Evolution seems to have repeatedly converged on a similar architecture in the early olfactory system of many animals. We offer an efficient-coding framework to understand this. Out in @pnas.org now! Led by @jzv.bsky.social, driven by Juan Carlos, + help from Farhad. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Why Evolution Keeps Returning to the Same Solution for Smell - Harvard University - Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology Why do animals as different as insects and mammals process smells in nearly the same way? A new theoretical study published in PNAS takes on this question by […]

Why Evolution Keeps Returning to the Same Solution for Smell
🧠 🧪🧬 #AcademicSky #higherEd
www.mcb.harvard.edu/department/n... @neurovenki.bsky.social @kempnerinstitute.bsky.social @pnas.org @harvardbrainsci.bsky.social @jzv.bsky.social @rachellegaudet.bsky.social @naoshigeuchida.bsky.social

New AI-based Framework Could Explain Why Evolution Gave So Many Species the Same Smell Circuit - Kempner Institute Why do the smell circuits of flies, mice, and humans look so remarkably alike? A new study from Harvard researchers offers a possible explanation: this shared design may be the […]

🧠👃A new study by #KempnerInstitute associate faculty member Venkatesh Murthy & collaborators shows that maximizing information recreates an olfactory design shared by multiple species.

Out now in @pnas.org: bit.ly/4uQ6Omw

@neurovenki.bsky.social @jzv.bsky.social #neuroscience

Travelling to COSYNE seems to be the perfect opportunity to announce that I started my own lab at RWTH Aachen University earlier this year, funded by NRW's Ministry of Culture and Science through its Return Program. If you are at COSYNE and want to chat please reach out!

If you're at #cosyne2026 in Lisbon, come check out Juan Carlos Fernández del Castillo's poster 1-007 tonight, based on our paper on efficient coding in olfaction (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...)!

NEW: #Kempner researchers develop a mean-field theory of task-trained RNNs that bridges random and learned connectivity—and find macaque motor cortex is best captured by an intermediate, task-specific recurrent structure.
Read the blog post 👇
🔗 bit.ly/47f3Ldl

I am totally pumped about this new work . "Task-trained RNNs" are a powerful and influential framework in neuroscience, but have lacked a firm theoretical footing. This work provides one, and makes direct contact with the classical theory of random RNNs:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Indeed, that's a typo - a regrettable artefact of changing z-transform notation. Thanks for catching it!

How do past sensory experiences prepare us for new ones? Our new paper tackles this long-standing question, revealing a role for activity sequences in the olfactory bulb. Excited to share our work led by @jonvgill.bsky.social with Mursel Karadas & Shy Shoham
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

My paper on the head direction neurons in the larval zebrafish is now published on Nature! Read it here:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

What is the computational role of dendritic excitations? Byung Hun Lee and team mapped voltage dynamics throughout the dendritic trees of CA1 pyramidal neurons in mice navigating in virtual reality. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Have you ever wondered what you would find if you could keep your eyes on a bee for more than a few meters? Us, too!

preprint (with videos!) + thread 🧵

Precise, individualized foraging flights in honey #bees 🐝 revealed by multicopter drone-based tracking

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

1/9

First paper from the lab!
We propose a model that separates estimation of odor concentration and presence and map it on olfactory bulb circuits
Led by @chenjiang01.bsky.social and @mattyizhenghe.bsky.social joint work with @jzv.bsky.social and with @neurovenki.bsky.social @cpehlevan.bsky.social

Happy to see this long-in-the-making collaboration with @paulmasset.bsky.social out on bioRxiv!

Simultaneous detection and estimation in olfactory sensing www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11....

Connectivity Structure and Dynamics of Nonlinear Recurrent Neural Networks The structure of brain connectivity predicts collective neural activity, with a small number of connectivity features determining activity dimensionality, linking circuit architecture to network-level...

Now in PRX: Theory linking connectivity structure to collective activity in nonlinear RNNs!
For neuro fans: conn. structure can be invisible in single neurons but shape pop. activity
For low-rank RNN fans: a theory of rank=O(N)
For physics fans: fluctuations around DMFT saddle⇒dimension of activity

This week's sensorimotor superlab reading list is out https://superlab.ca/posts/2025-09-05-list302.html @andpru.bsky.social @diedrichsenjorn.bsky.social @gribblelab.org #neuroskyence #psychscisky #Sensorimotor

Frontiers | Summary statistics of learning link changing neural representations to behavior How can we make sense of large-scale recordings of neural activity across learning? Theories of neural network learning with their origins in statistical phy...

...it's now published, as part of a special issue organized by Harvard neuro colleagues Takao Hensch and Kenny Blum: www.frontiersin.org/journals/neu... (2/2)

Frontiers | Summary statistics of learning link changing neural representations to behavior How can we make sense of large-scale recordings of neural activity across learning? Theories of neural network learning with their origins in statistical phy...

Since I'm back on BlueSky - with @frostedblakess.bsky.social and @cpehlevan.bsky.social we wrote a brief perspective on how ideas about summary statistics from the statistical physics of learning could potentially help inform neural data analysis... (1/2)

Happy to see this collaboration with @neurovenki.bsky.social out - featuring great work by Juan Carlos!

Convergent motifs of early olfactory processing are recapitulated by layer-wise efficient coding The architecture of early olfactory processing is a striking example of convergent evolution. Typically, a panel of broadly tuned receptors is selectively expressed in sensory neurons (each neuron exp...

Excited to share new computational work, led by @jzv.bsky.social, driven by Juan Carlos Fernandez del Castillo + contribution from Farhad Pashakanloo. We recover 3 core motifs in the olfactory system of evolutionarily distant animals using a biophysically-grounded model + efficient coding ideas!

Excited to share our latest!! Thanks to everyone involved especially @neurovenki.bsky.social!

Mice navigate scent trails using predictive policies Animals actively sense their environment to extract features of interest to guide behaviors. For mammals, odors are prominent environmental features which are sampled by active modulation of sniffing ...

Thrilled to share this work, long time in the making! Carried through creatively by @siddjakes.bsky.social after initial design & piloting by @trackingskills.bsky.social, with help from @trackingactions.bsky.social. Modeling in collaboration with Massimo Vergassola & Nicola Rigolli.

Multi-timescale reinforcement learning in the brain - Nature Individual dopaminergic neurons encode future rewards over distinct temporal horizons.

Our work with Pablo Tano, @hyunggoo-kim.bsky.social Athar Malik, Alexandre Pouget and @naoshigeuchida.bsky.social exploring how dopamine neurons could enable multi-timescale reinforcement learning in the brain is out in @nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Don't miss our #Cosyne2025 poster (3-128) 'Simultaneous detection and mapping in the olfactory bulb' proposing a new computational role for mitral and tufted cells in the olfactory bulb
with Matthew He, @chenjiang01.bsky.social @neurovenki.bsky.social @cpehlevan.bsky.social @jzv.bsky.social

Applications are open for the 2025 Flatiron Institute Junior Theoretical Neuroscience Workshop! A two-day workshop 7/10-7/11 in NYC for PhD students and postdocs. All travel paid. Apply by April 14th.🧠🗽🧑‍🔬http://jtnworkshop2025.flatironinstitute.org/
@flatironinstitute.org @simonsfoundation.org

Science Matters. 🔬
For 80 years, science has been a north star for the U.S. In 1945, Vannevar Bush’s report Science, The Endless Frontier called for bold government investment in research transforming our health, economy, quality of life. Science is not zero-sum—it creates value and better lives.

In our new paper @dulaclab.bsky.social, we investigated a fundamental question in social neuroscience: the origin of "sociality" (the need of being together) at the levels of behavior, neuron type, neural circuit and sensory modulation. (Detailed digest below) (1/7)
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Honoured to have been selected as a #SloanFellow
Thankful for all the support from family, mentors, collaborators, colleagues and students along the way!
@sloanfoundation.bsky.social