper where authors show that bumblebees can discriminate rhythms across sensory modalities! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Vision in flower foraging butterflies: from functional organization of the retina to encoding in the brain Summary: This Review discusses how processing in the retina and lamina in Papilio xuthus is the first element for its tetrachromatic color vision and chromatic motion vision, whereas higher-order neur...

🚨 The tetrachromatic color vision and motion vision of a swallowtail butterfly is explored in this wonderful review by Michiyo Kinoshita & Kentaro Arikawa 🦋🦋🦋

journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

Last day to apply for a Phd in Würzburg, Germany. 🐝🗺🧭🧠
www.spatial-navigation.com

Hippocampal place code plasticity in CA1 requires postsynaptic membrane fusion Rapid delivery of glutamate receptors to the postsynaptic membrane via vesicle fusion is a central component of synaptic plasticity. However, it is un…

New paper! Congrats to @markplitt.bsky.social, Konstantin and team! The brain’s spatial map isn’t static but for hippocampus CA1 maps to change with experience, they need postsynaptic membrane fusion. A new link between synaptic machinery and flexible coding!

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

Screenshot of PDF of the Journal of Experimental Biology Editorial, 'Why is publishing so expensive?', by Katherine Brown, Craig E. Franklin and Michaela J. P. Handel. The publishing information states: © 2026. Published by The Company of Biologists | Journal of Experimental Biology (2026) 229, jeb252490. doi:10.1242/jeb.252490. The first sentence reads: 'For many of us who work in scientific publishing, the title of this Editorial is a question we hear all the time when we’re out talking to academics'.

Why is publishing so expensive? In this editorial we tackle this & other FAQs on publishing finances, providing context around the revenues & costs @ JEB & highlighting the people, workflows & tools that go into publishing a paper with us @biologists.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1242/jeb....

My main postdoc work is now published: www.nature.com/articles/s41...! We (myself, Isabel Low, Frances Cho, and @lgiocomo.bsky.social) discovered task-relevant remote representations in entorhinal cortex independent of CA1. #paperthread below! 1/13

Dorsoventral hippocampus neural assemblies reactivate during sleep following an aversive experience - Nature Neuroscience Synchronization of sharp-wave ripples across the dorsoventral hippocampus during sleep supports coordinated reactivation that represents negative experiences more faithfully than positive ones.

Our paper is out today!!! (not an April fool's day joke) Congrats to authors @azulsilva.bsky.social, @belalima-paiva.bsky.social, Ele Pronier, and mostly to the amazing scientist and human being who led this project @facuumm.bsky.social
#neuroskyence #hippocampus
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New from #ProcB: Increasing temperature reduces decision accuracy by shifting speed–accuracy trade-offs in slower individuals royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article... | #Cognition

A fascinating plenary at #EOU26 by Miriam Liedvogel (@genmig.bsky.social)

Uncovering the mysteries of migration through work on blackcaps, and ending with an important reminder: the need for outreach and communication beyond academia, especially with children.

Inspiring on many levels.

My drawing of a wasp-mimic moth - an incredible black and yellow specimen with long orange antennae.

My drawing of a bright pink and yellow elephant hawkmoth.

A mottled green and brown Oleander hawkmoth, with small pink bits on its wings.

A striped hawmoth - mostly brown, with flashes of hot pink on its lower wings.

Thinking about how cool moths are.

Would you like to learn about how genetic differentiation and phenotypic plasticity shape a species' range expansion? Here is a new, comprehensive paper led by Monica Sheffer from my group - supported by wonderful colleagues.

Honey bees dance better with an audience Honey bees don’t just perform their famous waggle dance to share directions, they actually adjust how well they dance depending on who’s watching. Researchers found that when fewer bees pay attention,...

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

There is still some time to apply for a 3-years PhD position in my lab. If you want to learn how to conduct brain recordings in freely moving bees.

3️⃣ days left to submit an abstract for poster and oral contributions for #ICN2026Vancouver

↘️ icn2026vancouver.com/poster-oral-... ↙️

Share widely and come to the most inspiring #neuroethology conference 🧠🪱🐟🦋🐦🐸🦎🐢🐝🐜🦀🦞🐙

Tolerance toward foreigners in ants requires chronic exposure for establishment but only sporadic exposure for maintenance Bailly et al. show that ants learn to tolerate genetically distinct non-nestmates through prolonged exposure. Once established, this tolerance persists with occasional re-encounters with ants of the s...

Ants are experts at telling nestmates from foreigners via subtle differences in odor profiles. In this new paper, we explore the conditions under which ants develop and maintain tolerance to foreigners. Turns out the ant recognition system is surprisingly plastic.
www.cell.com/current-biol...

How does an animal choose between exploring for a better food source and taking advantage of a known one? Our recent work in Current Biology demonstrates how recent feeding and metabolic state dynamically influence fly local search. bit.ly/3PfrIv3 #Science #Neurosky #Foraging #Drosophila

Diapausing bumble bee queens avoid drowning by using underwater respiration, anaerobic metabolism and profound metabolic depression: doi.org/10.1098/rspb... #ProcB #ecology #physiology

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

Hopeless in Tehran Essays on neuroscience

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...

Conspecific proximity alters crabs' attention to novel visual stimuli The ability to prioritize relevant stimuli over distracting ones is essential for adaptive behavior, particularly in species with limited sensory systems. In the mudflat crab Neohelice granulata, a mo...

A moving object on the ground can elicit either avoidance or pursuit in 🦀. Scientists of Daniel Tomsic's lab shows that the presence of a conspecific alters the crab's decision to respond to the moving object. @jexpbiol.bsky.social
journals.biologists.com/jeb/article-...

New paper from the Geffen and @labhaas.bsky.social Laboratories just published! We find that the enigmatic thalamic reticular nucleus exerts bi-directional cell-specific control over sound processing. The super-thin sheet of inhibitory neurons is rather mighty and highly computationally relevant!

Lifelong behavioral screen reveals an architecture of vertebrate aging Mapping behavior of individual vertebrate animals across lifespan could provide an unprecedented view into the lifelong process of aging. We created a platform for high-resolution continuous behaviora...

Lifelong behavioral screen reveals an architecture of vertebrate aging
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

In-flight brainstem responses highlight the encoding of self-emitted echolocation calls in bats Abstract. Echolocating bats rely on precise auditory processing to navigate and forage in complete darkness. A critical aspect of this behaviour is the neu

Measurements of the auditory brain stem response in tethered flying and echolocating bats reveal a pre-auditory wave before call onset potentially linked to motor commands. @royalsocietypublishing.org

royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Ontogenetic evidence of socially learned call sequences in Western Australian magpies Abstract. Combinatoriality is the capacity to combine discrete vocal elements into larger structures. Previously thought unique to human language, combinat

Combinatoriality refers to the ability of combining vocal elements into complex sequences. In magpies, social complexity is an important driver for communicative complexity. royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...
@stephaniellaura.bsky.social @stephanielking.bsky.social
@mandyridley.bsky.social

Influence of behavioural contingency on developmental song learning in young zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) tutored by a robot bird Abstract. In humans and other animals, social robots can serve as effective tutors for learning new skills. Young oscines learn their song by imitating con

It has been shown that a robot bird can serve as a tutor in song learning birds. Here, it has been tested whether a social contigency, i.e., the bird's call evokes a behavioral response of the robot affect song learning and social engagment with the robot.
royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Effects of object motion on visual acuity in Honeybees Object motion is a fundamental visual cue for many animals, yet its role in modulating visual perception is not fully understood. The majority of previous studies have used stationary stimuli to inves...

Object motion enhances visual acuity in honeybees 🐝. When tested with moving stimuli, honeybees could discriminate shapes as small as 0.44°. @jexpbiol.bsky.social

journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

Flies beat their wings more than 200 times per second. How do proprioceptors rapidly sense and fine tune the wingstroke?

@ellenlesser.bsky.social combined genetic tools with the connnectome to create an atlas of Drosophila wing proprioceptors. @elife.bsky.social

elifesciences.org/articles/107...

1/7 🧠 My journey into development begins with this work and question: how does the brain's spatial navigation system develop? We found that the neural networks for spatial navigation (tori and rings) are preconfigured and only later anchor gradually to the world with experience! 🧵

Nocturnal ants navigate using a time-compensated lunar compass Diurnal animals commonly navigate using a sun compass, compensating for the sun’s movement to maintain accurate headings during migration or homing.1,…

Nocturnal bull ants use a time-compensated lunar compass for navigation. The 🌛🧭 gets calibrated by the skyline. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
@currentbiology.bsky.social