JB Manent
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jbmanent.bsky.social
JB Manent
@jbmanent.bsky.social
2.2K followers 2.9K following 95 posts
Developmental neurobiologist studying cortical malformations (grey matter heterotopia) and #epilepsy at INMED, INSERM in Marseille, France

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2436-8593
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jbmanent.bsky.social
JB Manent @jbmanent.bsky.social · Aug 1
Interested in cortical malformations 🧠 and #epilepsy?
We will soon have 2 open positions:
- early career postdoc with experience in slice & in vivo electrophysiology
- research engineer with experience in bioinformatics and data analysis
Please get in touch (DM) if interested.
Please repost!
Reposted by JB Manent
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by JB Manent
paolocrosetto.bsky.social
What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma.

It's *scientific publishing*.

We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing.

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_...

Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇
November 12, 2025 at 10:31 AM
Reposted by JB Manent
sfbd.bsky.social
🚨🚨🚨
The SFBD board needs to be renewed with 5 members
We wish to strengthen our board with young scientists

To apply: send a brief text introducing your research interests and motivations to sfbd@sfbd.fr by December 4th
Elections will be held online from December 10th to 17th
Please share the info
November 10, 2025 at 10:47 AM
Reposted by JB Manent
franceuniversites.bsky.social
France Universités exprime sa vive inquiétude après l’annulation d’un colloque scientifique au Collège de France.
franceuniversites.fr/actualite/fr...
#LibertéAcadémique
November 10, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by JB Manent
maximoprado.bsky.social
Slick-H/M83 mice injected with alpha synuclein preformed fibrils. Magenta pS129 and yellow for eGFP driven by the Thy-1 promoter. blue nuclei #fluorescencefriday courtesy of Vlad Novikov. Shaz and Nadia from the @mind-western.bsky.social
November 7, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Reposted by JB Manent
meadekrosby.bsky.social
Thinking only of Rosalind Franklin today, and what was stolen from her (and so many other female scientists alongside her).
Rosalind Franklin and the damage of gender harassment
Spurred by a recent report on sexual harassment in academia, our columnist revisits a historical case and reflects on what has changed—and what hasn’t
www.science.org
November 7, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Reposted by JB Manent
brainevodevo.bsky.social
Our new manuscript, led by Emily Corrigan, examines inhibitory neuron diversity across approximately 160 million years of evolutionary divergence, as part of BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network (BICAN) developing brain atlas package: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Conservation and alteration of mammalian striatal interneurons - Nature
An analysis of cell-type diversity in brain samples from a variety of mammalian species, both during development and in adult animals, reveals that the TAC3 initial class of striatal interneurons is c...
www.nature.com
November 7, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Reposted by JB Manent
gocastelobranco.bsky.social
Our latest collaboration with @rongfan8.bsky.social, spatial triomics to investigate myelin and cortical brain development, and demyelination, spearheaded by Leslie Kirby in our lab @ki.se and Di Zhang in Rong's lab! Check it out @nature.com

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Spatial dynamics of brain development and neuroinflammation - Nature
A tri-omic atlas of the mouse brain from postnatal day 0 to P21 reveals that layer-specific projection neurons have a role in coordinating axonogenesis and myelination.
www.nature.com
November 5, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Reposted by JB Manent
arnonelab.bsky.social
Our study, just published in #ScienceAdvances and funded by @hfspo.bsky.social, explores the post metamorphic cell composition of the sea urchin juvenile, revealing that its body is head-like. Long considered brainless creatures, they’re all brain instead!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Single-nucleus profiling highlights the all-brain echinoderm nervous system
A sea urchin is a head with a brain-like organization and a vertebrate-type retinal signature.
www.science.org
November 5, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Reposted by JB Manent
cedricboeckx.bsky.social
New work by @gleesonlab.bsky.social & colleagues in @cp-cellstemcell.bsky.social
“A phenotypic brain organoid atlas and biobank for neurodevelopmental disorders” 🧪🧠🧫🧬

www.cell.com/cell-stem-ce...
A phenotypic brain organoid atlas and biobank for neurodevelopmental disorders
Wang and colleagues present a phenotypic brain organoid atlas for neurodevelopmental disorders, revealing disease-specific cellular and molecular alterations that illuminate NDD pathogenesis. Integrat...
www.cell.com
November 3, 2025 at 8:26 PM
Reposted by JB Manent
berniejmulvey.bsky.social
Got with the times + made a BSky to share our new, large-scale spatial RNAseq study of adult human #locuscoeruleus! Co-1st auth and cryostat wizard @heenadivecha.bsky.social squeezed 85 tissue sections into 43 Visium arrays. (1/8)

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Impact of Alzheimer's disease risk factors and local neuromelanin content on the transcriptomic landscape of the human locus coeruleus
The locus coeruleus (LC) is a small noradrenergic nucleus in the dorsal pons that sends projections across the brain regulating sleep, arousal, attention, stress responses, and some forms of cognition...
www.biorxiv.org
October 31, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Reposted by JB Manent
sjo09.bsky.social
Excited to share the latest from the lab on the molecular mechanisms of silencing and un-silencing a hippocampal engram ensemble. Was fun using a variant of the EPSILON technique developed by Adam Cohen's lab.
(1/2)

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Molecular mechanisms mediating engram ensemble retrievability state in mice
Engrams, ensembles of neurons that store memories, exist along a continuum of retrievability. Normally, sensory cues can reactivate a latent engram to…
www.sciencedirect.com
October 30, 2025 at 3:32 PM
jbmanent.bsky.social
🦟
October 30, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Reposted by JB Manent
nadavshai.bsky.social
🦟 We've just published the world's first head-to-toe single-cell atlas of the Aedes aegypti mosquito in @cp-cell.bsky.social!
The #MosquitoCellAtlas maps 69 cell types across 19 tissues, revealing surprising biology. Read it here:
shorturl.at/dJWT3
A single-nucleus transcriptomic atlas of the adult Aedes aegypti mosquito
A comprehensive single-nucleus RNA-seq atlas of >367,000 nuclei from male and female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes reveals sexual dimorphism in sensory systems and brain cell types and widespread co-expres...
www.cell.com
October 30, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Reposted by JB Manent
pleunipennings.bsky.social
I started a new job in Montpellier, France!
Happy about new opportunities, sad about the state of things in the US.

abetterscientist.wordpress.com/2025/10/26/w...
We left the US and moved to France
Hello readers, I got big updates! Some of you already know this, but it’s getting more real and more official every month: my family and I have left the US and moved to France! A few months ago I q…
abetterscientist.wordpress.com
October 27, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Reposted by JB Manent
pawelburkhardt.bsky.social
First neurons didn’t appear overnight. We trace their roots to ancient secretory cells - showing how lifestyle & behavior shaped the evolution of first synapses.🧠🌊 #Evolution #Neuroscience

Our latest in @natrevneuro.nature.com
Link: rdcu.be/eMX3E

@jeffcolgren.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social
The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins and their changing roles in different organisms across evolution
Nature Reviews Neuroscience - Recent studies have shed further light on the evolutionary origins of chemical synapses, In this Review, Colgren and Burkhardt explore how ancient proteins were...
rdcu.be
October 27, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Reposted by JB Manent
giulia-boezio.bsky.social
Thrilled to share my main postdoc work with @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social

We used genomic barcoding + scRNAseq in chick & human embryos to reveal a lineage architecture that reshapes how we understand neural tube development & cell fate decisions
🧵👇

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Hierarchical lineage architecture of human and avian spinal cord revealed by single-cell genomic barcoding
The formation of neural circuits depends on the precise spatial and temporal organisation of neuronal populations during development. In the vertebrate spinal cord, progenitors are patterned into mole...
www.biorxiv.org
October 26, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Reposted by JB Manent
insight.jci.org
@tomgillingwater.bsky.social @dibbouk.bsky.social et al. @euanscentre.bsky.social @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social & @cmvm-edinburghuni.bsky.social show in utero delivery of SMN-restoring therapy corrects neurodevelopmental defects affecting primary cilia in SMA mice: insight.jci.org/articles/vie...
October 24, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Reposted by JB Manent
brainbodylab.bsky.social
A hypothalamus-brainstem-heart circuit regulated by oxytocin on heart rate variability. Another cool brain-body work! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Oxytocin modulates respiratory heart rate variability through a hypothalamus–brainstem–heart neuronal pathway - Nature Neuroscience
Buron et al. show that oxytocin enhances heart rate variability linked to breathing during recovery from stress. This calming and cardio-protective effect is produced through a hypothalamus–brainstem ...
www.nature.com
October 23, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Reposted by JB Manent
christeldepienne.bsky.social
I am delighted to finally share our new preprint exploring the role of RBMX and its retrocopies in neurodevelopment:

👉🏻Read the full preprint here:

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Below are the key findings 👇🏻
RBMX functional retrocopy safeguards brain development
Retrotransposition has generated thousands of intronless gene copies in mammalian genomes, yet their contribution to brain development and evolution remains largely unexplored. Here we uncover a criti...
www.medrxiv.org
October 26, 2025 at 3:53 AM
Reposted by JB Manent
prakashlab.bsky.social
“Cellular Olympics” our catalog of freeky ultra fast cellular superhero’s is freely available “Ann Rev of microbiology”

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

This is a compilation of world’s fastest single cell organisms - enjoy this buffet of rare delightful protists with mind bending speeds. 🧪
October 24, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Reposted by JB Manent
pryprk.bsky.social
I am proud to share our work on X-linked Dystonia-Parkinsonism — a rare neurodegenerative movement disorder driven by a SINE-VNTR-Alu retrotransposon insertion in the TAF1 gene.

Read our two companion papers:
🔹 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🔹 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🧵 Highlights below!
October 24, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Reposted by JB Manent
kelseytea.bsky.social
🧠🌟🐭 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 JB Manent
robinjournot.bsky.social
Our paper is on the cover of @cp-devcell.bsky.social . Image: embryonic murine salivary-gland explants stained for fate determinants; p63 (cyan) and HES1 (yellow). Thanks to everyone involved.
doi.org/10.1016/j.de...
October 6, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Reposted by JB Manent
laurentformery.bsky.social
Sea cucumbers are beautiful! 🥒

This image shows the skeleton of a baby sea cucumber. Very happy that it got awarded by #NikonSmallWorld 😊

👇 Check the preprint by @PranavVyas and @prakashlab.bsky.social if you want to learn more about skeleton development in these animals:
shorturl.at/J3g1h
October 16, 2025 at 3:29 PM