Ben Kanter
beneuroscience.bsky.social
Ben Kanter
@beneuroscience.bsky.social
Neuroscientist / Neuroethologist at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, NTNU.

www.brkanter.com

#Memory #Learning #Time #Space #Hibernation #Torpor #Sleep #Dynamics #Circuits #AnimalBehavior #Ethology #Ecology
Pinned
So happy to release this to the world!! A big one that's been cooking for years.

If you like #Memory #GridCells #PlaceCells #Theory #Attractors #Neuropixels or just anything exciting in #Neuroscience, this is a must read 👇
Reposted by Ben Kanter
🚨Job alert🚨

The lab has up to *3 postdoc openings* for comp systems neuroscientists interested in describing and manipulating neural population dynamics mediating behaviour

This is part of a collaborative ARIA grant "4D precision control of cortical dynamics"

euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/383909
3 Postdoctoral Research Fellows
Champalimaud Foundation (Fundação D. Anna de Sommer Champalimaud e Dr.
euraxess.ec.europa.eu
November 4, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
I am recruiting a postdoc at UC Santa Barbara for an NIH-funded project on the organization of lateral PFC function--across emotion and cognition--using representational fMRI & TMS. I’d love to find someone w/ a background in cognitive control & computational modeling to complement our team! 🏝️ 🧠 🧲
October 29, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
🧠🌟🐭 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🧵
October 22, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
I am excited to share my PhD work on head-direction cells recorded in the wild, now published in @science.org, where we recorded neurons in bats flying outdoors on an island.

doi.org/10.1126/sci...

With @ray-neuro.bsky.social, Shir Maimon, Liora Las, Nachum Ulanovsky and many others
October 16, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
🚨new paper: the head-direction circuit as a model of primary thalamocortical system. Check this out 👇

kudos to @adrian-du.bsky.social for the huge amount of work put into this opinion piece, starting with the beautiful figures comparing the different thalamocortical systems 🤩
Really excited to share this Opinion piece we've been working on with fellow head-direction cell geeks @apeyrache.bsky.social @desdemonafricker.bsky.social and (bsky-less?) Andrea Burgalossi! While head-direction cells pop up in many cortical regions, we think that one of them is quite unique (1/8)
The postsubiculum as a head-direction cortex
The organisation of thalamocortical networks follows a conserved structure. Traditionally, these are divided into primary sensory systems that receive…
www.sciencedirect.com
October 15, 2025 at 9:39 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
Trying to work from home with my kids around
October 14, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
I’m thrilled to share my postdoc work and the first paper from the McKinley Lab! 🎉
@karalmckinley.bsky.social
We built the first transgenic model of menstruation in mice.
We used it to uncover how the endometrium organizes and sheds during menstruation. 🧪
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧵
Induction of menstruation in mice reveals the regulation of menstrual shedding
During menstruation, an inner layer of the endometrium is selectively shed, while an outer, progenitor-containing layer is preserved to support repeated regeneration. Progress in understanding this co...
www.biorxiv.org
October 10, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
But the bigger takeaway is: when you have competing survival needs and one must suppress another, gating out inputs to a system is more effective than gating outputs or changing costs of actions.

It suggests early afferent sensory/interoceptive areas as a target of modulation for flexible behavior.
October 9, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
Come do a postdoc at the Wu Tsai Institute!

WTI fellows have freedom to work with anyone at the institute, and preference is given to applicants who want to work on interdisciplinary projects with multiple faculty mentors.

If you’re interested to work with me, please reach out!
📣 Calling experimental, computational, or theoretical researchers!

WTI's Postdoc Fellowships application is now open, offering a competitive salary, structured mentorship, world-class facilities + more: wti.yale.edu/initiatives/...

Apply by November 10: apply.interfolio.com/174525

#KnowTogether
October 8, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
A little backstory on this one: sometime during the pandemic @hannah-haberkern.bsky.social and I were chatting in the servery at @hhmijanelia.bsky.social about how to encourage interactions between people working on foraging (+ neuroscience) across different species and perspectives... 1/n
October 7, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
🚨Big news!🚨
The lab is relocating to Lisbon, joining a great team of experimental and theoretical neuroscientists, and the Neurotechnology Warehouse, a new initiative to bridge basic and translational research.

I'll be sharing postdoc openings soon. Come join us in this new incarnation of the lab!
🧠🎼 What does it take to restore movement? Neuroscientist and engineer, @juangallego.bsky.social, joins the new Centre for Restorative Neurotechnology at the Champalimaud Foundation.

🔗 Find out more in this interview: www.fchampalimaud.org/news/juan-al...
October 7, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
October 7, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
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
October 2, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
🚨 New paper in Nature Methods:
HippoMaps: multiscale cartography of the human hippocampus

Open-source tools & data to explore structure and function of the 🍤🧠 (histology, in/ex vivo MRI, iEEG)

Led by @jordandekraker.bsky.social

docs: hippomaps.readthedocs.io
paper: doi.org/10.1038/s415...
October 2, 2025 at 11:50 AM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
Excited to be part of this work and amazing team. A deep dive into remapping dynamics🗺️! Thread below 👇
September 25, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
Very excited for this year Bernstein! @bernsteinneuro.bsky.social

We'll bring a bunch of new work, here's a thread with the summaries.

Please check them out if you are interested in (low rank) RNN and distributed computations.
September 26, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
Very excited and proud to share my postdoctoral research with @neurrriot.bsky.social looking at the context-specific encoding of social behavior 💃🕺 in hormone-sensitive, large-scale brain networks in mice!

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

#neuroskyence #compneurosky 🧪
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September 25, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
So proud🤩: Beautiful work by @clykken.bsky.social 💃🏻 et al: finally we understand how the hippocampus can express multiple maps even though grid cell inputs are universal metrics.
E.g. hippocampal global remapping was induced when different grid modules anchored independently to environments. See 👇🏽
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How can the brain create countless unique memories using a single, universal metric of space? We’ve been waiting for the answer to this for two decades!
Read it here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
September 25, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
Check out this new preprint from @clykken.bsky.social and the Moser Group:
Independent phase-shifts across MEC grid modules can generate a vast diversity of hippocampal codes — revealing the mechanism that enables episodic memory.
👇
1/8
How can the brain create countless unique memories using a single, universal metric of space? We’ve been waiting for the answer to this for two decades!
Read it here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
September 25, 2025 at 4:25 AM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
🔁 Fascinating new preprint from the Moser Group!
How does the hippocampus achieve its vast memory capacity? 🧠 The answer lies in the flexible combinatorics of grid cells.
📄 Read more in the thread by @edvardmoser.bsky.social 👇
September 25, 2025 at 4:17 AM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
I know they won the Nobel Prize and all, but I still think the discovery of how spatial awareness is assembled in vertebrate brains is underrated - the most exciting thing in neuroscience in the last 50 years. Literally seeing the brain build a map and use it to navigate, the basis of all behaviour.
September 25, 2025 at 4:22 AM
So happy to release this to the world!! A big one that's been cooking for years.

If you like #Memory #GridCells #PlaceCells #Theory #Attractors #Neuropixels or just anything exciting in #Neuroscience, this is a must read 👇
September 25, 2025 at 4:26 AM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
1/8
How can the brain create countless unique memories using a single, universal metric of space? We’ve been waiting for the answer to this for two decades!
Read it here:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
September 25, 2025 at 4:15 AM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
Interested in the brain, circuits, and behavior?
Enjoy tinkering and asking bold questions in neuroscience?

The Forli Lab (IIT, Genova, Italy) is hiring!

🧠 🔬 🟩◻️🟥->🍕🚫🍍

Check out our website for updates:
sites.google.com/view/forli-lab
September 24, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Reposted by Ben Kanter
New preprint! How can you remember an image you saw once, even after seeing thousands of them? We find a role for humble mid-level visual cortex in high-capacity, one-shot learning. doi.org/10.1101/2025.09.22.677855 🧵🧪1/
Neuronal signatures of successful one-shot memory in mid-level visual cortex
High-capacity, one-shot visual recognition memory challenges theories of learning and neural coding because it requires rapid, robust, and durable representations. Most studies have focused on the hip...
doi.org
September 23, 2025 at 3:09 PM