Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
@dukebrain.bsky.social
Promoting interdisciplinary brain science research and translating discoveries into solutions for health and society.
https://dibs.duke.edu/
https://dibs.duke.edu/
Wow!
Finally out! If you are interested in implementing closed loop experiments but need the flexibility to roll your own real-time algorithms, we can save you some serious time.
Our new paper in @natcomms.nature.com introduces improv, a flexible software platform that integrates models with experiments in real-time. Traditional experiments collect all data first, then analyze it later. With improv, models analyze data as it streams in and actively guide what to do next.
November 13, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Wow!
Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
Coming to San Diego for SfN and/or APAN? Come check out the intracranial work from the lab (7 posters)! There's a bit of everything this year, so come say hello!
#Sfn2025 #Neuroscience #neuroskyence
@dukebrain.bsky.social @dukeneurosurgery.bsky.social @dukeengineering.bsky.social
#Sfn2025 #Neuroscience #neuroskyence
@dukebrain.bsky.social @dukeneurosurgery.bsky.social @dukeengineering.bsky.social
November 10, 2025 at 8:55 PM
Coming to San Diego for SfN and/or APAN? Come check out the intracranial work from the lab (7 posters)! There's a bit of everything this year, so come say hello!
#Sfn2025 #Neuroscience #neuroskyence
@dukebrain.bsky.social @dukeneurosurgery.bsky.social @dukeengineering.bsky.social
#Sfn2025 #Neuroscience #neuroskyence
@dukebrain.bsky.social @dukeneurosurgery.bsky.social @dukeengineering.bsky.social
😻
my first #FluorescenceFriday post! Mouse hippocampus showing microglia, a lysosomal marker (CD68), and Aggrecan, a perineuronal net component. 😍 Image by Dr. Julia Dziabis!
November 8, 2025 at 7:42 AM
😻
Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
Good news everyone: #Duke Summer Seminars in Neuroscience and Philosophy (SSNAP) are back!! We are now accepting applications for SSNAP 2026, which will take place from May 26 to June 6, 2026. #neuroscience #philosophy #brain Please spread the word! ssnap.submittable.com/submit
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November 7, 2025 at 11:58 AM
Good news everyone: #Duke Summer Seminars in Neuroscience and Philosophy (SSNAP) are back!! We are now accepting applications for SSNAP 2026, which will take place from May 26 to June 6, 2026. #neuroscience #philosophy #brain Please spread the word! ssnap.submittable.com/submit
🧠🙌🌴
Excited to give a Special Lecture at #SfN2025 in San Diego (Nov 15-19)!
Proud of our current & former lab members presenting so posters and talks this year 🧠 ✨ See our schedule below! #Neuroscience #SuthanaLab
Proud of our current & former lab members presenting so posters and talks this year 🧠 ✨ See our schedule below! #Neuroscience #SuthanaLab
October 29, 2025 at 2:51 AM
🧠🙌🌴
Dr. Allie Sinclair, a 2019 DIBS Germinator award winner! Co-advised by @ralisonadcock.bsky.social and Greg Samanez-Larkin at the time, soon to be Asst Prof at Rice. Proud to see it!
Coming up on October 28! Dr. Allie Sinclair @asinclair.bsky.social (UPenn/Rice) will be presenting in @motcogmeet.bsky.social series: "Motivational States Bias Choices, Information Consumption, and Memory" 1/
October 16, 2025 at 10:52 PM
Dr. Allie Sinclair, a 2019 DIBS Germinator award winner! Co-advised by @ralisonadcock.bsky.social and Greg Samanez-Larkin at the time, soon to be Asst Prof at Rice. Proud to see it!
New work from Henry Yin and colleagues at Duke indicates we need to reconsider the role of VTA dopamine circuits in behavior!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Dopamine dynamics during stimulus-reward learning in mice can be explained by performance rather than learning - Nature Communications
VTA dopamine activity control movement-related performance, not reward prediction errors. Here, authors show that behavioral changes during Pavlovian learning explain DA activity regardless of reward ...
www.nature.com
October 14, 2025 at 6:13 PM
New work from Henry Yin and colleagues at Duke indicates we need to reconsider the role of VTA dopamine circuits in behavior!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
New in Annual Review of Psychology from Alison Adcock and Jia-Hou Poh!
Motivations are like emotions about (what we know about) possible outcomes. Sometimes incentives spur urgency to act, other times to comprehend. Neuromodulatory systems reflect these motivational moods and shape memories. Out now w @jiahou-poh.bsky.social!
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
Motivation as Neural Context for Adaptive Learning and Memory Formation
Our memories shape our perception of the world and guide adaptive behavior. Rather than a veridical record of experiences, memory is selective. An accumulating body of work suggests that motivational ...
www.annualreviews.org
October 13, 2025 at 4:40 PM
New in Annual Review of Psychology from Alison Adcock and Jia-Hou Poh!
What a tour de force from the Silver lab!
I am thrilled to share our latest story led by the incredibly talented Brooke D’Arcy and Camila Musso. We discover a rich world of local gene expression in radial glia, essential neural and glial precursors, and develop a new method for sub-cellular mRNA manipulation. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
October 13, 2025 at 3:31 AM
What a tour de force from the Silver lab!
Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
I wrote a short commentary on Anil Seth's wonderful forthcoming paper in BBS. It is largely inspired by the work of Andy Clark, although some ideas I owe to Ned Block and Dan Dennett (probably not the same ideas!). I highly recommend Anil's paper to anyone interested in consciousness [1/2]
October 10, 2025 at 12:59 AM
I wrote a short commentary on Anil Seth's wonderful forthcoming paper in BBS. It is largely inspired by the work of Andy Clark, although some ideas I owe to Ned Block and Dan Dennett (probably not the same ideas!). I highly recommend Anil's paper to anyone interested in consciousness [1/2]
Congratulations Tom! It's great to see a teacher, mentor, and leader of the Duke Neuroscience major honored this way!
I’m honored to be part of this incredible group of finalists for the Judith Deckers Award. A huge thank you to all the students, alumni, and colleagues who nominated me!
undergrad.duke.edu/news/judith-...
undergrad.duke.edu/news/judith-...
The Judith Deckers Prize Announces 2025 Finalists | Office of Undergraduate Education
Duke University’s Judith Deckers Prize honors excellence in undergraduate teaching, recognizing faculty whose innovative practices and deep commitment have shaped the stu
undergrad.duke.edu
October 5, 2025 at 6:48 AM
Congratulations Tom! It's great to see a teacher, mentor, and leader of the Duke Neuroscience major honored this way!
New op-ed by DIBS Associate Director Dr. Nicole Schramm-Sapyta on the important role of mental health care in crime prevention:
www.newsobserver.com/opinion/arti...
www.newsobserver.com/opinion/arti...
NC crime bill doesn’t do enough to address mental health. These steps will help | Opinion
We will all be safer if we choose proactive, rather than reactive, solutions to address mental health and crime. Now is the time to start in NC. | Opinion
www.newsobserver.com
October 3, 2025 at 6:50 AM
New op-ed by DIBS Associate Director Dr. Nicole Schramm-Sapyta on the important role of mental health care in crime prevention:
www.newsobserver.com/opinion/arti...
www.newsobserver.com/opinion/arti...
Duke community: DIBS has announced revival of its seed grant programs with a round of Germinators! These are specifically for grad students and postdocs - they are the PIs of the awards - to propose 1-year, interdisciplinary research projects in the brain sciences. RFP: dibs.duke.edu/2025-germina...
2025 Germinator Awards: Request for Proposals | Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
The Duke Institute for Brain Sciences (DIBS) invites applications for Germinator Awards: Interdisciplinary research and training relevant to the brain sciencesOpen only t
dibs.duke.edu
September 30, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Duke community: DIBS has announced revival of its seed grant programs with a round of Germinators! These are specifically for grad students and postdocs - they are the PIs of the awards - to propose 1-year, interdisciplinary research projects in the brain sciences. RFP: dibs.duke.edu/2025-germina...
To everyone interested in mental health: why not you?
September 19, 2025 at 2:47 AM
To everyone interested in mental health: why not you?
Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
New funding opportunity from the BRAIN Initiative! Applications due Oct 28!
grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
RFA-DA-27-004: BRAIN Initiative: Theories, Models and Methods for Analysis of Complex Data from the Brain (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: BRAIN Initiative: Theories, Models and Methods for Analysis of Complex Data from the Brain (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allo...
grants.nih.gov
September 16, 2025 at 8:23 PM
New funding opportunity from the BRAIN Initiative! Applications due Oct 28!
grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
Congrats to Debbie Silver @debbysilver.bsky.social for her keynote talk at the IBDM - Institut de Biologie du Développement de Marseille! @ibdm.bsky.social
We were glad to receive @debbysilver.bsky.social 🇺🇸 for a @ibdm.bsky.social keynote lecture "The choreography of brain development: From RNA biology to evolution"!
Thank you for coming in Marseille! Very nice chats on neurodevelopment, human evolution, gene regulation! Food and sea also in the menu!
Thank you for coming in Marseille! Very nice chats on neurodevelopment, human evolution, gene regulation! Food and sea also in the menu!
September 13, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Congrats to Debbie Silver @debbysilver.bsky.social for her keynote talk at the IBDM - Institut de Biologie du Développement de Marseille! @ibdm.bsky.social
Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
Duke Cell Biology is hiring in AI/ML! @scottsoderling.bsky.social, @rohitsingh8080.bsky.social, and others are building a very active community around ML for discovery science, and Duke is a great place to be.
academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30509
academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30509
Duke University, Cell Biology/Duke University Medical Center
Job #AJO30509, 24903 Tenure - Track Assistant Professor Position - AI/ML for Biology, Cell Biology/Duke University Medical Center, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, US
academicjobsonline.org
September 7, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Duke Cell Biology is hiring in AI/ML! @scottsoderling.bsky.social, @rohitsingh8080.bsky.social, and others are building a very active community around ML for discovery science, and Duke is a great place to be.
academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30509
academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30509
Exciting work by PhD student Zac Spalding @zspald.bsky.social and multiple labs across departments at Duke! A combination of human electrophysiology, modeling/decoding, and cognitive concepts to improve BCI for speech in patients. 👏 🧠📈
We’re happy to present @zspald.bsky.social 's work on shared neural representations of speech production across individuals! We find that patient-specific data can be aligned to a shared space that preserves speech information, enabling cross-patient speech BCIs.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
August 27, 2025 at 3:45 AM
Exciting work by PhD student Zac Spalding @zspald.bsky.social and multiple labs across departments at Duke! A combination of human electrophysiology, modeling/decoding, and cognitive concepts to improve BCI for speech in patients. 👏 🧠📈
August 21, 2025 at 5:41 AM
Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
Duke researchers have uncovered a promising path to potentially treat a family of rare neurodegenerative disease called neurodegeneration with brain iron accumulation (NBIA).
🔗: https://mgm.duke.edu/news/fundamental-cell-molecule-could-help-fight-rare-brain-disorders
#AcademicSky #MedSky
🔗: https://mgm.duke.edu/news/fundamental-cell-molecule-could-help-fight-rare-brain-disorders
#AcademicSky #MedSky
Fundamental Cell Molecule Could Help Fight Rare Brain Disorders | Duke Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology
Duke researchers may have found a path to treat a family of rare neurodegenerative disease called neurodegeneration with brain iron accumulation (NBIA). People with NBIA have extra iron accumulation ...
mgm.duke.edu
August 20, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Duke researchers have uncovered a promising path to potentially treat a family of rare neurodegenerative disease called neurodegeneration with brain iron accumulation (NBIA).
🔗: https://mgm.duke.edu/news/fundamental-cell-molecule-could-help-fight-rare-brain-disorders
#AcademicSky #MedSky
🔗: https://mgm.duke.edu/news/fundamental-cell-molecule-could-help-fight-rare-brain-disorders
#AcademicSky #MedSky
Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
Sharing our newest study led by the incredibly talented @federicamosti.bsky.social investigating new molecular mechanisms of human brain development. We discover a human-specific enhancer HAR1984 that influences chromatin looping to promote cortical size and folding! www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
August 10, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Sharing our newest study led by the incredibly talented @federicamosti.bsky.social investigating new molecular mechanisms of human brain development. We discover a human-specific enhancer HAR1984 that influences chromatin looping to promote cortical size and folding! www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
This was a fun paper to write, and one that fits nicely with some recent work I've been doing on the role of counterfactual simulation in memory encoding. link.springer.com/article/10.3...
Episodic details are better remembered in plausible relative to implausible counterfactual simulations - Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
People often engage in episodic counterfactual thinking, or mentally simulating how the experienced past might have been different from how it was. A commonly held view is that mentally simulating alt...
link.springer.com
August 6, 2025 at 2:27 AM
This was a fun paper to write, and one that fits nicely with some recent work I've been doing on the role of counterfactual simulation in memory encoding. link.springer.com/article/10.3...
Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
The Anne West lab at Duke is hiring a postdoc to work on nuclear cell biology in neurogenesis. Please help me spread the word! Applications to west@neuro.duke.edu.
July 27, 2025 at 8:27 PM
The Anne West lab at Duke is hiring a postdoc to work on nuclear cell biology in neurogenesis. Please help me spread the word! Applications to west@neuro.duke.edu.
For early career researchers in our community - this is invaluable. Info here:
public.csr.nih.gov/ForReviewers...
public.csr.nih.gov/ForReviewers...
July 25, 2025 at 9:52 PM
For early career researchers in our community - this is invaluable. Info here:
public.csr.nih.gov/ForReviewers...
public.csr.nih.gov/ForReviewers...
Reposted by Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
Ok, reinforcement learning fans: RL is great, but what do we do when there's no obvious reward from the environment? What about perfecting a golf swing or a foxtrot or a musical performance? We may have an answer. A tale of 🐦 🎶 + 🧠. 🧵1/ #bioacoustics #prattle 💬 #neuroai #compneuro
I am happy to share our new preprint! In this work, we proposed a theory about how zebra finches bootstrap their error signals for self-guided RL via predictive coding 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Correctness is its own reward: bootstrapping error signals in self-guided reinforcement learning
Reinforcement learning (RL) offers a compelling account of how agents learn complex behaviors by trial and error, yet RL is predicated on the existence of a reward function provided by the agent's env...
www.biorxiv.org
July 24, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Ok, reinforcement learning fans: RL is great, but what do we do when there's no obvious reward from the environment? What about perfecting a golf swing or a foxtrot or a musical performance? We may have an answer. A tale of 🐦 🎶 + 🧠. 🧵1/ #bioacoustics #prattle 💬 #neuroai #compneuro