Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Raaj Gowrishankar

Bruno Pichler @brunopichler.bsky.social · 1d

Wonderful read about the work ethos among 1980s Xerox service technicians and the importance of practical wisdom and storytelling. That’s what drew me to the community of multiphoton microscope tinkerers, and it explains why I find meaning in the unglamorous process of troubleshooting.

The Soul of Maintaining a New Machine - First Draft | Books in Progress

Books in Progress is what we call a “public drafting tool”: Drafts will be made available for comment from the public, allowing for direct collaboration between author and reader.

books.worksinprogress.co

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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 2d

Tachykinin 1-expressing neurons in the lateral habenula signal negative reward prediction error https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.11.680558v1

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Anne Carpenter @drannecarpenter.bsky.social · 5d

15 years in the making, we confirmed that mitochondria - the powerhouse of the cell - have an unusual localization in patients who experience psychosis (including schizophrenia and bipolar disorders). You’ll never guess what kind of patient cells we used to make this discovery… 🧵

mitochondria from bipolar patients are closer to the nucleus in these images; control patients' are spread out further

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Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 6d

Why does the naked mole rat have the longest lifespan of any rodent, nearly 40 years?
A 30-year long mystery unraveled @ScienceMagazine today!
Its cGAS enzyme in cells has 4 missense mutations that upends its function, promoting DNA repair and suppressing inflammation
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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Earl K. Miller @earlkmiller.bsky.social · 9d

For all the knucklehead reviewers out there.
Principles for proper peer review - Earl K. Miller
jocnf.pubpub.org/pub/qag76ip8...
#neuroscience

Principles for proper peer review

jocnf.pubpub.org

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Charlotte Volk @charlottevolk.bsky.social · 15d

🚨 New preprint alert!

🧠🤖
We propose a theory of how learning curriculum affects generalization through neural population dimensionality. Learning curriculum is a determining factor of neural dimensionality - where you start from determines where you end up.
🧠📈

A 🧵:

tinyurl.com/yr8tawj3

The curriculum effect in visual learning: the role of readout dimensionality

Generalization of visual perceptual learning (VPL) to unseen conditions varies across tasks. Previous work suggests that training curriculum may be integral to generalization, yet a theoretical explan...

tinyurl.com

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Alex Naka @gottapatchemall.bsky.social · 27d

My group at Science has been running a big campaign to engineer new channelrhodopsins.

Excited to share the first results from it today: a suite of highly sensitive new opsins.

We call them "WAChRs".

Everyday indoor office lighting is enough to activate them pretty strongly.

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Hamilton Lab @ VCU @hamilton-lab.bsky.social · Sep 5

In a new paper, we analyze published RNAseq and discover impact to the expression of transposable element transcripts in the brains of people with major depressive disorder. Natalie Truby, a recent-grad from the lab, spearheaded this work.

Read about it here:
doi.org/10.1016/j.ja...

Redirecting

doi.org

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Shane Liddelow @liddelowsa.bsky.social · Sep 3

Great story in the @thetransmitter.bsky.social today by
@callimcflurry.bsky.social. It was fun chatting about @melcooperphd.bsky.social's new research on astrocyte networks.

Read the story here: www.thetransmitter.org/astrocytes/a...

Read the preprint here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Astrocyte networks span large swaths of brain

The networks are plastic, connect brain regions that aren’t connected by neurons and may enable long-distance communication between astrocytes, a new preprint shows.

www.thetransmitter.org

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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · Sep 3

Astrocytes are connected by gap junctions in large, plastic networks that link brain regions not connected by neurons, a new preprint shows.

By @callimcflurry.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/astrocytes/a...

Astrocyte networks span large swaths of brain

The networks are plastic, connect brain regions that aren’t connected by neurons and may enable long-distance communication between astrocytes, a new preprint shows.

www.thetransmitter.org

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Nature @nature.com · Sep 3

A common type of ant in Europe breaks a fundamental rule in biology: its queens can produce male offspring that are a whole different species

go.nature.com/4mOb5T9

‘Almost unimaginable’: these ants are different species but share a mother

Ant queens of one species clone ants of another to create hybrid workers that do their bidding.

go.nature.com

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Sainsbury Wellcome Centre @sainsburywellcome.bsky.social · Sep 3

A complete brain-wide activity map at single-cell resolution has been revealed for the first time.

Researchers recorded from 650,000+ neurons across 279 brain areas to track decision-making in mice.

Read the story:
🔗 www.sainsburywellcome.org/web/research...

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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · Sep 1

Key moments in naturalistic events synchronize neural activity patterns and dominate memory reinstatement https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.30.673233v1

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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · Sep 1

Epigenetic inheritance of complex learning abilities in the mammalian brain https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.31.673327v1

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Damien C-C @dccc-phd.bsky.social · Aug 30

principal investigator component analysis

Mike Wiser @drmikewiser.bsky.social · Aug 30

I feel like I need some sort of Buzzfeed-style quiz to determine where my personal level of eccentricity falls in faculty space.

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Anna Williams @annawilliamslab.bsky.social · Aug 31

Our new paper on metformin, myelin, mitochondria and metabolism is now out at rdcu.be/eDbFD
Thanks to Nina and all of the team!

Metformin alters mitochondria-related metabolism and enhances human oligodendrocyte function

Nature Communications - Metformin is under clinical trial for brain neuroprotection but how it may work is poorly understood. Here, the authors show that metformin helps myelin formation by human...

rdcu.be

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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · Aug 20

Neural representation of emotional valence in human amygdala https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.14.670371v1

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bioRxiv Neuroscience @biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · Aug 20

Depression symptoms enhance goal-directed behavior underuncertainty https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.14.670362v1

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Nicole Rust @nicolecrust.bsky.social · Jul 29

Excellent piece today in @thetransmitter.bsky.social by @callimcflurry.bsky.social on a paper we’ve discussed at some length here (🧵below); she does a terrific job capturing different reasons to be excited about this work (as well as the controversies).

www.thetransmitter.org/emotion-proc...

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NPR @npr.org · Jul 29

After Nabarun Dasgupta lost a close friend to an overdose, he dedicated himself to addiction research and trying to empower drug users with lifesaving information.

How a friend's overdose drove a leading addiction scientist to look for answers

After Nabarun Dasgupta lost a close friend to an overdose, he dedicated himself to addiction research and trying to empower drug users with lifesaving information.

n.pr

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dgordonwinder.bsky.social @dgordonwinder.bsky.social · Jul 28

Coming up in just a few weeks! @karlakaun.bsky.social and colleagues have great things in store. Prizes available for trainee presentations. Spots are still available, so please consider attending! Looking forward to chatting about growing and connecting addiction neuroscience in the area.

dgordonwinder.bsky.social @dgordonwinder.bsky.social · Jun 26

Calling local addiction neuroscientists! I'm excited to be involved in @karlakaun.bsky.social's great brain child, this year's New England Addiction Neuroscience Conference, to be held on the Brown campus August 15th. Hope to see you there! See attached flyer for details and registration.

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KOJAMF🤘🖤🤘 @kojamf.bsky.social · Jul 25

Reteti Elephant Sanctuary
"On this beautiful Friday, we are so excited to introduce you to #Kimani – the little elephant with a big story!"

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Martin Kampmann @kampmann.bsky.social · Jul 23

Tenure-track faculty search of the UCSF Biochemistry & Biophysics Department is open for applications!

We are looking for creative, innovative scientists asking fundamental questions in any area of biology.

Join our vibrant, collaborative, and supportive community!

aprecruit.ucsf.edu/JPF05702

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Petr Znamenskiy @petrznam.bsky.social · Jul 21

1/ Mapping synaptic connectivity between individual neurons is extremely laborious. We developed BRISC, a new method that makes it possible to map inputs onto 100s of neurons in the same animal in a matter of weeks! Led by Alex Becalick and @antblot.bsky.social. 🧵

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

Barcoded Rabies In Situ Connectomics for high-throughput reconstruction of neural circuits

Sequencing of oligonucleotide barcodes holds promise as a high-throughput approach for reconstructing synaptic connectivity at scale. Rabies viruses can act as a vehicle for barcode transmission, than...

www.biorxiv.org

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rikepetzschner.bsky.social @rikepetzschner.bsky.social · Jul 21

NEW PREPRINT OUT! Being in a state of pain changes how we decide.
📄 Altered Decision-Making Across Acute and Chronic Pain States
🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A 🧵 below 👇

a cookie monster is sitting on a tray with plates of food

ALT: a cookie monster is sitting on a tray with plates of food

media.tenor.com

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