Madison Sneve
@madisonsneve.bsky.social
Graduate student @ Harvard neuro, insect enthusiast
Reposted by Madison Sneve
Recurrent evolution of selfishness from an essential tRNA synthetase in Caenorhabditis tropicalis 🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Recurrent evolution of selfishness from an essential tRNA synthetase in Caenorhabditis tropicalis - Nature Ecology & Evolution
In Caenorhabditis tropicalis, three toxin–antidote elements arose via gene duplication from the essential tRNA-synthetase subunit FARS-3. The ancestral antidote probably acquired affinity for FARS-3, ...
www.nature.com
November 24, 2025 at 9:39 AM
Recurrent evolution of selfishness from an essential tRNA synthetase in Caenorhabditis tropicalis 🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Madison Sneve
🦑 Doryteuthis pealeii (Longfin squid)
A cephalopod superstar✨ With a massive, highly edited genome and a fragmented Hox cluster, D. pealeii helps reveal how squids evolved complex brains, rapid development, and unique body plans 📸 Image by Juliana Roscito #ModelMonday #DevBio
November 25, 2025 at 4:35 AM
🦑 Doryteuthis pealeii (Longfin squid)
A cephalopod superstar✨ With a massive, highly edited genome and a fragmented Hox cluster, D. pealeii helps reveal how squids evolved complex brains, rapid development, and unique body plans 📸 Image by Juliana Roscito #ModelMonday #DevBio
Reposted by Madison Sneve
📢 Paper alert 📢
Chirality is known to be important for the movement of microorganisms and active matter. In our new paper out today in @natphys.nature.com, we show that chirality is used by malaria parasites to control their motion patterns:
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Here comes a 🧵 ... (1/9)
Chirality is known to be important for the movement of microorganisms and active matter. In our new paper out today in @natphys.nature.com, we show that chirality is used by malaria parasites to control their motion patterns:
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Here comes a 🧵 ... (1/9)
November 24, 2025 at 5:50 PM
📢 Paper alert 📢
Chirality is known to be important for the movement of microorganisms and active matter. In our new paper out today in @natphys.nature.com, we show that chirality is used by malaria parasites to control their motion patterns:
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Here comes a 🧵 ... (1/9)
Chirality is known to be important for the movement of microorganisms and active matter. In our new paper out today in @natphys.nature.com, we show that chirality is used by malaria parasites to control their motion patterns:
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Here comes a 🧵 ... (1/9)
Reposted by Madison Sneve
Site-specific DNA insertion into the human genome with engineered recombinases www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Site-specific DNA insertion into the human genome with engineered recombinases - Nature Biotechnology
Engineered DNA recombinases efficiently and specifically insert genetic cargos without the use of landing pads.
www.nature.com
November 12, 2025 at 11:10 PM
Site-specific DNA insertion into the human genome with engineered recombinases www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Madison Sneve
It's out, Minos transgenesis in the pantry moth by
@donyaniyaz.bsky.social
@lucalivraghi.bsky.social
High efficient, glowing eye and silk gland markers
peerj.com/articles/202...
@peerj.bsky.social
@donyaniyaz.bsky.social
@lucalivraghi.bsky.social
High efficient, glowing eye and silk gland markers
peerj.com/articles/202...
@peerj.bsky.social
November 12, 2025 at 2:40 PM
It's out, Minos transgenesis in the pantry moth by
@donyaniyaz.bsky.social
@lucalivraghi.bsky.social
High efficient, glowing eye and silk gland markers
peerj.com/articles/202...
@peerj.bsky.social
@donyaniyaz.bsky.social
@lucalivraghi.bsky.social
High efficient, glowing eye and silk gland markers
peerj.com/articles/202...
@peerj.bsky.social
Reposted by Madison Sneve
Weight distributions in the fruit-fly and the mouse connectomes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.10.687553v1
November 13, 2025 at 12:17 PM
Weight distributions in the fruit-fly and the mouse connectomes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.10.687553v1
Reposted by Madison Sneve
With sequencing of Hitler's DNA making headlines, time for a reminder: analysing a polygenic score from a dead historically-significant figure won't give new insights into that person's behaviour. In a brief paper last year, we used Beethoven's genome to directly illustrate the fallacies involved.🧪👇
Notes from Beethoven’s genome
Wesseldijk et al. compare the genomic information collected from Ludwig van Beethoven
with population-based datasets used to quantify musical achievement.
www.cell.com
November 13, 2025 at 11:26 AM
With sequencing of Hitler's DNA making headlines, time for a reminder: analysing a polygenic score from a dead historically-significant figure won't give new insights into that person's behaviour. In a brief paper last year, we used Beethoven's genome to directly illustrate the fallacies involved.🧪👇
Reposted by Madison Sneve
Sea urchins are mostly brains in a spiky shell? Soo cool! 🤯
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Single-nucleus profiling highlights the all-brain echinoderm nervous system
A sea urchin is a head with a brain-like organization and a vertebrate-type retinal signature.
www.science.org
November 13, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Sea urchins are mostly brains in a spiky shell? Soo cool! 🤯
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Madison Sneve
Our work on training biophysical models with Jaxley is now out in @natmethods.nature.com. Led by @deismic.bsky.social, with @philipp.hertie.ai, @ppjgoncalves.bsky.social & @jakhmack.bsky.social et al.
Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Jaxley: differentiable simulation enables large-scale training of detailed biophysical models of neural dynamics - Nature Methods
Jaxley is a versatile platform for biophysical modeling in neuroscience. It allows efficiently simulating large-scale biophysical models on CPUs, GPUs and TPUs. Model parameters can be optimized with ...
www.nature.com
November 13, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Our work on training biophysical models with Jaxley is now out in @natmethods.nature.com. Led by @deismic.bsky.social, with @philipp.hertie.ai, @ppjgoncalves.bsky.social & @jakhmack.bsky.social et al.
Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Madison Sneve
John J. Vastola, Samuel J. Gershman, Kanaka Rajan: Gradient Descent as Loss Landscape Navigation: a Normative Framework for Deriving Learning Rules https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.26997 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.26997 https://arxiv.org/html/2510.26997
November 3, 2025 at 6:32 AM
John J. Vastola, Samuel J. Gershman, Kanaka Rajan: Gradient Descent as Loss Landscape Navigation: a Normative Framework for Deriving Learning Rules https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.26997 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.26997 https://arxiv.org/html/2510.26997
Reposted by Madison Sneve
Excited to announce the final version of the Mosquito Cell Atlas is out now in @cellpress.bsky.social!! 🦟🩸
There is SO much left to find & investigate in this dataset (& the rich biology of the Aedes aegypti mosquito)! We hope this helps scientists in many fields!
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
There is SO much left to find & investigate in this dataset (& the rich biology of the Aedes aegypti mosquito)! We hope this helps scientists in many fields!
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
A single-nucleus transcriptomic atlas of the adult Aedes aegypti mosquito
A comprehensive single-nucleus RNA-seq atlas of >367,000 nuclei from male and female
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes reveals sexual dimorphism in sensory systems and brain cell
types and widespread co-expres...
www.cell.com
October 30, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Excited to announce the final version of the Mosquito Cell Atlas is out now in @cellpress.bsky.social!! 🦟🩸
There is SO much left to find & investigate in this dataset (& the rich biology of the Aedes aegypti mosquito)! We hope this helps scientists in many fields!
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
There is SO much left to find & investigate in this dataset (& the rich biology of the Aedes aegypti mosquito)! We hope this helps scientists in many fields!
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
Reposted by Madison Sneve
elifesciences.org/articles/102...
I am very excited to share with you our publication building Deep3DSIM microscope using adaptive optic. It allows imaging into an intact fly brain >130 microns with high quality 3DSIM as well as remote focusing without moving the objective or specimen.
I am very excited to share with you our publication building Deep3DSIM microscope using adaptive optic. It allows imaging into an intact fly brain >130 microns with high quality 3DSIM as well as remote focusing without moving the objective or specimen.
Deep3DSIM: Super-resolution imaging of thick tissue using 3D structured illumination with adaptive optics
Deep3DSIM enables super-resolution imaging >130 µm into complex tissues of fixed and live specimens in an upright configuration, allowing sample manipulation, as well as rapid refocusing without th...
elifesciences.org
October 29, 2025 at 2:30 PM
elifesciences.org/articles/102...
I am very excited to share with you our publication building Deep3DSIM microscope using adaptive optic. It allows imaging into an intact fly brain >130 microns with high quality 3DSIM as well as remote focusing without moving the objective or specimen.
I am very excited to share with you our publication building Deep3DSIM microscope using adaptive optic. It allows imaging into an intact fly brain >130 microns with high quality 3DSIM as well as remote focusing without moving the objective or specimen.
Reposted by Madison Sneve
A compressed hierarchy for visual form processing in the tree shrew www.nature.com/articles/s41... - you can get representations of complex objects and features (even face specialisation) in a shallow hierarchy!
A compressed hierarchy for visual form processing in the tree shrew - Nature
Tree shrews show a primate-like hierarchical organization in their visual pathway and object decoding accuracy, along with strongly face-selective cells, demonstrating how core computational principle...
www.nature.com
October 27, 2025 at 5:48 PM
A compressed hierarchy for visual form processing in the tree shrew www.nature.com/articles/s41... - you can get representations of complex objects and features (even face specialisation) in a shallow hierarchy!
Reposted by Madison Sneve
The songbird basal ganglia connectome https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.25.684569v1
October 27, 2025 at 8:15 AM
The songbird basal ganglia connectome https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.25.684569v1
Reposted by Madison Sneve
Bifurcations—an underexplored concept in neuroscience—can help explain how small differences in neural circuits give rise to entirely novel functions, writes Xiao-Jing Wang.
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/neural-dynam...
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/neural-dynam...
The missing half of the neurodynamical systems theory
Bifurcations—an underexplored concept in neuroscience—can help explain how small differences in neural circuits give rise to entirely novel functions.
www.thetransmitter.org
October 27, 2025 at 1:51 PM
Bifurcations—an underexplored concept in neuroscience—can help explain how small differences in neural circuits give rise to entirely novel functions, writes Xiao-Jing Wang.
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/neural-dynam...
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/neural-dynam...
Reposted by Madison Sneve
When #HHMIJanelia released the #Drosophila hemibrain in 2020, rendering all cell types at once with full shading/shadows was too hard, so the video showed them region by region. Technology has since advanced, and I went back and rendered them all together. I like how it shows the internal structure.
October 27, 2025 at 8:16 AM
When #HHMIJanelia released the #Drosophila hemibrain in 2020, rendering all cell types at once with full shading/shadows was too hard, so the video showed them region by region. Technology has since advanced, and I went back and rendered them all together. I like how it shows the internal structure.
Reposted by Madison Sneve
🧠🌟🐭 Excited to share some of my postdoc work on the evolution of dexterity!
We compared deer mice evolved in forest vs prairie habitats. We found that forest mice have:
(1) more corticospinal neurons (CSNs)
(2) better hand dexterity
(3) more dexterous climbing, which is linked to CSN number🧵
We compared deer mice evolved in forest vs prairie habitats. We found that forest mice have:
(1) more corticospinal neurons (CSNs)
(2) better hand dexterity
(3) more dexterous climbing, which is linked to CSN number🧵
October 22, 2025 at 8:41 PM
🧠🌟🐭 Excited to share some of my postdoc work on the evolution of dexterity!
We compared deer mice evolved in forest vs prairie habitats. We found that forest mice have:
(1) more corticospinal neurons (CSNs)
(2) better hand dexterity
(3) more dexterous climbing, which is linked to CSN number🧵
We compared deer mice evolved in forest vs prairie habitats. We found that forest mice have:
(1) more corticospinal neurons (CSNs)
(2) better hand dexterity
(3) more dexterous climbing, which is linked to CSN number🧵
Reposted by Madison Sneve
A fun little side project I've been working on with @stepadenisov.bsky.social , Mato Lagator, and Andreas Wagner: "Strong promoters are mutationally robust". Briefly...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Strong promoters are mutationally robust
Mutational robustness is the persistence of a phenotype upon mutation. It facilitates molecular evolution and has been characterized in a variety of biological systems, but studies of prokaryotic prom...
www.biorxiv.org
October 21, 2025 at 8:02 AM
A fun little side project I've been working on with @stepadenisov.bsky.social , Mato Lagator, and Andreas Wagner: "Strong promoters are mutationally robust". Briefly...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Madison Sneve
I am thrilled to share our latest work: we identified a population of central amygdala neurons that promote the earliest and perhaps most important social behavior: pup suckling!... We also developed new tools for pup neuroscience
Work by @Jeff Moore now at USC, a collaboration with @Sam Pfaff lab
Work by @Jeff Moore now at USC, a collaboration with @Sam Pfaff lab
October 21, 2025 at 10:18 AM
I am thrilled to share our latest work: we identified a population of central amygdala neurons that promote the earliest and perhaps most important social behavior: pup suckling!... We also developed new tools for pup neuroscience
Work by @Jeff Moore now at USC, a collaboration with @Sam Pfaff lab
Work by @Jeff Moore now at USC, a collaboration with @Sam Pfaff lab
Reposted by Madison Sneve
Don't miss this piece in @thetransmitter.bsky.social by @vcallier.bsky.social on @danielkronauer.bsky.social's latest work! His lab discovered that a protective screen of spurious transcriptional activity enables each olfactory neuron to express exactly one out of hundreds of olfactory receptors.
Ant olfactory neurons reveal new gene regulation mechanism
The mechanism enables each olfactory neuron in the ant to express exactly one out of hundreds of olfactory receptors.
www.thetransmitter.org
October 14, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Don't miss this piece in @thetransmitter.bsky.social by @vcallier.bsky.social on @danielkronauer.bsky.social's latest work! His lab discovered that a protective screen of spurious transcriptional activity enables each olfactory neuron to express exactly one out of hundreds of olfactory receptors.
Reposted by Madison Sneve
Finally, someone has solved a real problem with AI! No more having to take a paper in the format for a journal that rejected you, and reformat it for a new journal. Well done!! formatmypaper.com
October 15, 2025 at 6:33 AM
Finally, someone has solved a real problem with AI! No more having to take a paper in the format for a journal that rejected you, and reformat it for a new journal. Well done!! formatmypaper.com
Reposted by Madison Sneve
New paper out! It was an honor to collaborate with the legend Leah Krubitzer on this review to show that paleontologists and neurobiologists working together can only improve our understanding of brain evolution 🧠
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Full access to the paper: rdcu.be/eK167
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Full access to the paper: rdcu.be/eK167
The functional adaptations of mammalian brain structures through a behavioural ecology lens - Nature Reviews Biodiversity
Palaeontologists and comparative neurobiologists share a common interest in the evolution of the mammalian brain, but often fail to realize the benefits of this shared interest. This Review draws thes...
www.nature.com
October 15, 2025 at 9:52 AM
New paper out! It was an honor to collaborate with the legend Leah Krubitzer on this review to show that paleontologists and neurobiologists working together can only improve our understanding of brain evolution 🧠
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Full access to the paper: rdcu.be/eK167
www.nature.com/articles/s44...
Full access to the paper: rdcu.be/eK167
Reposted by Madison Sneve
Excited to share our new #biorxivpreprint:
“Sexual dimorphism in the complete connectome of the Drosophila male central nervous system” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We describe the #connectomics reconstruction and analysis of an entire adult #maleCNS #drosophila central nervous system. 1/10
“Sexual dimorphism in the complete connectome of the Drosophila male central nervous system” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We describe the #connectomics reconstruction and analysis of an entire adult #maleCNS #drosophila central nervous system. 1/10
October 15, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Excited to share our new #biorxivpreprint:
“Sexual dimorphism in the complete connectome of the Drosophila male central nervous system” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We describe the #connectomics reconstruction and analysis of an entire adult #maleCNS #drosophila central nervous system. 1/10
“Sexual dimorphism in the complete connectome of the Drosophila male central nervous system” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We describe the #connectomics reconstruction and analysis of an entire adult #maleCNS #drosophila central nervous system. 1/10
Reposted by Madison Sneve
Vector navigation is common in insects. While directional coding has been studied in great detail, we know less about how distances are represented in the brain. @idatri.bsky.social & S. DasGrupta study the neural mechanisms of odometry in flies.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Neural Basis of Odometry in Drosophila
Path integration is a mode of navigation in which travel distance and direction are integrated to calculate position. Estimating travel distance, or ‘odometry,’ requires the summation of translational...
www.biorxiv.org
October 15, 2025 at 6:00 PM
Vector navigation is common in insects. While directional coding has been studied in great detail, we know less about how distances are represented in the brain. @idatri.bsky.social & S. DasGrupta study the neural mechanisms of odometry in flies.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Madison Sneve
Excited to share more widely: I am starting the Dorkenwald Lab at MIT (McGovern Institute + BCS) in January 2026. We study the organizational principles of neuronal circuits using connectomics.
And we are hiring postdocs & tech associates! dorkenwaldlab.com/join
And we are hiring postdocs & tech associates! dorkenwaldlab.com/join
MIT’s McGovern Institute and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences welcome new faculty member Sven Dorkenwald - MIT McGovern Institute
The McGovern Institute and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences are pleased to announce the appointment of Sven Dorkenwald as an assistant professor starting in January 2026. A trailblazer i...
mcgovern.mit.edu
October 15, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Excited to share more widely: I am starting the Dorkenwald Lab at MIT (McGovern Institute + BCS) in January 2026. We study the organizational principles of neuronal circuits using connectomics.
And we are hiring postdocs & tech associates! dorkenwaldlab.com/join
And we are hiring postdocs & tech associates! dorkenwaldlab.com/join