Wei Wen
@wwenneuro.bsky.social
Ex- neuroscientist used to patch stuff and still crazy about how circuits work. Feminist | Traveler | Coffee addict. Formerly with Turrigiano Lab @Brandeis. 🧠👩🔬🚴♀️📷🏳️🌈 She/Her/她. 讲中文.
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1422-856X
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1422-856X
Pinned
Wei Wen
@wwenneuro.bsky.social
· May 31
Modular arrangement of synaptic and intrinsic homeostatic plasticity within visual cortical circuits | PNAS
Neocortical circuits use synaptic and intrinsic forms of homeostatic plasticity to
stabilize key features of network activity, but whether these di...
www.pnas.org
Very happy that this work is finally out in @pnas.org! We show that synaptic and intrinsic forms of homeostatic plasticity sense distinct aspects of network activity, and can thus be independently recruited by distinct network functions. A thread:
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Check out the updated version of our cricket hunting paper!
Excited to share several updates on our previous preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We show rapid prey capture learning requires V1, enhances V1b responses across learning, and induces persistent plasticity in firing rates + spines, via homeostatic, rather than Hebbian, processes. Read more:
We show rapid prey capture learning requires V1, enhances V1b responses across learning, and induces persistent plasticity in firing rates + spines, via homeostatic, rather than Hebbian, processes. Read more:
Rapid prey capture learning slowly re-sets activity set points in rodent binocular visual cortex
Neurons within primary visual cortex (V1) possess stable firing rate set points to which they faithfully return when perturbed by passive sensory manipulations. Chronic recordings in vivo suggest that...
www.biorxiv.org
November 25, 2025 at 9:47 PM
Check out the updated version of our cricket hunting paper!
Reposted by Wei Wen
Check out the newest Editors' (that would be me and Eunjoon Kim) Choice issue in Current Opinion in Neurobiology.
Superbly guest edited by Stephen Liberles and @zknight.bsky.social
>20 review articles on Interoception
www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...
Superbly guest edited by Stephen Liberles and @zknight.bsky.social
>20 review articles on Interoception
www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...
Current Opinion in Neurobiology | Interoception 2025 | ScienceDirect.com by Elsevier
Read the latest articles of Current Opinion in Neurobiology at ScienceDirect.com, Elsevier’s leading platform of peer-reviewed scholarly literature
www.sciencedirect.com
November 25, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Check out the newest Editors' (that would be me and Eunjoon Kim) Choice issue in Current Opinion in Neurobiology.
Superbly guest edited by Stephen Liberles and @zknight.bsky.social
>20 review articles on Interoception
www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...
Superbly guest edited by Stephen Liberles and @zknight.bsky.social
>20 review articles on Interoception
www.sciencedirect.com/special-issu...
Reposted by Wei Wen
My colleague, Dr. Vahid Abedini, was illegally detained by ICE on Saturday. He is currently being held without a court date in sight, despite being in the country legally. Please spread the word! We must ensure his due process rights are upheld. www.oudaily.com/news/ou-prof...
OU College of International Studies professor reportedly arrested by ICE
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reportedly arrested an OU professor at Will Rogers International Airport Saturday.
www.oudaily.com
November 24, 2025 at 11:05 PM
My colleague, Dr. Vahid Abedini, was illegally detained by ICE on Saturday. He is currently being held without a court date in sight, despite being in the country legally. Please spread the word! We must ensure his due process rights are upheld. www.oudaily.com/news/ou-prof...
Reposted by Wei Wen
Entire creation of new data that has no bearing upon any histological relevance. Remember LLM models are not open and we have no understanding of what NeuN, GFAP, or DAPI means in biological space within the LLM.
This is nonsense. But it looks at first blush as "real" to the uninformed.
Scary.
This is nonsense. But it looks at first blush as "real" to the uninformed.
Scary.
Gemini 3 created this figure in under 30 seconds from a couple reference images and a one sentence prompt
So I’m at a loss for words, honestly #MicroscopyMonday
So I’m at a loss for words, honestly #MicroscopyMonday
November 24, 2025 at 7:51 PM
Entire creation of new data that has no bearing upon any histological relevance. Remember LLM models are not open and we have no understanding of what NeuN, GFAP, or DAPI means in biological space within the LLM.
This is nonsense. But it looks at first blush as "real" to the uninformed.
Scary.
This is nonsense. But it looks at first blush as "real" to the uninformed.
Scary.
Who needs an electrician when your dad can do anything? He doesn’t even need a wire stripper to strip wire🤯
November 24, 2025 at 8:49 AM
Who needs an electrician when your dad can do anything? He doesn’t even need a wire stripper to strip wire🤯
Reposted by Wei Wen
I really need to practice saying “what a weird, rude thing to say” to the people who say weird, rude things to me
November 24, 2025 at 2:07 AM
I really need to practice saying “what a weird, rude thing to say” to the people who say weird, rude things to me
I didn’t even realize magnetic effect counts as a type of sensory input… Wow! (P.S. Using cFos as the only activity readout- gonna insert a Turrigiano lab inside joke here😉)
A global screen for magnetically induced neuronal activity in the pigeon brain www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... - so cool! 🐦🧠
A global screen for magnetically induced neuronal activity in the pigeon brain
How animals detect the Earth’s magnetic field remains a mystery in sensory biology. Despite extensive behavioral evidence, the neural circuitry and molecular mechanisms responsible for magnetic sensin...
www.science.org
November 23, 2025 at 12:08 PM
I didn’t even realize magnetic effect counts as a type of sensory input… Wow! (P.S. Using cFos as the only activity readout- gonna insert a Turrigiano lab inside joke here😉)
Wanted to be a geographer in 4th grade, hard to sum up how I got where I am now😂
November 23, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Wanted to be a geographer in 4th grade, hard to sum up how I got where I am now😂
Reposted by Wei Wen
Just an absolutely gutting essay by Tatiana Schlossberg, a writer, mother of two young children, and cousin of RFK Jr who is dying of leukemia.
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
November 22, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Just an absolutely gutting essay by Tatiana Schlossberg, a writer, mother of two young children, and cousin of RFK Jr who is dying of leukemia.
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
It’s amazing how low NYT has sunken
Breaking News: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he personally instructed the CDC to abandon its position that vaccines do not cause autism. The move underscores his determination to challenge scientific orthodoxy — in this case, that vaccines save lives — and bend the health department to his will.
RFK Jr. Says He Instructed CDC to Change Vaccines and Autism Language on Website
In an interview, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited gaps in vaccine safety research. His critics say he is ignoring a larger point: Vaccines save lives.
nyti.ms
November 21, 2025 at 10:28 PM
It’s amazing how low NYT has sunken
Reposted by Wei Wen
Now that we're all back from SFN, let's chat about @thetransmitter.bsky.social "State of Neuroscience" report. It's huge! So much to discuss!
Let me share what I see. I'd love to hear your thoughts as well.
Let's start with the semantic map /1
www.thetransmitter.org/state-of-neu...
Let me share what I see. I'd love to hear your thoughts as well.
Let's start with the semantic map /1
www.thetransmitter.org/state-of-neu...
The State of Neuroscience 2025
The Transmitter presents a portrait of the field through four lenses: its focus, its output, its people and its funding.
www.thetransmitter.org
November 20, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Now that we're all back from SFN, let's chat about @thetransmitter.bsky.social "State of Neuroscience" report. It's huge! So much to discuss!
Let me share what I see. I'd love to hear your thoughts as well.
Let's start with the semantic map /1
www.thetransmitter.org/state-of-neu...
Let me share what I see. I'd love to hear your thoughts as well.
Let's start with the semantic map /1
www.thetransmitter.org/state-of-neu...
Wow very cool! Make sense since languages share core phonetic sounds? Super interesting that proficiency can predict word boundary decoding regardless of the language- I wonder if the decoding performance changes in real time as someone learns, and if it's much faster in children compared to adults?
The human brain responds to the sounds of both familiar and unfamiliar languages in a similar way, according to research in Nature. The findings might guide future approaches to language learning and rehabilitation. go.nature.com/4ppvsHb #Neuroskyence 🧪
November 20, 2025 at 11:35 PM
Wow very cool! Make sense since languages share core phonetic sounds? Super interesting that proficiency can predict word boundary decoding regardless of the language- I wonder if the decoding performance changes in real time as someone learns, and if it's much faster in children compared to adults?
Reposted by Wei Wen
proud to share this work, led by the brilliant @ilinabg.bsky.social, now out in Nature! Ilina finds that speech-sound neural processing is VERY similar in a language you know and one you don't. differences only emerge at the level of word boundaries and learnt statistical structure 🧠✨
The human brain responds to the sounds of both familiar and unfamiliar languages in a similar way, according to research in Nature. The findings might guide future approaches to language learning and rehabilitation. go.nature.com/4ppvsHb #Neuroskyence 🧪
November 20, 2025 at 7:11 PM
proud to share this work, led by the brilliant @ilinabg.bsky.social, now out in Nature! Ilina finds that speech-sound neural processing is VERY similar in a language you know and one you don't. differences only emerge at the level of word boundaries and learnt statistical structure 🧠✨
Reposted by Wei Wen
Re-upping this - Neuropeeps! We have a TT Job in my wonderful department at Brandeis! First consideration to applications received by Dec 15 (but why wait?)
www.nature.com/naturecareer...
www.nature.com/naturecareer...
Assistant Professor in Biology and Neuroscience Program - Waltham, Massachusetts (US) job with Brandeis University | 12848464
The Department of Biology and the Program in Neuroscience at Brandeis University invite applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor positio...
www.nature.com
November 20, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Re-upping this - Neuropeeps! We have a TT Job in my wonderful department at Brandeis! First consideration to applications received by Dec 15 (but why wait?)
www.nature.com/naturecareer...
www.nature.com/naturecareer...
Reposted by Wei Wen
GABA-glutamate corelease is a mechanism for state-dependent neurotransmission
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
GABA-glutamate corelease is a mechanism for state-dependent neurotransmission
Ventral tegmental area neurons projecting to lateral habenula (LHb) corelease the main inhibitory and excitatory transmitters, GABA and glutamate (VTAGG). Yet the functional role of this synchronous s...
www.biorxiv.org
November 20, 2025 at 12:35 PM
GABA-glutamate corelease is a mechanism for state-dependent neurotransmission
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
This will be translated and broadcast on Chinese social media as a "fact" simply because it's from the US CDC. Great news for a country where vaccine skepticism has always been high and skyrocketed in recent years 🫠
CDC has overhauled its website to assert that “the claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim”
November 20, 2025 at 6:43 AM
This will be translated and broadcast on Chinese social media as a "fact" simply because it's from the US CDC. Great news for a country where vaccine skepticism has always been high and skyrocketed in recent years 🫠
Reposted by Wei Wen
I really hate it when scientists keep saying that “we need to rebuild trust in science,” because it implies that scientists are to blame for the mistrust rather than the millions of dollars of dark money that have funded political attacks on science in order to advance a far right agenda.
November 19, 2025 at 9:48 PM
I really hate it when scientists keep saying that “we need to rebuild trust in science,” because it implies that scientists are to blame for the mistrust rather than the millions of dollars of dark money that have funded political attacks on science in order to advance a far right agenda.
Reposted by Wei Wen
1. 🧵 Thread: What happens to the visual brain after early transient blindness?
Our new Nature Communications paper examines a rare population: people born with dense bilateral cataracts—a short blindness occurring during a critical window of visual development.
🔗 rdcu.be/eQjMH
Our new Nature Communications paper examines a rare population: people born with dense bilateral cataracts—a short blindness occurring during a critical window of visual development.
🔗 rdcu.be/eQjMH
November 19, 2025 at 9:07 AM
1. 🧵 Thread: What happens to the visual brain after early transient blindness?
Our new Nature Communications paper examines a rare population: people born with dense bilateral cataracts—a short blindness occurring during a critical window of visual development.
🔗 rdcu.be/eQjMH
Our new Nature Communications paper examines a rare population: people born with dense bilateral cataracts—a short blindness occurring during a critical window of visual development.
🔗 rdcu.be/eQjMH
Reposted by Wei Wen
We also have a review out in JNeuro on the topic with @neurosutras.bsky.social, Tom O'Dell, Anant Jain, @clopathlab.bsky.social and Mark Sheffield.
Physical copies available at @sfnjournals.bsky.social booth.
www.jneurosci.org/content/45/4...
Physical copies available at @sfnjournals.bsky.social booth.
www.jneurosci.org/content/45/4...
Behavioral Timescale Synaptic Plasticity: A Burst in the Field of Learning and Memory
Hebbian synaptic plasticity is currently the main framework to relate neuronal activity, network structure, and learning and memory. However, recent experimental and computational modeling studies hav...
www.jneurosci.org
November 17, 2025 at 7:25 PM
We also have a review out in JNeuro on the topic with @neurosutras.bsky.social, Tom O'Dell, Anant Jain, @clopathlab.bsky.social and Mark Sheffield.
Physical copies available at @sfnjournals.bsky.social booth.
www.jneurosci.org/content/45/4...
Physical copies available at @sfnjournals.bsky.social booth.
www.jneurosci.org/content/45/4...
Reposted by Wei Wen
Same for neuroscience. The lack of ability to measure many neurons’ activity, perturb them, and measure intracellular processes and connections is what limits understanding the brain.
The key barriers are not algorithms or AI.
🧪#neuroscience 🧠🤖 #MLSky
The key barriers are not algorithms or AI.
🧪#neuroscience 🧠🤖 #MLSky
November 15, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Same for neuroscience. The lack of ability to measure many neurons’ activity, perturb them, and measure intracellular processes and connections is what limits understanding the brain.
The key barriers are not algorithms or AI.
🧪#neuroscience 🧠🤖 #MLSky
The key barriers are not algorithms or AI.
🧪#neuroscience 🧠🤖 #MLSky
Reposted by Wei Wen
Synergy mediates long-range correlations in the visual cortex near criticality. Hardik Rajpal et al, a collaboration with @spencerlaveresmith.bsky.social (and one of the outputs of the EPSRC/Wellcome Statistical Physics of Cognition project)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Synergy mediates Long-Range Correlations in the Visual Cortex Near Criticality
Long-range correlations are a key signature of systems operating near criticality, indicating spatially-extended interactions across large distances. These extended dependencies underlie other emergen...
www.biorxiv.org
November 16, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Synergy mediates long-range correlations in the visual cortex near criticality. Hardik Rajpal et al, a collaboration with @spencerlaveresmith.bsky.social (and one of the outputs of the EPSRC/Wellcome Statistical Physics of Cognition project)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
If you are wondering why on earth would neurons need cilia you should be there👀
If you’re at #sfn25 you definitely don’t want to miss this nanosymposium on cilia, tomorrow from 1-4pm! Come learn about neuronal cilia, they do some pretty cool stuff!
Synapses may get all the glory, but join us cilia-philes for our @sfn.org Nanosymposium to learn about the role of cilia in modulating brain activity, behavior, and development.
Sunday November 16th 1-4pm SDCC Room 25A. Thrilled to chair with @konjikusicmia.bsky.social - we'll see you there!
Sunday November 16th 1-4pm SDCC Room 25A. Thrilled to chair with @konjikusicmia.bsky.social - we'll see you there!
November 15, 2025 at 10:24 PM
If you are wondering why on earth would neurons need cilia you should be there👀
Reposted by Wei Wen
If you’re at #sfn25 you definitely don’t want to miss this nanosymposium on cilia, tomorrow from 1-4pm! Come learn about neuronal cilia, they do some pretty cool stuff!
Synapses may get all the glory, but join us cilia-philes for our @sfn.org Nanosymposium to learn about the role of cilia in modulating brain activity, behavior, and development.
Sunday November 16th 1-4pm SDCC Room 25A. Thrilled to chair with @konjikusicmia.bsky.social - we'll see you there!
Sunday November 16th 1-4pm SDCC Room 25A. Thrilled to chair with @konjikusicmia.bsky.social - we'll see you there!
November 15, 2025 at 8:26 PM
If you’re at #sfn25 you definitely don’t want to miss this nanosymposium on cilia, tomorrow from 1-4pm! Come learn about neuronal cilia, they do some pretty cool stuff!
All fours boxes of mine have just safely (although very battered) arrived from Boston… Wow, now it feels like I’ve really left😔
November 15, 2025 at 12:01 PM
All fours boxes of mine have just safely (although very battered) arrived from Boston… Wow, now it feels like I’ve really left😔