Congrats @anbucci.bsky.social and @ffranke.bsky.social - a beautiful and elegant piece of science

Stay tuned for diurnal/nocturnal data! :)

Also a big thank you to the reviewers, the host institutes (@nerflabs.bsky.social, @harvard.edu, and in the end also SISSA) and our funding sources, among which I was supported by @fwovlaanderen.bsky.social, @erc.europa.eu and #MSCA.

Many thanks to the co-authors for all their contributions: Bram Nuttin (ephys and analysis), @arnausd.bsky.social and Chen Liu (chemogenetics), Victoria Tong (behaviour), Julie Murmann (optogenetics) and Keimpe Wierda (patch clamp)! This long journey would have been impossible without you.

This was my first time applying my neuroscience background to questions of evolution and it has been fascinating. This collaboration with Felix and Hopi started with a scientific speed-dating event and I'm very happy about this opportunity to expand my horizon and to trigger many new studies!

Optogenetic activation and chemogenetic inhibition of the dPAG confirmed a species-specific role of this nucleus in locomotion.
Together, these data suggest that habitat-specific evolution of threat avoidance can at least partially be traced to a central brain area!

However, neural activity in the dPAG - an important node for escape behaviour - strongly differed during locomotion: dPAG activity correlated with running in deer mice, but not in oldfield mice.

We wanted to know: what's different in these species' brains so that the same visual stimulus is translated into a different motor output? Using c-Fos and Neuropixels recordings in awake animals, we found that visual threat information is encoded similarly in both species. #brain

Testing dozens of animals, Felix found that deer mice (blue) who live in densely vegetated areas predominantly escape in response to a visual looming predator stimulus. In contrast, oldfield mice (orange), a sister-species and inhabitant of open fields, mostly pauses.

Thanks for the heads up!