She went to the same residency as us, and she’s been a good NIDA director

Nora Volkow looks taller than Joe Rogan

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

For nearly a century, we believed the therapeutic effect of ECT is the seizure. Our latest research suggests we may have been looking at the wrong event.
A thread on why cortical spreading depression (CSD) might be the driver of therapeutic benefit.
Work led by @therehugolad.bsky.social

Is it always a requirement that an NIH IC director be a US citizen?

Sharif University in Tehran was just bombed

Founded in 1965, it is one the most elite science and engineering institutions in the world. Alumni include the mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani, first woman to win the Fields Medal

Here is the list of other alumni

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

Want a dataset to test ideas on neural basis of decision making or how areas interact as we make choices? Check out our data published today @rudebecklab.bsky.social. >16,000 single neurons from 22 anatomically confirmed areas in macaques performing a decision task. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nasa employee: oh hey u guys are back early

astronaut: Office365 in spaceship

nasa employee: what?

astronaut: *loading a pistol and getting back on the rocket-ship* Office365 in spaceship

The blindfold is made by Missoni wtf

I’m wasted and the plane hasn’t even taken off yet 🍻

Coming back from the Molecular Psychiatry meeting I got randomly upgraded to first class, and now I’m chugging free prosecco and taking selfies like a common peasant

Two-photon calcium imaging at 24,000 lines/s, with the resonant axis spanning 4x what other systems can do. Inertia-free. Diffraction-limited. No tradeoffs. Che-Hang Yu developed a 4x angle multiplier for laser scanning. His paper is out today: opg.optica.org/optica/fullt... 1/n #fluorescenceFriday

Keanu Reeves as Tom Bombadil coming out of retirement for one last job

Wow, congrats!

I hope someone figures out a solution to this because I know what I’m doing now isn’t quite safe

Once I applied for (and got) an NIH grant where all the applicants selected for discussion gave a brief zoom talk with Q and A to the review panel. It was an interesting approach, but very stressful!

That’s what I mean, that people naturally want to help each other, but NIH is saying you’re not here to do that, you’re here to help us evaluate these

Yeah, and they (we?) are often wrong. If I could change one thing about NIH grant review it would be that the investigators should write a rebuttal to the reviewers comments before the study section meets

I would argue that has been true for all of the biological sciences for at least 400 years. The most important breakthrough in the history of biology wasn’t evolution or the double helix. It was the invention of the microscope

three cycles per year

I sort of get it. The logic is, you’re here to help the NIH by critically evaluating the proposal in front of you, not to help the investigators by trying to improve it. I don’t think those things are mutually exclusive, but I could imagine that some people naturally do the 2nd thing not the 1st

It’s an interesting idea. In NIH study sections they explicitly instruct reviewers not to provide helpful feedback, which I’ve always found a little weird. I’m glad that many reviewers ignore that

11yo: I’m so sick of the boys in my class. Did you know two of them are named Rexford and Brid? They should be on a lacrosse team, not in my class

I said “oh no” out loud when ryan gosling didn’t balance the centrifuge

Return of the Dragon | Rotten Tomatoes Discover reviews, ratings, and trailers for Return of the Dragon on Rotten Tomatoes. Stay updated with critic and audience scores today!

It was Return of the Dragon 🤓

www.rottentomatoes.com/m/return_of_...

Every time my French wife tries to say something along the lines of “things aren’t this dumb in France,” I remind her that Walker, Texas Ranger was the #1 TV show in her country for a long time

Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer. But he never cries

Cosyne 2026 - Cosyne Tutorial: Comparative Analysis of Neural Population Codes YouTube video by Cosyne Talks

Cosyne invited me to give a long tutorial (4 hours!) on methods to quantify differences high-d neural recordings across animals, brain regions, deep neural nets, etc.

The recording is up on youtube. I hope it inspires more research on this fundamental topic!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=n44x...

Keep your friends close but your enemies closer 🫠

Maybe you never helped them, but they just wanted to make sure you didn’t get picked as a reviewer