Raphael Brito
@raphaeljbrito.bsky.social
Post-Doc in Michael Zugaro's lab (Collège de France, Paris)
System Neuroscientist, electrophysiologist
Studying biological neural networks and how they help us get more chocolate.
System Neuroscientist, electrophysiologist
Studying biological neural networks and how they help us get more chocolate.
Reposted by Raphael Brito
Really nice work from the Holmes lab looking at amygdala astrocytes in fear memory and extinction!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Astrocytes enable amygdala neural representations supporting memory - Nature
Astrocytes in the basolateral amygdala dynamically track fear state and support fear memory retrieval and extinction.
www.nature.com
February 11, 2026 at 10:18 PM
Really nice work from the Holmes lab looking at amygdala astrocytes in fear memory and extinction!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Raphael Brito
⚠️ New paper alert and what a way to end 2025! 🎉
Happy to share our story “Sleep-dependent infraslow rhythms are evolutionarily conserved across reptiles and mammals.” published today in Nature Neuroscience.
Sleeping dragons 🦎 and functional ultrasound!
Read the full paper here: rdcu.be/eWJHb 1/8
Happy to share our story “Sleep-dependent infraslow rhythms are evolutionarily conserved across reptiles and mammals.” published today in Nature Neuroscience.
Sleeping dragons 🦎 and functional ultrasound!
Read the full paper here: rdcu.be/eWJHb 1/8
Sleep-dependent infraslow rhythms are evolutionarily conserved across reptiles and mammals
Nature Neuroscience - Bergel et al. show that an infraslow rhythm connecting the brain and body during sleep is shared by lizards, mammals and birds, revealing an ancestral process and reshaping...
rdcu.be
December 29, 2025 at 4:17 PM
⚠️ New paper alert and what a way to end 2025! 🎉
Happy to share our story “Sleep-dependent infraslow rhythms are evolutionarily conserved across reptiles and mammals.” published today in Nature Neuroscience.
Sleeping dragons 🦎 and functional ultrasound!
Read the full paper here: rdcu.be/eWJHb 1/8
Happy to share our story “Sleep-dependent infraslow rhythms are evolutionarily conserved across reptiles and mammals.” published today in Nature Neuroscience.
Sleeping dragons 🦎 and functional ultrasound!
Read the full paper here: rdcu.be/eWJHb 1/8
Reposted by Raphael Brito
I’m pleased to share our new paper, “Hippocampal ripple diversity organizes neuronal reactivation dynamics in the offline brain”, out in @cp-neuron.bsky.social !
With @vitorlds.bsky.social and David Dupret, we show that diversity in ripple current profiles shapes reactivation dynamics
With @vitorlds.bsky.social and David Dupret, we show that diversity in ripple current profiles shapes reactivation dynamics
October 2, 2025 at 3:46 PM
I’m pleased to share our new paper, “Hippocampal ripple diversity organizes neuronal reactivation dynamics in the offline brain”, out in @cp-neuron.bsky.social !
With @vitorlds.bsky.social and David Dupret, we show that diversity in ripple current profiles shapes reactivation dynamics
With @vitorlds.bsky.social and David Dupret, we show that diversity in ripple current profiles shapes reactivation dynamics
Reposted by Raphael Brito
1/
🚨 New preprint! 🚨
Excited and proud (& a little nervous 😅) to share our latest work on the importance of #theta-timescale spiking during #locomotion in #learning. If you care about how organisms learn, buckle up. 🧵👇
📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
💻 code + data 🔗 below 🤩
#neuroskyence
🚨 New preprint! 🚨
Excited and proud (& a little nervous 😅) to share our latest work on the importance of #theta-timescale spiking during #locomotion in #learning. If you care about how organisms learn, buckle up. 🧵👇
📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
💻 code + data 🔗 below 🤩
#neuroskyence
September 17, 2025 at 7:33 PM
1/
🚨 New preprint! 🚨
Excited and proud (& a little nervous 😅) to share our latest work on the importance of #theta-timescale spiking during #locomotion in #learning. If you care about how organisms learn, buckle up. 🧵👇
📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
💻 code + data 🔗 below 🤩
#neuroskyence
🚨 New preprint! 🚨
Excited and proud (& a little nervous 😅) to share our latest work on the importance of #theta-timescale spiking during #locomotion in #learning. If you care about how organisms learn, buckle up. 🧵👇
📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
💻 code + data 🔗 below 🤩
#neuroskyence
Reposted by Raphael Brito
Allothetic and idiothetic spatial cues control the multiplexed theta phase coding of place cells
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Allothetic and idiothetic spatial cues control the multiplexed theta phase coding of place cells - Nature Neuroscience
Using a virtual reality apparatus in rats that dissociates external landmarks from self-motion cues, the authors describe how the two modes of theta phase coding in the hippocampus during navigation a...
www.nature.com
September 8, 2025 at 6:54 PM
Allothetic and idiothetic spatial cues control the multiplexed theta phase coding of place cells
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Raphael Brito
Cool new findings on interneurons and spatial coding. Nice!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Cooperative actions of interneuron families support the hippocampal spatial code
Identifying the computational roles of different neuron families is crucial for understanding neural networks. Most neural diversity is embodied in various types of γ-aminobutyric acid–mediated (GABAe...
www.science.org
September 5, 2025 at 5:46 AM
Cool new findings on interneurons and spatial coding. Nice!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Raphael Brito
Excited to share our new preprint on the brain-wide organization of intrinsic timescales at single neuron resolution. Work w/ @roxana-zeraati.bsky.social, @intlbrainlab.bsky.social, Anna Levina, @engeltatiana.bsky.social : www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
September 2, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Excited to share our new preprint on the brain-wide organization of intrinsic timescales at single neuron resolution. Work w/ @roxana-zeraati.bsky.social, @intlbrainlab.bsky.social, Anna Levina, @engeltatiana.bsky.social : www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Raphael Brito
🧠 Are you an early-career brain science researcher interested to attend #FENS2026 in Barcelona, Europe’s largest #neuroscience meeting? Apply for the ALBA-CHS Travel Awards!
✈️ Tiered grants for EU & non-EU candidates
✅ Final-year PhD/MD or ≤10 years post-PhD/MD
👉🏽 loom.ly/7FOgCJc
📆 21 Oct 2025
✈️ Tiered grants for EU & non-EU candidates
✅ Final-year PhD/MD or ≤10 years post-PhD/MD
👉🏽 loom.ly/7FOgCJc
📆 21 Oct 2025
September 2, 2025 at 11:29 AM
🧠 Are you an early-career brain science researcher interested to attend #FENS2026 in Barcelona, Europe’s largest #neuroscience meeting? Apply for the ALBA-CHS Travel Awards!
✈️ Tiered grants for EU & non-EU candidates
✅ Final-year PhD/MD or ≤10 years post-PhD/MD
👉🏽 loom.ly/7FOgCJc
📆 21 Oct 2025
✈️ Tiered grants for EU & non-EU candidates
✅ Final-year PhD/MD or ≤10 years post-PhD/MD
👉🏽 loom.ly/7FOgCJc
📆 21 Oct 2025
Reposted by Raphael Brito
Very excited to share this major update to our paper delineating VTA GABA neuron encoding of valence and decision conflict. Studies led by the amazing @margestelzner.bsky.social. We leaned in here, taking the opportunity to add a lot of cool new data. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
August 21, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Very excited to share this major update to our paper delineating VTA GABA neuron encoding of valence and decision conflict. Studies led by the amazing @margestelzner.bsky.social. We leaned in here, taking the opportunity to add a lot of cool new data. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Raphael Brito
Happy to announce our new paper in Nature Communications: rdcu.be/eBpGY
We show how CRH in the thalamic reticular nucleus modulates NREM sleep, helping to understand how stress impacts sleep
Congrats to Loredana Cumpana and team, in work led by Simone Astori!
@epfl-brainmind.bsky.social
We show how CRH in the thalamic reticular nucleus modulates NREM sleep, helping to understand how stress impacts sleep
Congrats to Loredana Cumpana and team, in work led by Simone Astori!
@epfl-brainmind.bsky.social
Corticotropin-releasing hormone modulates NREM sleep consolidation through the thalamic reticular nucleus
Nature Communications - Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), known for activating the HPA axis during stress, also acts centrally in the brain. Here, the authors show that CRH modulates thalamic...
rdcu.be
August 20, 2025 at 7:16 AM
Happy to announce our new paper in Nature Communications: rdcu.be/eBpGY
We show how CRH in the thalamic reticular nucleus modulates NREM sleep, helping to understand how stress impacts sleep
Congrats to Loredana Cumpana and team, in work led by Simone Astori!
@epfl-brainmind.bsky.social
We show how CRH in the thalamic reticular nucleus modulates NREM sleep, helping to understand how stress impacts sleep
Congrats to Loredana Cumpana and team, in work led by Simone Astori!
@epfl-brainmind.bsky.social
In these dark times for Science and Democracy, it's alleviating and refreshing to read solution-driven, high-quality academic work on the subject of Democratic Backsliding.
zenodo.org/records/1569...
zenodo.org/records/1569...
The Anti-Autocracy Handbook: A Scholars' Guide to Navigating Democratic Backsliding
The Anti-Autocracy Handbook is a call to action, resilience, and collective defence of democracy, truth, and academic freedom in the face of mounting authoritarianism. It tries to provide guidance to ...
zenodo.org
August 19, 2025 at 12:33 PM
In these dark times for Science and Democracy, it's alleviating and refreshing to read solution-driven, high-quality academic work on the subject of Democratic Backsliding.
zenodo.org/records/1569...
zenodo.org/records/1569...
"The lack of full-bodied locomotion and extensive exploratory behaviors in head-fixed paradigms indicates that in our experimental setup the behavioral state is not directly analogous to the preparatory and consummatory phases seen in freely moving tasks."
#eNeuro | Modulation of Hippocampal Sharp-Wave Ripples by Behavioral States and Body Movements in Head-Fixed Rodents https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0012-25.2025
August 18, 2025 at 11:05 AM
"The lack of full-bodied locomotion and extensive exploratory behaviors in head-fixed paradigms indicates that in our experimental setup the behavioral state is not directly analogous to the preparatory and consummatory phases seen in freely moving tasks."
Reposted by Raphael Brito
Mirror neurons making a comeback?
Observational activation of anterior cingulate cortical neurons coordinates hippocampal replay in social learning
Social learning enables a subject to make decisions by observing the actions of another. How neural circuits acquire relevant information during observation to guide subsequent behavior is unknown. Ut...
www.biorxiv.org
August 11, 2025 at 11:24 AM
Mirror neurons making a comeback?
Reposted by Raphael Brito
Remote activation of place codes by gaze in a highly visual animal www.nature.com/articles/s41... - very cool study with chickadees!
Remote activation of place codes by gaze in a highly visual animal - Nature
Place cells in the chickadee hippocampus coherently represent locations in space, whether physically visited or viewed, enabling spatial reasoning at a distance through a unified process coordinated b...
www.nature.com
July 24, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Remote activation of place codes by gaze in a highly visual animal www.nature.com/articles/s41... - very cool study with chickadees!
Reposted by Raphael Brito
Really beautiful hippocampal connectomics from @zhihaozheng.bsky.social et al. Such high quality data shows many interesting circuit wiring surprises - an incredible resource to digest! Great also to see the parallels with our physiology work on neuronal heterogeneity
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Connectomic reconstruction from hippocampal CA3 reveals spatially graded mossy fiber inputs and selective feedforward inhibition to pyramidal cells
The mossy fiber (MF) connections to pyramidal cells in hippocampal CA3 are hypothesized to participate in pattern separation and memory encoding, yet no large–scale neuronal wiring diagram exists for ...
www.biorxiv.org
July 15, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Really beautiful hippocampal connectomics from @zhihaozheng.bsky.social et al. Such high quality data shows many interesting circuit wiring surprises - an incredible resource to digest! Great also to see the parallels with our physiology work on neuronal heterogeneity
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
I haven't seen this one pop in my feed but I find it super interestingl!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Representation of sex-specific social memory in ventral CA1 neurons
Recognizing familiar individuals is crucial for adaptive social interactions among animals. However, the multidimensional nature of social memory encompassing sexual information remains unelucidated. ...
www.science.org
July 17, 2025 at 8:49 AM
I haven't seen this one pop in my feed but I find it super interestingl!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Very impressive work!
Very cool work from Chris Ford's group out in @science.org
Discrete spatiotemporal encoding of striatal dopamine transmission
Dopamine (DA) transmission critically regulates diverse, basal ganglia–dependent behaviors by activating distinct subtypes of G protein–coupled receptors. Spatially broad DA release has been extensive...
www.science.org
July 17, 2025 at 8:40 AM
Very impressive work!
Reposted by Raphael Brito
Very cool work from Chris Ford's group out in @science.org
Discrete spatiotemporal encoding of striatal dopamine transmission
Dopamine (DA) transmission critically regulates diverse, basal ganglia–dependent behaviors by activating distinct subtypes of G protein–coupled receptors. Spatially broad DA release has been extensive...
www.science.org
July 15, 2025 at 11:55 PM
Very cool work from Chris Ford's group out in @science.org
Reposted by Raphael Brito
Nicotine doesn’t just “turn on” the brain’s reward circuits — it reshapes them. Our new paper in Nature Communications shows that activating reward-linked dopamine neurons also sets off a feedback loop that drives negative emotional states.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Nicotine engages a VTA-NAc feedback loop to inhibit amygdala-projecting dopamine neurons and induce anxiety-like behaviors - Nature Communications
Drugs of abuse exert both motivational and emotional effects. Here, the authors show that nicotine and ethanol activate a VTA–NAc loop that inhibits dopamine neurons projecting to the amygdala, thereb...
www.nature.com
July 5, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Nicotine doesn’t just “turn on” the brain’s reward circuits — it reshapes them. Our new paper in Nature Communications shows that activating reward-linked dopamine neurons also sets off a feedback loop that drives negative emotional states.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Raphael Brito
New work from my lab looking at how dopamine neurons are affected by stress and males and females! This paper comes to you through three rounds of major building construction, a pandemic, six months that we could not get TTX, some animal facility shenanigans and now is here on your internet!
Sex‐Specific Adaptations to VTA Circuits Following Subchronic Stress
Subchronic variable stress, a paradigm shown to have divergent behavioral effects in males and females, induces shared and distinct physiological adaptations in the VTA. While both males and females ...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
June 12, 2025 at 3:34 PM
New work from my lab looking at how dopamine neurons are affected by stress and males and females! This paper comes to you through three rounds of major building construction, a pandemic, six months that we could not get TTX, some animal facility shenanigans and now is here on your internet!
Reposted by Raphael Brito
Don’t miss our latest 📝 with @chrislisgaras.bsky.social & Rick Staba on high-frequency oscillations in preclinical 🧠 disease models, with guidelines for recording, detection and analysis. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
June 11, 2025 at 7:23 AM
Don’t miss our latest 📝 with @chrislisgaras.bsky.social & Rick Staba on high-frequency oscillations in preclinical 🧠 disease models, with guidelines for recording, detection and analysis. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Reposted by Raphael Brito
Impressive study in @nature from my colleague Marcus Stephenson-Jones at UCL in the @sainsburywellcome.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Dopaminergic action prediction errors serve as a value-free teaching signal - Nature
Dopaminergic action prediction error signals are used by mice as a value-free teaching signal to reinforce stable sound–action associations in the tail of the striatum.
www.nature.com
May 15, 2025 at 9:47 AM
Impressive study in @nature from my colleague Marcus Stephenson-Jones at UCL in the @sainsburywellcome.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Raphael Brito
We are hiring! PostDoc position on my ERC for wire-less electrophysiology in our 9mX5m rat HexMaze! Experience with tetrodes or silicone probes required. Contact me for questions! www.genzellab.com/we-are-hiring
We are hiring! — Semantic memory Lab
www.genzellab.com
May 6, 2025 at 9:36 AM
We are hiring! PostDoc position on my ERC for wire-less electrophysiology in our 9mX5m rat HexMaze! Experience with tetrodes or silicone probes required. Contact me for questions! www.genzellab.com/we-are-hiring
Reposted by Raphael Brito
Impressive study involving direct hippocampal recordings from patients:
Independent Continuous Tracking of Multiple Agents in the Human Hippocampus
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Independent Continuous Tracking of Multiple Agents in the Human Hippocampus
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org
April 29, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Impressive study involving direct hippocampal recordings from patients:
Independent Continuous Tracking of Multiple Agents in the Human Hippocampus
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Independent Continuous Tracking of Multiple Agents in the Human Hippocampus
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Raphael Brito
Thrilled to share our state-of-the-art method for in vivo cell-type classification and brain region localization, NEMO, which is now now a spotlight at @iclr-conf.bsky.social !
We use NEMO to characterize the electrophysiological diversity of cell-types across the entire mouse brain. 🐭 🧪 🧠
We use NEMO to characterize the electrophysiological diversity of cell-types across the entire mouse brain. 🐭 🧪 🧠
April 21, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Thrilled to share our state-of-the-art method for in vivo cell-type classification and brain region localization, NEMO, which is now now a spotlight at @iclr-conf.bsky.social !
We use NEMO to characterize the electrophysiological diversity of cell-types across the entire mouse brain. 🐭 🧪 🧠
We use NEMO to characterize the electrophysiological diversity of cell-types across the entire mouse brain. 🐭 🧪 🧠