Divya Sitaraman
@dsitaraman.bsky.social
Associate Professor. New fly lab PI, circuits and behavior enthusiast, IITB/Delhi Univ/Mizzou/Yale/Janelia.
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
Educators, the deadline to apply for our python workshop is approaching quickly! Apply by February 2 to join us in Seattle for this hands-on workshop.
💻 No prior coding experience needed.
✈️ Travel, meals, & stipend included.
🔗 https://alleninstitute.org/events/educator-coding-workshop-2026/
💻 No prior coding experience needed.
✈️ Travel, meals, & stipend included.
🔗 https://alleninstitute.org/events/educator-coding-workshop-2026/
January 26, 2026 at 8:52 PM
Educators, the deadline to apply for our python workshop is approaching quickly! Apply by February 2 to join us in Seattle for this hands-on workshop.
💻 No prior coding experience needed.
✈️ Travel, meals, & stipend included.
🔗 https://alleninstitute.org/events/educator-coding-workshop-2026/
💻 No prior coding experience needed.
✈️ Travel, meals, & stipend included.
🔗 https://alleninstitute.org/events/educator-coding-workshop-2026/
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
The second paper from the lab is now available on bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
We discovered that cannibalistic behavior in fly larvae is social-context dependent. Larval groups avoid dead conspecifics; individuals show high attraction. They only do it when no one is watching 😉
We discovered that cannibalistic behavior in fly larvae is social-context dependent. Larval groups avoid dead conspecifics; individuals show high attraction. They only do it when no one is watching 😉
January 21, 2026 at 12:29 PM
The second paper from the lab is now available on bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
We discovered that cannibalistic behavior in fly larvae is social-context dependent. Larval groups avoid dead conspecifics; individuals show high attraction. They only do it when no one is watching 😉
We discovered that cannibalistic behavior in fly larvae is social-context dependent. Larval groups avoid dead conspecifics; individuals show high attraction. They only do it when no one is watching 😉
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
Another cool paper from Iran: nature.com/articles/s41... Prenatal stress makes mouse offspring more anxious, hyperactive, forgetful, and more drawn to morphine while laterodorsal tegmentum cholinergic neurons become hyperexcitable. From Kerman, a city with reported violent crackdowns on protests.
The hyperexcitability of laterodorsal tegmentum cholinergic neurons accompanies adverse behavioral and cognitive outcomes of prenatal stress - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - The hyperexcitability of laterodorsal tegmentum cholinergic neurons accompanies adverse behavioral and cognitive outcomes of prenatal stress
nature.com
January 15, 2026 at 2:18 PM
Another cool paper from Iran: nature.com/articles/s41... Prenatal stress makes mouse offspring more anxious, hyperactive, forgetful, and more drawn to morphine while laterodorsal tegmentum cholinergic neurons become hyperexcitable. From Kerman, a city with reported violent crackdowns on protests.
So I guess we went from not discussed to competitive not discussed. What a tease!!!
January 15, 2026 at 3:34 PM
So I guess we went from not discussed to competitive not discussed. What a tease!!!
Please apply. Amazing opportunity to dive into connectomics datasets for research, educational initiatives, outreach and whatever else your heart desires. Feb 2nd deadline.
Teach neuroscience to undergraduates? Learn how to incorporate our connectomics data into your courses!
🧠 "Incorporating open connectomics data into teaching neuroscience"
🗓️ July 23-24
🛫 Travel funds available
⏳ Apply by Feb. 2: https://bit.ly/3LAfOdy
#neuroskyence
🧠 "Incorporating open connectomics data into teaching neuroscience"
🗓️ July 23-24
🛫 Travel funds available
⏳ Apply by Feb. 2: https://bit.ly/3LAfOdy
#neuroskyence
Incorporating open connectomics data into teaching neuroscience
Learn to analyze open neuroscience data and introduce dry lab modules into your existing classes at the Incorporating Open Connectomics data into...
alleninstitute.org
January 15, 2026 at 12:18 AM
Please apply. Amazing opportunity to dive into connectomics datasets for research, educational initiatives, outreach and whatever else your heart desires. Feb 2nd deadline.
“Not discussed” on NIH eRA today. My next few months have been planned out for me so I guess we do nothing today or this week. Maybe start with the 3hr 40 min Bollywood movie that everyone is recommending.
January 8, 2026 at 9:37 PM
“Not discussed” on NIH eRA today. My next few months have been planned out for me so I guess we do nothing today or this week. Maybe start with the 3hr 40 min Bollywood movie that everyone is recommending.
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
Infra-slow brain rhythms found in sleep in lizards, humans, rats and pigeons!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Congrats @antbergel.bsky.social!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Congrats @antbergel.bsky.social!
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 our understanding of the ev...
www.nature.com
December 30, 2025 at 7:44 AM
Infra-slow brain rhythms found in sleep in lizards, humans, rats and pigeons!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Congrats @antbergel.bsky.social!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Congrats @antbergel.bsky.social!
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
Teach neuroscience to undergrads? Learn how to incorporate our connectomics data into your courses!
🗓️ July 23-24
🛫 Travel funds available
⏳ Apply by Feb. 2. https://alleninstitute.org/events/incorporating-open-connectomics-data-into-teaching-neuroscience/
🗓️ July 23-24
🛫 Travel funds available
⏳ Apply by Feb. 2. https://alleninstitute.org/events/incorporating-open-connectomics-data-into-teaching-neuroscience/
Incorporating open connectomics data into teaching neuroscience
Learn to analyze open neuroscience data and introduce dry lab modules into your existing classes at the Incorporating Open Connectomics data into...
alleninstitute.org
December 19, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Teach neuroscience to undergrads? Learn how to incorporate our connectomics data into your courses!
🗓️ July 23-24
🛫 Travel funds available
⏳ Apply by Feb. 2. https://alleninstitute.org/events/incorporating-open-connectomics-data-into-teaching-neuroscience/
🗓️ July 23-24
🛫 Travel funds available
⏳ Apply by Feb. 2. https://alleninstitute.org/events/incorporating-open-connectomics-data-into-teaching-neuroscience/
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
*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 ⬇️
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
*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 ⬇️
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 ⬇️
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
Electron microscopy is @nature.com's Method of the Year! 🧠🔬🏆
@natmethods.nature.com shares why MICrONS and FlyWire are proof that #ElectronMicroscopy is helping us see the brain and its incredible complexity at a new level: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-025-02988-6
🧠📈 #studyBRAIN
@natmethods.nature.com shares why MICrONS and FlyWire are proof that #ElectronMicroscopy is helping us see the brain and its incredible complexity at a new level: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-025-02988-6
🧠📈 #studyBRAIN
December 9, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Electron microscopy is @nature.com's Method of the Year! 🧠🔬🏆
@natmethods.nature.com shares why MICrONS and FlyWire are proof that #ElectronMicroscopy is helping us see the brain and its incredible complexity at a new level: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-025-02988-6
🧠📈 #studyBRAIN
@natmethods.nature.com shares why MICrONS and FlyWire are proof that #ElectronMicroscopy is helping us see the brain and its incredible complexity at a new level: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-025-02988-6
🧠📈 #studyBRAIN
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
No NCE button for R15s nearing their end date—1st NCEs need prior approval through the NIH Prior Approval Module. More steps, delays, and stress since active R15 PIs can’t be PIs on other NIH grants. Nothing I submitted in 2025 has even been reviewed/decisioned. I guess it was nice having a lab.....
December 5, 2025 at 4:48 PM
No NCE button for R15s nearing their end date—1st NCEs need prior approval through the NIH Prior Approval Module. More steps, delays, and stress since active R15 PIs can’t be PIs on other NIH grants. Nothing I submitted in 2025 has even been reviewed/decisioned. I guess it was nice having a lab.....
No NCE button for R15s nearing their end date—1st NCEs need prior approval through the NIH Prior Approval Module. More steps, delays, and stress since active R15 PIs can’t be PIs on other NIH grants. Nothing I submitted in 2025 has even been reviewed/decisioned. I guess it was nice having a lab.....
December 5, 2025 at 4:48 PM
No NCE button for R15s nearing their end date—1st NCEs need prior approval through the NIH Prior Approval Module. More steps, delays, and stress since active R15 PIs can’t be PIs on other NIH grants. Nothing I submitted in 2025 has even been reviewed/decisioned. I guess it was nice having a lab.....
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
Excited to share the latest work from the lab:
rdcu.be/eRWuD
Great team effort, led by @enriberti.bsky.social first at @unil.bsky.social and now @unifr.bsky.social; with fantastic collaborators @ribeirocarlitos.bsky.social and @dahaniel.muench.bio.
rdcu.be/eRWuD
Great team effort, led by @enriberti.bsky.social first at @unil.bsky.social and now @unifr.bsky.social; with fantastic collaborators @ribeirocarlitos.bsky.social and @dahaniel.muench.bio.
Evolution of taste processing shifts dietary preference
Nature - Calcium imaging of taste neurons and the ventral brain provides insight into evolutionary divergence of food choice in Drosophila species, supporting a role of sensorimotor processing in...
rdcu.be
November 27, 2025 at 8:36 AM
Excited to share the latest work from the lab:
rdcu.be/eRWuD
Great team effort, led by @enriberti.bsky.social first at @unil.bsky.social and now @unifr.bsky.social; with fantastic collaborators @ribeirocarlitos.bsky.social and @dahaniel.muench.bio.
rdcu.be/eRWuD
Great team effort, led by @enriberti.bsky.social first at @unil.bsky.social and now @unifr.bsky.social; with fantastic collaborators @ribeirocarlitos.bsky.social and @dahaniel.muench.bio.
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
When you join a lab to do some voltage imaging
November 26, 2025 at 1:41 PM
When you join a lab to do some voltage imaging
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
@hhmi.org Summer Undergraduate Research Experience - #CechFellows named in honor of Prof Tom Cech
Deadline to apply: 12/22/2025
Spend 9 weeks in a paid, mentored biomedical research experience in an HHMI lab. See you next summer!!!
www.hhmi.org/programs/cec...
Deadline to apply: 12/22/2025
Spend 9 weeks in a paid, mentored biomedical research experience in an HHMI lab. See you next summer!!!
www.hhmi.org/programs/cec...
Summer Undergraduate Research Experience | HHMI
The Cech Fellows Program is a paid, nine-week summer research experience empowering the next generation of scientific leaders.
www.hhmi.org
November 22, 2025 at 4:15 PM
@hhmi.org Summer Undergraduate Research Experience - #CechFellows named in honor of Prof Tom Cech
Deadline to apply: 12/22/2025
Spend 9 weeks in a paid, mentored biomedical research experience in an HHMI lab. See you next summer!!!
www.hhmi.org/programs/cec...
Deadline to apply: 12/22/2025
Spend 9 weeks in a paid, mentored biomedical research experience in an HHMI lab. See you next summer!!!
www.hhmi.org/programs/cec...
I will be co-teaching a summer course at Allen Institute on connectomics education please apply. Travel support, new connectomics data sets and learning directly from the scientists who built these datasets. Details here: alleninstitute.org/events/incor...
Incorporating open connectomics data into teaching neuroscience
Learn to analyze open neuroscience data and introduce dry lab modules into your existing classes at the Incorporating Open Connectomics data into...
alleninstitute.org
November 24, 2025 at 1:53 AM
I will be co-teaching a summer course at Allen Institute on connectomics education please apply. Travel support, new connectomics data sets and learning directly from the scientists who built these datasets. Details here: alleninstitute.org/events/incor...
So excited for the Connections Week @CSU East Bay (Nov 4th-8th). This was so much fun to organize. If you are in the Bay Area and want to attend, please reach out
November 4, 2025 at 2:18 PM
So excited for the Connections Week @CSU East Bay (Nov 4th-8th). This was so much fun to organize. If you are in the Bay Area and want to attend, please reach out
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
This ‘fundamental’ study reports anatomical, molecular, and functional mapping of the central complex in #Drosophila.
buff.ly/7nlgaXb
buff.ly/7nlgaXb
May 31, 2025 at 10:44 PM
This ‘fundamental’ study reports anatomical, molecular, and functional mapping of the central complex in #Drosophila.
buff.ly/7nlgaXb
buff.ly/7nlgaXb
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
We are also raising money to support undergrads at UCSF this summer!
Help me, @neuronush.bsky.social and @quexarce.bsky.social buy ice cream and pizza for our little community of undergraduate researchers!
20% of sales for the rest of the month will go towards our programs!!!
Help me, @neuronush.bsky.social and @quexarce.bsky.social buy ice cream and pizza for our little community of undergraduate researchers!
20% of sales for the rest of the month will go towards our programs!!!
My friend @christineliu.art and fellow IRACDA scholar (oof rip) designs wonderful wearable messages! The enamel pins especially make nice gifts for recent grads 👀
twophotonart.com
twophotonart.com
Two Photon Art
From fun science enamel pins and patches to colorful zines explaining scientific concepts, we like to explore a multitude of science communication avenues and make them worth coveting!
twophotonart.com
May 29, 2025 at 1:50 AM
We are also raising money to support undergrads at UCSF this summer!
Help me, @neuronush.bsky.social and @quexarce.bsky.social buy ice cream and pizza for our little community of undergraduate researchers!
20% of sales for the rest of the month will go towards our programs!!!
Help me, @neuronush.bsky.social and @quexarce.bsky.social buy ice cream and pizza for our little community of undergraduate researchers!
20% of sales for the rest of the month will go towards our programs!!!
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
“These cuts are the height of self-inflicted harm,”
Trump Has Cut Science Funding to Its Lowest Level in Decades
The lag in funding extends far beyond D.E.I. initiatives, affecting almost every area of science: chemistry, computing, engineering, materials and more.
www.nytimes.com
May 22, 2025 at 12:47 PM
“These cuts are the height of self-inflicted harm,”
R16 eligible institutions: less than $6 million/yr (total costs) from NIH in each of the preceding two fiscal years and enroll at least 25% of undergraduate students supported by Pell grants or HBCUs and TCUs. R16s were a lifeline for small univs with no other dedicated research funds.
The NIGMS R16 was also cancelled in these "expiration" moves.
May 21, 2025 at 6:12 PM
R16 eligible institutions: less than $6 million/yr (total costs) from NIH in each of the preceding two fiscal years and enroll at least 25% of undergraduate students supported by Pell grants or HBCUs and TCUs. R16s were a lifeline for small univs with no other dedicated research funds.
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
Why do some neurons say “sleep” while others shout “stay awake!” — inside the same brain?
In fruit flies, researchers just mapped the molecular chaos behind this nightly tug-of-war. And it’s wilder than we thought.
buff.ly/6oWQjA2
In fruit flies, researchers just mapped the molecular chaos behind this nightly tug-of-war. And it’s wilder than we thought.
buff.ly/6oWQjA2
May 18, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Why do some neurons say “sleep” while others shout “stay awake!” — inside the same brain?
In fruit flies, researchers just mapped the molecular chaos behind this nightly tug-of-war. And it’s wilder than we thought.
buff.ly/6oWQjA2
In fruit flies, researchers just mapped the molecular chaos behind this nightly tug-of-war. And it’s wilder than we thought.
buff.ly/6oWQjA2
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
It is not the job of higher education to pay for national priorities such as biomedical, scientific, and engineering research. That is a goal of the nation as a whole.
If you want a strong nation, you have to pay for a strong nation. It can't be outsourced.
If you want a strong nation, you have to pay for a strong nation. It can't be outsourced.
May 17, 2025 at 2:10 PM
It is not the job of higher education to pay for national priorities such as biomedical, scientific, and engineering research. That is a goal of the nation as a whole.
If you want a strong nation, you have to pay for a strong nation. It can't be outsourced.
If you want a strong nation, you have to pay for a strong nation. It can't be outsourced.
Reposted by Divya Sitaraman
Hey science people! These crucial legal actions don't just happen. Consider donating to their organizers, e.g. @democracyforward.org. (see: democracyforward.org/updates/omni...)
Important to note that a judge in San Francisco just ruled that Trump must pause these “reduction in force” letters.
She found they are very likely illegal and will need to be totally rescinded and scheduled a hearing on that for two weeks from now.
She found they are very likely illegal and will need to be totally rescinded and scheduled a hearing on that for two weeks from now.
Over 90% of NIOSH employees have received “reduction-in-force” letters, placing them on administrative leave ahead of permanent layoffs.
May 12, 2025 at 1:04 AM
Hey science people! These crucial legal actions don't just happen. Consider donating to their organizers, e.g. @democracyforward.org. (see: democracyforward.org/updates/omni...)