I am excited to announce that I will start the Brain Origins Lab at the Crick in March 2027! Using acoels as a model system, the lab will study how animal brains evolve, and how innovations in brain organisation enable new computational abilities and the evolution of complex behaviour.

Happy to share our review by Allie Reed from my lab together with Karina Chaudhari and Alex Kolodkin discussing the conservation of retinal direction-selective circuits across vertebrates!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#FluorescenceFriday Never let go: Oligodendrocyte (green) hold on to axon (magenta)

Looking for a great @cshlmeetings.bsky.social CSHL meeting this Fall? Abstract submission is open for "Molecular Mechanisms of Neuronal Connectivity" until July 22nd. Join me, @dacolon.bsky.social, Elva Diaz and @schuldinerorenlab.bsky.social at the bar!
meetings.cshl.edu/meetings.asp...

Great to see our review of axon branching in the cortex featured on the cover of this months issue of
@cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social!

'Creation of Myelin': Oligodendrocyte (green) process reaches out and wraps around a neuronal axon (magenta) #FluorescenceFriday

Megan Doty et al discovered that myelin remains for weeks after cortical axons degenerate. We call the sheaths without an axon de-axoned myelin. During the slow, asynchronous, degeneration, microglia don't play a major role in clearing the axon or de-axoned myelin. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor type kappa (PTPRκ) regulates Superior ON-Direction Selective Ganglion Cell development, facilitating image stabilization https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.07.698158v1

The winner of OneNeuro's November #FotoFriday #FluorescenceFriday contest is "Portrait of a Claustrocortical Neuron" submitted by Baldomero B. Ramírez Cantú in the Solange Brown Lab at @hopkinsmedicine.bsky.social

View the complete gallery of OneNeuro BRAINART images here: www.oneneurojhu.org/art/

Happy #FluorescenceFriday from this pair of white-matter oligodendrocytes!

Thread coming soon, but be the first to read the latest from @franziau.bsky.social!

In the desert of tools to manipulate oligodendrocytes in the brain, we built an OASIS. 🌿 Pun intended. I’m still in awe every time I spot an amazing-looking cell. The beauty of OL and myelin never fails me!
Hope this tool helps more people see it too.

New cell-type for #FluorescenceFriday: astrocytes in the cerebral cortex

Which track do I choose: On #FluorescenceFriday, a pair of newly formed oligodendrocytes encounter a field of neuronal axons. Later in development, they will wrap around and insulate subset of these axons

The hippocampus is one of the most studied brain areas because of its major role in fundamental brain functions including learning, memory, and spatial navigation.

In a new #ScienceReview, researchers focus on the role of overlooked areas and circuits within the hippocampus. https://scim.ag/3VKRbMM

Delighted to share this work on intracortical arbor development and selective synaptogenesis by corticothalamic neurons. This was a really fun collaboration with Alan and the Brown lab during my PhD.

The Wu Lab at @JohnsHopkins is looking for a new postdoc fellow to study sleep and/or circadian-related behaviors in mice. If you're interested in, please contact us.

www.markwulab.net

#JNeurosci: <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:tew5jhl2vvoqzvmdop3iwlqx" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-link="bsky-mention">@srirams433.bsky.social‬ Guzman-Clavel et al. uncover roles for Mef2c in cortical development: regulation of laminar subtype specification during embryogenesis & axon targeting in postnatal callosal neurons. @oneneuroinitiative.bsky.social
https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0201-25.2025

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

Stanford research by Dr Barres changed our understanding of myelin—once seen as static insulation, now linked to learning & memory. Learn how @michellemonje.bsky.social, @erinmgibson.bsky.social, @bradzuchero.bsky.social & others continue to shape the field: neuroscience.stanford.edu/news/underst...

Celebratory #FluorescenceFriday this week, with the JNeurosci cover featuring an image from our article on how Mef2c controls intracortical projection targeting

The winner of OneNeuro's April #FotoFriday #FluorescenceFriday
contest was submitted by Luis Guzman-Clavel at the Alex Kolodkin Lab.

For more information, see pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40228894/

View the complete gallery of OneNeuro BRAINART images here:
www.oneneurojhu.org/art/

Our latest manuscript (7 years in the works) tackles the question of how diurnal ground squirrels evolved a cone-dominant retina, in contrast to the ancestral rod-dominant retina retained by virtually all other mammals./1
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our field has lost an amazing scientist, mentor, and old friend. Benny, along with Mike Hoffman, had a brilliant idea in the early 1980s. The first oncogenes were being cloned and they realized if we wanted to understand their roles in cancer, we needed to understand their normal function 1/n 🧪

I am proud to share that our work of 4+ years has finally been published. We wondered if there are distinct behaviors that mark sleep in 🪰, where sleep has been defined as prolonged immobility.
🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...