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Duke Institute for Brain Sciences @dukebrain.bsky.social · 15h

New work from Henry Yin and colleagues at Duke indicates we need to reconsider the role of VTA dopamine circuits in behavior!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Dopamine dynamics during stimulus-reward learning in mice can be explained by performance rather than learning - Nature Communications

VTA dopamine activity control movement-related performance, not reward prediction errors. Here, authors show that behavioral changes during Pavlovian learning explain DA activity regardless of reward ...

www.nature.com

Duke Institute for Brain Sciences @dukebrain.bsky.social · 1d

New in Annual Review of Psychology from Alison Adcock and Jia-Hou Poh!

Alison Adcock @ralisonadcock.bsky.social · 2d

Motivations are like emotions about (what we know about) possible outcomes. Sometimes incentives spur urgency to act, other times to comprehend. Neuromodulatory systems reflect these motivational moods and shape memories. Out now w @jiahou-poh.bsky.social!
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Motivation as Neural Context for Adaptive Learning and Memory Formation

Our memories shape our perception of the world and guide adaptive behavior. Rather than a veridical record of experiences, memory is selective. An accumulating body of work suggests that motivational ...

www.annualreviews.org

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Duke Institute for Brain Sciences @dukebrain.bsky.social · 2d

What a tour de force from the Silver lab!

Debby Silver @debbysilver.bsky.social · 4d

I am thrilled to share our latest story led by the incredibly talented Brooke D’Arcy and Camila Musso. We discover a rich world of local gene expression in radial glia, essential neural and glial precursors, and develop a new method for sub-cellular mRNA manipulation. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

Felipe De Brigard @felipedebrigard.bsky.social · 5d

I wrote a short commentary on Anil Seth's wonderful forthcoming paper in BBS. It is largely inspired by the work of Andy Clark, although some ideas I owe to Ned Block and Dan Dennett (probably not the same ideas!). I highly recommend Anil's paper to anyone interested in consciousness [1/2]

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Duke Institute for Brain Sciences @dukebrain.bsky.social · 10d

Congratulations Tom! It's great to see a teacher, mentor, and leader of the Duke Neuroscience major honored this way!

Tom Newpher @tnewpher.bsky.social · 10d

I’m honored to be part of this incredible group of finalists for the Judith Deckers Award. A huge thank you to all the students, alumni, and colleagues who nominated me!
undergrad.duke.edu/news/judith-...

The Judith Deckers Prize Announces 2025 Finalists | Office of Undergraduate Education

Duke University’s Judith Deckers Prize honors excellence in undergraduate teaching, recognizing faculty whose innovative practices and deep commitment have shaped the stu

undergrad.duke.edu

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Duke Institute for Brain Sciences @dukebrain.bsky.social · 12d

New op-ed by DIBS Associate Director Dr. Nicole Schramm-Sapyta on the important role of mental health care in crime prevention:
www.newsobserver.com/opinion/arti...

NC crime bill doesn’t do enough to address mental health. These steps will help | Opinion

We will all be safer if we choose proactive, rather than reactive, solutions to address mental health and crime. Now is the time to start in NC. | Opinion

www.newsobserver.com

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Duke Institute for Brain Sciences @dukebrain.bsky.social · 14d

Duke community: DIBS has announced revival of its seed grant programs with a round of Germinators! These are specifically for grad students and postdocs - they are the PIs of the awards - to propose 1-year, interdisciplinary research projects in the brain sciences. RFP: dibs.duke.edu/2025-germina...

2025 Germinator Awards: Request for Proposals | Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

The Duke Institute for Brain Sciences (DIBS) invites applications for Germinator Awards: Interdisciplinary research and training relevant to the brain sciencesOpen only t

dibs.duke.edu

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Duke Institute for Brain Sciences @dukebrain.bsky.social · 26d

To everyone interested in mental health: why not you?

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Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

CL @cllantz.bsky.social · 28d

New funding opportunity from the BRAIN Initiative! Applications due Oct 28!

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

RFA-DA-27-004: BRAIN Initiative: Theories, Models and Methods for Analysis of Complex Data from the Brain (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: BRAIN Initiative: Theories, Models and Methods for Analysis of Complex Data from the Brain (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allo...

grants.nih.gov

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Duke Institute for Brain Sciences @dukebrain.bsky.social · Sep 13

Congrats to Debbie Silver @debbysilver.bsky.social for her keynote talk at the IBDM - Institut de Biologie du Développement de Marseille! @ibdm.bsky.social

Baptiste Libé-Philippot @blibep.bsky.social · Sep 13

We were glad to receive @debbysilver.bsky.social 🇺🇸 for a @ibdm.bsky.social keynote lecture "The choreography of brain development: From RNA biology to evolution"!
Thank you for coming in Marseille! Very nice chats on neurodevelopment, human evolution, gene regulation! Food and sea also in the menu!

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Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

John Pearson @jmxpearson.bsky.social · Sep 7

Duke Cell Biology is hiring in AI/ML! @scottsoderling.bsky.social, @rohitsingh8080.bsky.social, and others are building a very active community around ML for discovery science, and Duke is a great place to be.

academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30509

Duke University, Cell Biology/Duke University Medical Center

Job #AJO30509, 24903 Tenure - Track Assistant Professor Position - AI/ML for Biology, Cell Biology/Duke University Medical Center, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, US

academicjobsonline.org

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Duke Institute for Brain Sciences @dukebrain.bsky.social · Aug 27

Exciting work by PhD student Zac Spalding @zspald.bsky.social and multiple labs across departments at Duke! A combination of human electrophysiology, modeling/decoding, and cognitive concepts to improve BCI for speech in patients. 👏 🧠📈

Cogan Lab @coganlab.bsky.social · Aug 25

We’re happy to present @zspald.bsky.social 's work on shared neural representations of speech production across individuals! We find that patient-specific data can be aligned to a shared space that preserves speech information, enabling cross-patient speech BCIs.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Aligned neural space for speech production allows for improved decoding in micro-ECOG patients for BCI

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Duke Institute for Brain Sciences @dukebrain.bsky.social · Aug 21

Of potential interest.
Gift link:
archive.is/2025.08.20-2...

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Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

Duke University School of Medicine @dukemedschool.bsky.social · Aug 20

Duke researchers have uncovered a promising path to potentially treat a family of rare neurodegenerative disease called neurodegeneration with brain iron accumulation (NBIA).

🔗: https://mgm.duke.edu/news/fundamental-cell-molecule-could-help-fight-rare-brain-disorders

#AcademicSky #MedSky

Fundamental Cell Molecule Could Help Fight Rare Brain Disorders | Duke Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology

Duke researchers may have found a path to treat a family of rare neurodegenerative disease called neurodegeneration with brain iron accumulation (NBIA). People with NBIA have extra iron accumulation ...

mgm.duke.edu

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Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

Debby Silver @debbysilver.bsky.social · Aug 10

Sharing our newest study led by the incredibly talented @federicamosti.bsky.social investigating new molecular mechanisms of human brain development. We discover a human-specific enhancer HAR1984 that influences chromatin looping to promote cortical size and folding! www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

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Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

Felipe De Brigard @felipedebrigard.bsky.social · Aug 6

This was a fun paper to write, and one that fits nicely with some recent work I've been doing on the role of counterfactual simulation in memory encoding. link.springer.com/article/10.3...

Episodic details are better remembered in plausible relative to implausible counterfactual simulations - Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

People often engage in episodic counterfactual thinking, or mentally simulating how the experienced past might have been different from how it was. A commonly held view is that mentally simulating alt...

link.springer.com

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Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

Anne West @ennatsew.bsky.social · Jul 27

The Anne West lab at Duke is hiring a postdoc to work on nuclear cell biology in neurogenesis. Please help me spread the word! Applications to [email protected].

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Duke Institute for Brain Sciences @dukebrain.bsky.social · Jul 25

For early career researchers in our community - this is invaluable. Info here:
public.csr.nih.gov/ForReviewers...

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Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

John Pearson @jmxpearson.bsky.social · Jul 24

Ok, reinforcement learning fans: RL is great, but what do we do when there's no obvious reward from the environment? What about perfecting a golf swing or a foxtrot or a musical performance? We may have an answer. A tale of 🐦 🎶 + 🧠. 🧵1/ #bioacoustics #prattle 💬 #neuroai #compneuro

Ziyi Gong @gongziyida.bsky.social · Jul 24

I am happy to share our new preprint! In this work, we proposed a theory about how zebra finches bootstrap their error signals for self-guided RL via predictive coding 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Correctness is its own reward: bootstrapping error signals in self-guided reinforcement learning

Reinforcement learning (RL) offers a compelling account of how agents learn complex behaviors by trial and error, yet RL is predicated on the existence of a reward function provided by the agent's env...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

Duke University School of Medicine @dukemedschool.bsky.social · Jul 23

Neurobiologist Diego V. Bohórquez, PhD, leads discovery of a gut-brain pathway that helps microbes in the gut nudge the brain to influence appetite and behavior.

🔗 Read more: medschool.duke.edu/stories/newl...

#AcademicSky #MedSky #Neuroscience #GutHealth

Newly Discovered ‘Sixth Sense’ Links Gut Microbes to the Brain in Real Time

Diego V. Bohórquez, Ph.D, continues to redefine understanding of gut-brain communication with new research uncovering a sixth sense, that starts in the gut, and may influence what we eat and how we fe...

medschool.duke.edu

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Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

Cogan Lab @coganlab.bsky.social · Jul 22

This week, Jim Zhang (3rd year PhD student, @dukebrain.bsky.social) presented Brooke Staveland’s paper on circuit dynamics of approach-avoidance conflict in humans. This 🧵 explores our thoughts (🤍 & ❔)

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Circuit dynamics of approach-avoidance conflict in humans

Debilitating anxiety is pervasive in the modern world. Choices to approach or avoid are common in everyday life and excessive avoidance is a cardinal feature of all anxiety disorders. Here, we used in...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

MoLA @molautism.bsky.social · Jul 20

Thank you to our sponsors for MoLA 2026! @simonsfoundation.org, @autismsciencefd.bsky.social, @dukebrain.bsky.social, Marcus Autism Center, and Children's Hospital of Atlanta.

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Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

Anne West @ennatsew.bsky.social · Jul 21

It takes a village and this is mine. I could tell you each of their stories and how they will change this world for the better. Every day is a privilege in science and these people are why.

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Duke Institute for Brain Sciences @dukebrain.bsky.social · Jul 9

Very worth bookmarking to keep up with digital advances (computational analyses, AI, digital twin & other modeling) in medicine and basic sciences at Duke. Much of it relevant to brain and behavior!

Amanda Randles 🧪⚛️ 👩‍🔬 @profamandarandles.bsky.social · Jul 8

Computational & Digital Health Ideas Evolve Quickly! Our latest monthly research roundup is live.

Read my takeaways, summaries, and the full list of must-read papers here: comphealth.duke.edu/comphealth-c...

CompHealth Corner: June - Center for Computational and Digital Health Innovation

Computational and digital health ideas evolve quickly. Our monthly research roundup highlights the latest publications — from our Center faculty and other leaders in the field. Here’s what you should ...

comphealth.duke.edu

Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

Scott Soderling @scottsoderling.bsky.social · Jul 4

Lab backpacking trip recently along the AT in NC. It's so nice to get away from it all, together.

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