Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Zebrafish Rock! @zebrafishrock.bsky.social · 1d

New work from Baier Lab 🧠 🐟

🔗 to paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

MPI for Biological Intelligence @mpiforbi.bsky.social · 1d

How does a fish know when to blend in? Scientists identified a key circuit controlling camouflage in zebrafish – from cells in the retina sensing light to nerve cells in the brain controlling the release of a hormone that pales the skin to match bright backgrounds.
www.bi.mpg.de/news/2025-11...

Images of two zebrafish larvae - one with a light, the other with a darker background.

2 6

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Chiara Fornetto @chiarafornetto.bsky.social · 8d

Excited to share our paper now published in Cell!
'Zebrafish use spectral information to suppress the visual background'

Huge thanks to @neurofishh.bsky.social & @teuler.bsky.social

@cellpress.bsky.social @cp-cell.bsky.social

👇🏻
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Zebrafish use spectral information to suppress the visual background

Vertebrate eyes first evolved in water, where spectral content rapidly fades with distance. Zebrafish exploit this loss by antagonizing cone signals to suppress the background, pointing to distance es...

www.cell.com

3 13 40

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Cell - a Cell Press journal @cp-cell.bsky.social · 8d

Now online! Zebrafish use spectral information to suppress the visual background

Zebrafish use spectral information to suppress the visual background

Vertebrate eyes first evolved in water, where spectral content rapidly fades with distance. Zebrafish exploit this loss by antagonizing cone signals to suppress the background, pointing to distance estimation—rather than color—as an ancestral cone function.

dlvr.it

3 4

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Martin Haesemeyer @haesemeyerlab.bsky.social · 18d

Out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social led by Kaarthik A Balakrishnan: We identify medullary circuits that represent the valence of thermal stimuli and control both long-term strategies of cold-avoidance and short term hot avoidance behaviors to enable thermoregulation. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Behavioral and circuit principles of temperature gradient navigation

Behavioral thermoregulation is critical for survival across animals. Balakrishnan and Haesemeyer discover that thermoregulatory behavior in larval zebrafish is organized into longer-term swim modes. T...

www.cell.com

9 12

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Kelsey Tyssowski @kelseytea.bsky.social · 20d

🧠🌟🐭 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🧵

18 120 360

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Shaked Palgi @shakedpa.bsky.social · 26d

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

6 37 120

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Greg Jefferis @jefferis.bsky.social · 27d

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

1 66 120

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Katrin Franke @katrinfranke.bsky.social · Oct 7

Our review is out 🎉

We discuss how neural computations in the retina shape behavior, continuing the top-down tradition of Lettvin et al.'s classic bug-detector neurons

Check it out 👀 arevie.ws/46HMEjd @annualreviews.bsky.social w/ coauthors @serenariccitelli.bsky.social @annaintegrated.bsky.social

5 19

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Hanna Zwaka @hannazwaka.bsky.social · Oct 3

“Blame your parents if you can’t pay enough attention." At least when you are a zebrafish! Our new study on attentional switching together with Kumaresh Krishnan, @paulapflitsch.bsky.social , @zwitscherarmin.bsky.social and Florian Engert is out in Science Advances:
doi.org/10.1126/scia...

7 22

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Matt Lovett-Barron @mlovettbarron.bsky.social · Sep 30

Our latest study on the neurobiology of collective behavior is now posted as a preprint, led by UCSD PhD student Jo-Hsien Yu @anitajhyu.bsky.social @ucsandiego.bsky.social @danionella.bsky.social

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

3 10 34

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Emre Yaksi @emreyaksi.bsky.social · Sep 16

Check out this exciting study led by Anh-Tuan Trinh from our lab, where we investigated how thalamocortical-like circuits in the zebrafish pallium receive, represent, and integrate sensory information:
🔗 doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Hierarchical processing of sensory information across topographically organized thalamocortical-like circuits in the zebrafish brain

Thalamocortical projections contribute to the spatial organization and functional hierarchies of the mammalian cortex. Primary sensory cortices receive topographically segregated information from firs...

doi.org

4 14 50

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Ofer Yizhar @oyiz.bsky.social · Sep 12

Excited to share our latest paper - now out in @science.org - we showed how oxytocin modulates maternally-directed behavior in young mice (P15).

4 35 110

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Misha Ahrens @mishaahrens.bsky.social · Sep 8

Preprint -
Excited to present WHOLISTIC, which extends the concept of whole-brain functional imaging to the entire body. Pioneering work by incredibly talented Virginia Ruetten @vmsruetten.bsky.social, this platform reveals whole-organism cellular dynamics in vivo.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

3 70 190

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Asaph Zylbertal @azylbertal.bsky.social · Sep 3

First sneak peek into SimFish! 🐟
Long in development with @isaacbianco.bsky.social and Sam Pink, our fish-on-chips now captures key aspects of larval #zebrafish sensory processing and motor control.

1 3 11

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Maxwell Shafer @maxshafer.bsky.social · Aug 28

Now published @natecoevo.nature.com with @annika-nichols.bsky.social, our latest on the evolution of 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱 across 𝟲𝟬 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘀 of cichlid fishes! doi.org/10.1038/s415...
with members of the @schierlab.bsky.social and Salzburger labs, as well as the burgeoning Shafer lab @uoftcellsysbiol.bsky.social

1 39 77

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Pedro Hernandez @zebragut.bsky.social · Aug 23

🚀 Hiring in Paris: 1 PhD + 1 Postdoc for an ANR project on gut-brain biology in zebrafish (imaging, optogenetics). Leads: P. Hernandez (Curie) & G. Sumbre (ENS-IBENS). Start flexible 2026. Also M2 internships (Jan–Feb 2026). Details in the call.
Please share! #PhDposition #Postdoc #Paris #Zebrafish

4 5

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Karina Yaniv @karinayaniv.bsky.social · Aug 21

Happy to see our work, led by @ivanbassi.bsky.social, out today in @jem.org! #Zebrafish help us find new treatments for a #rare_disease affecting #lymphatic vessels! Congrats to all authors and thanks to #MDBRide4Rare, #ODC_UPenn, @erc.europa.eu for support @weizmanninstitute.bsky.social

Journal of Experimental Medicine @jem.org · Aug 21

Bassi et al. @karinayaniv.bsky.social @weizmanninstitute.bsky.social use #zebrafish to help identify new treatments for a severe lymphatic malformation. rupress.org/jem/article/...

#CardiovascularBiology #HumanDiseaseGenetics

6 11 35

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · Aug 22

Can't wait to read this preprint from Misha Ahrens and team. Calcium imaging in larval zebrafish, in every cell in the body! Amazing.

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

1 22 80

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

UCL Faculty of Brain Sciences @uclbrainscience.bsky.social · Aug 23

#ICYMI Small electric shocks to ear can help make compassion meditation training more effective at boosting people’s capacity for self-kindness and mindfulness, finds a new study led by UCL PALS researchers.

Small electric shocks to ear can boost self-compassion from meditation training

Stimulating the vagus nerve with a device attached to the outer ear can help make compassion meditation training more effective at boosting people’s capacity for self-kindness and mindfulness, finds…

www.ucl.ac.uk

1 3

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Greg Jefferis @jefferis.bsky.social · Aug 21

Neuronal diversity is written in transcriptional codes 🧬. But what is the logic of these codes that define cell types and wiring patterns?
To find out we built a #scRNAseq developmental atlas of the Drosophila nerve cord and linked it to the #connectome 🪰🧠
#preprint thread ⬇️1/8

ALT text: A UMAP representation of a single cell RNAseq dataset from the Drosophila ventral nerve cord as well as images of the Drosophila nerve cord connectome and different stages of fly development.

6 59 120

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Meital Oren @meital.bsky.social · Aug 8

highlight of two recent fantastic comparative inter-species single-cell atlases, by @live-large.bsky.social from @jisaacmurray.bsky.social, and Itai Toker from Oliver Hobert's lab
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Evolution of nervous systems: Molecular divergence in a conserved body plan

Comparative inter-species single-cell atlases of Caenorhabditis whole embryos and larval nervous systems reveal deep conservation of cell type identit…

www.sciencedirect.com

5 12

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

BejaLab @bejalab.bsky.social · Aug 3

our new paper on pelagic #Asgard archaea that use #rhodopsins with carotenoid antennas to harvest light energy in the oceans.
Structural insights into light-harvesting by antenna-containing rhodopsins in marine Asgard archaea www.nature.com/articles/s41... @galitzlil.bsky.social

5 23 80

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Johannes Larsch @jlarsch.bsky.social · Jul 21

Become our colleague! Tenure-track Assistant Professor position at The Center for Integrative Genomics, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. unil.ch/cig/en/home....
More details for how to apply are here:
www.nature.com/naturecareer...

1 60 42

Reposted by Inbal Shainer 🎗️

Matteo Carandini @carandinilab.net · Jul 18

A new study led by @timothysit.bsky.social reveals that different layers of mouse V1 integrate visual and non-visual signals differently.

Activity is dominated by vision (or spontaneous fluctuations) in L2/3 and by movement in L5. This leads to different geometries.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

19 71