Brad Hulse
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bradkhulse.bsky.social
Brad Hulse
@bradkhulse.bsky.social
Neuroscientist | Navigation | Central complex bumpologist | Senior scientist at Janelia
Reposted by Brad Hulse
1/6: New publication from the lab: “Plastic landmark anchoring in zebrafish compass neurons” by Ryosuke Tanaka (@ryosuketanaka.bsky.social) and Ruben is available here:
rdcu.be/eX1L4
Plastic landmark anchoring in zebrafish compass neurons
Nature - Using two-photon microscopy with a panoramic virtual reality setup, how head direction cells in larval zebrafish integrate visual landmarks and optic flow to track orientation is revealed.
rdcu.be
January 7, 2026 at 8:53 PM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
New preprint from the lab! 🚀
We find that hippocampal OLM interneurons provide a circuit-level inhibitory feedback signal that dynamically controls when and where behavioral timescale synaptic plasticity can occur.
Feedback welcome!
Dendrite-targeting OLM interneurons regulate the formation of learning-related CA1 place cell representations https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.21.695825v1
January 5, 2026 at 3:11 PM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

We had a lot of fun working on this project (led by Itzel Ishida, not on bluesky). Some interesting highlights from the paper -
Neuronal calcium spikes enable vector inversion in the Drosophila brain
In the fly central complex, PFNa neurons switch from firing classical sodium spikes when depolarized to firing non-canonical T-type calcium spikes when hyperpolarized. This bidirectional spiking allow...
www.cell.com
January 6, 2026 at 4:35 PM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
Coincidence of thalamic HD signal and retrosplenial visual input is detected in the Presubiculum! 🎯 This may be the neuronal basis for landmark anchoring of the HD signal. Pleased to announce the VOR is now available elifesciences.org/articles/92443 Congrats first author Louis Richevaux 🙌
Projection-specific integration of convergent thalamic and retrosplenial signals in the presubicular head direction cortex
Nonlinear dendritic integration in single presubicular neurons provides a mechanism for combining vestibular-based head-direction signals and visual landmark signals to anchor the brain’s internal com...
elifesciences.org
January 5, 2026 at 10:02 AM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
1/n: A new collaborative preprint from the lab to start the year: "A multi-ring shifter network computes head direction in zebrafish" together with Siyuan Mei, Martin Stemmler and Andreas Herz from the LMU, Munich.
January 2, 2026 at 5:52 PM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
📢 Join us, the Haberkern lab, @uni-wuerzburg.de for a postdoc studying neural circuit mechanisms of navigation. You’ll spearheading neurophysiology experiments on our brand new 2P!

⏳ Apply by 28th February 2026

Details: www.haberkernlab.de/docs/ENPostd...

#neuroscience #academicjobs #postdoc
December 23, 2025 at 11:27 AM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
How do animals channel sensory information into motor pathways to generate flexible behavioral output? Excited to share a new preprint addressing this question by leveraging the new #maleCNS connectome, behavioral experiments, and in-vivo recordings: doi.org/10.64898/202.... A long🧵...
December 19, 2025 at 7:02 AM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
I am incredibly excited and proud to share my first preprint from my postdoc! Thank you to all of the co-authors for all your hard work!
Check out the paper for big insights into plasticity mechanisms in navigation circuits! And surprising motifs for inhibitory synaptic plasticity!
*First preprint from our lab* !!!!!
How does the brain learn to anchor its internal sense of direction to the outside world? 🧭
led by Mark Plitt @markplitt.bsky.social & Dan Turner-Evans, w/ Vivek Jayaraman:
“Octopamine instructs head direction plasticity” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Thread ⬇️
December 15, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
*First preprint from our lab* !!!!!
How does the brain learn to anchor its internal sense of direction to the outside world? 🧭
led by Mark Plitt @markplitt.bsky.social & Dan Turner-Evans, w/ Vivek Jayaraman:
“Octopamine instructs head direction plasticity” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Thread ⬇️
December 15, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
An awesome figure illustrating key aspects of hippocampal encoding and replay during continuous behavior ; from great work by Brian Lustig and co www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
December 14, 2025 at 2:35 AM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
How do neural circuits generate the walking rhythm?

Using connectome simulations, @sarahpugly.bsky.social found a minimal central pattern generator (CPG) that produces oscillations in leg motor neurons. Same circuit motif for each 🪰 leg.

w @bingbrunton.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
December 9, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
Have you ever wondered what you would find if you could keep your eyes on a bee for more than a few meters? Us, too!

preprint (with videos!) + thread 🧵

Precise, individualized foraging flights in honey #bees 🐝 revealed by multicopter drone-based tracking

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

1/9
December 6, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
I am very much in favor, we just put out a recent preprint thinking about learning to navigate from the perspective of generative models of trajectories www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Composing trajectories for rapid inference of navigational goals
Animals efficiently learn to navigate their environment. In the laboratory, naive mice explore their environment via highly structured trajectories and can learn to localize new spatial targets in as ...
www.biorxiv.org
December 4, 2025 at 1:27 PM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
0/10 Thanks for the interest in our preprint. Some takes say it negates or fully supports the “manifold hypothesis”, neither quite right. Our results show that if you only focus on the manifold capturing most of task-related variance, you could miss important dynamics that actually drive behavior.
“Our findings challenge the conventional focus on low-dimensional coding subspaces as a sufficient framework for understanding neural computations, demonstrating that dimensions previously considered task-irrelevant and accounting for little variance can have a critical role in driving behavior.”
Neural dynamics outside task-coding dimensions drive decision trajectories through transient amplification
Most behaviors involve neural dynamics in high-dimensional activity spaces. A common approach is to extract dimensions that capture task-related variability, such as those separating stimuli or choice...
www.biorxiv.org
December 2, 2025 at 7:48 AM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
(1/n) We are excited to share our new paper in Nature Communications, by Hagar Lavian (@hlavian.bsky.social) and team, revealing how the zebrafish brain integrates visual navigation signals! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Visual motion and landmark position align with heading direction in the zebrafish interpeduncular nucleus - Nature Communications
How are various visual signals integrated in the vertebrate brain for navigation? Here authors show that different spatial signals are topographically organized and align to one another in the zebrafi...
www.nature.com
November 24, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
Neuroscience projects last several years, and you are usually a bit jaded by the time you wrap it up. Not this one– spending several months on an island in the middle of nowhere, away from all the craziness of the world reminds you how beautiful the world really is.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=46sv...
Bat Island: The New Era of Science
YouTube video by Weizmann Institute of Science
www.youtube.com
October 17, 2025 at 7:07 AM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
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 8:10 PM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
🌟 Apply to lead a lab at Janelia 🌟

We’re #hiring Group Leaders in our Computation & Theory research area.

🔹 5-year renewable appointment
🔹 Internal funding + generous resources
🔹 Collaboration across disciplines

📅 Apply by Nov. 4 👉 https://janelia.link/groupleader
October 16, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
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
October 15, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
🧠 A new wiring diagram of the 166,000+ neurons in the brain & nerve cord of a male fruit fly is a key tool in uncovering how the brain enables complex behavior—information that could ultimately help scientists better understand what causes different diseases ➡️ https://hhmi.news/4o3EJnk
October 13, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
We're very proud to be releasing the complete male fly CNS connectome!

It's the product of a huge team effort here at Janelia in partnership with the Cambridge Fly Connectomics group (@jefferis.bsky.social and colleagues), plus invaluable collaborators.

More soon...
www.janelia.org/project-team...
Male CNS Connectome
A team of researchers has unveiled the complete connectome of a male fruit fly central nervous system —a seamless map of all the neurons in the brain and nerve cord of a single male fruit fly and the ...
www.janelia.org
October 5, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
Exciting news for #drosophila #connectomics and #neuroscience enthusiasts: the Drosophila male central nervous system connectome is now live for exploration. Find out more at the landing page hosted by our Janelia FlyEM collaborators www.janelia.org/project-team....
Male CNS Connectome
A team of researchers has unveiled the complete connectome of a male fruit fly central nervous system —a seamless map of all the neurons in the brain and nerve cord of a single male fruit fly and the ...
www.janelia.org
October 5, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
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 Brad Hulse
I’m super excited to finally put my recent work with @behrenstimb.bsky.social on bioRxiv, where we develop a new mechanistic theory of how PFC structures adaptive behaviour using attractor dynamics in space and time!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
September 24, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Reposted by Brad Hulse
🌟 Launch your own lab at Janelia 🌟

Advance our understanding of biology through theory, computational modeling & machine learning.

🔹 No teaching requirements
🔹 100% internally funded
🔹 Collaborate with expert support teams

📅 Apply by Nov. 4 👉 https://janelia.link/groupleader
September 18, 2025 at 3:00 PM