Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience

Read first author @matteoguardamagna.bsky.social's exciting story here: bsky.app/profile/matt...

Check out @edvardmoser.bsky.social's thread here:
bsky.app/profile/edva...

This research is supported by Norges forskningsråd, @erc.europa.eu via #KiloNeurons, @embo.org and @kavlifoundation.org (5:5)

The brilliant researchers behind this study are: @matteoguardamagna.bsky.social @erikhermansen.bsky.social @jocarpenter.bsky.social @clykken.bsky.social @benndunn.bsky.social @m-bmoser.bsky.social @edvardmoser.bsky.social at @kavlintnu.bsky.social  (4:5)

This means that rather than being built from experience, the brain seems to construct these network geometries first 🍩&⭕

Experience later anchors these brain maps to the external world. 🗺️⚓🌍 (3:5)

The #Moser researchers recorded thousands of #GridCell neurons in rat pups with #Neuropixels.
They found that key navigation network-activity structures - grid cell torus map 🍩 & head direction ring ⭕️ - emerge days before pups open their eyes, ears or start walking. (2:5)

Are we born with a sense of space? 🧠
A new preprint from the #MoserGroup suggests that the brain’s internal navigation system 🍩 begins forming before young animals actively explore the world.

🧵(1:5) Have a look at the preprint here 👇
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

1/6
Do neighboring #PlaceCells in #Hippocampus CA1 map neighboring locations in space? 🧠🗺️
Is there micro-scale spatial topography in the hippocampus?
See our latest paper from @kavlintnu now out in @pnas.org www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Why does that matter? A distributed map may give the hippocampus enormous flexibility, allowing it to store many distinct memories of different places and experiences without interference
🧠🤝💡

It isn’t. Even neurons that are anatomical neighbours can represent completely different locations in space. There is no fine-scale spatial clustering in the brain's CA1. The map is distributed, not topographic.

In a new study out in @pnas.org, the #MoserGroup recorded thousands of neurons in the #hippocampus of freely moving mice using #Mini2P and asked a simple question: Is the brain’s internal map laid out in the same orderly way as physical space, where nearby cells represent nearby locations?

Read more from Edvard Moser here: bsky.app/profile/edva...

Congratulations to @torsteinslettmoen.bsky.social @hannaeneqvist.bsky.social Nienke Laura De Jong @emilierskytoen.bsky.social @weijianzong.bsky.social @m-bmoser.bsky.social @edvardmoser.bsky.social
with support by Norges forskningsråd, @erc.europa.eu via #KiloNeurons, and @kavlifoundation.org

Why does that matter? A distributed map may give the hippocampus enormous flexibility, allowing it to store many distinct memories of different places and experiences without interference
🧠🤝💡

It isn’t. Even neurons that are anatomical neighbours can represent completely different locations in space. There is no fine-scale spatial clustering in the brain's CA1. The map is distributed, not topographic.

In a new study out in @pnas.org, the #MoserGroup recorded thousands of neurons in the #hippocampus of freely moving mice using #Mini2P and asked a simple question: Is the brain’s internal map laid out in the same orderly way as physical space, where nearby cells represent nearby locations?

Do #PlaceCells that sit next to each other also represent nearby places in the world? 🧠🤝🗺️
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Mathematical Methods in Computational Neuroscience Summer school in Eresfjord, Norway (July 8th - 26th, 2024)

Applications are now open for the summer school: 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐝𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐮𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐍𝐞𝐮𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞

🧠 Apply before March 15: www.compneuronrsn.org

📍 Located in beautiful Eresfjord 🇳🇴
🗓️ Between July 6-24

Supported by the @kavlifoundation.org
In collaboration with @kavlintnu.bsky.social

How does the 🧠-map choose what to sample?
Preprint: #Sweeps in #gridcells act as attention-like signal, dynamically biasing the map towards behaviourally relevant locations.
By @mschellenberger.bsky.social @azvollan.bsky.social @m-bmoser.bsky.social @edvardmoser.bsky.social + @rjgardner.bsky.social

At nærmere 50 000 stemmer gikk til forskning, viser kraften i kunnskap, samarbeid og utholdenhet.

Gratulerer, Magnar – dette inspirerer langt utover Trøndelag 💙

Hilsen fra @m-bmoser.bsky.social:
«At du kan konsentrere deg om effekten av ett gen er utrolig spennende. Dette gjør NTNU stolte - og vi er stolte med NTNU. Supert arbeid!»

Hilsen fra @edvardmoser.bsky.social:
«Dette er fantastisk for oss alle. May-Britt og jeg heier på deg og er stolte over det løftet du har gitt og gir forskningen ved NTNU. Engasjementet ditt inspirerer mange – og det er ekstra gøy at det er forskning som stakk av med flest stemmer!»

Årets trønder og Årets hverdagshelt 2025 er kåret Hun hjelper barn i konfliktområder, mens han forsker på barnedemens. Fredag blir de hedret i Olavshallen.

🎉 Gratulerer til vår kollega Magnar Bjørås, kåret til Årets trønder!

Ved Kavli-instituttet er vi stolte over Magnars banebrytende forskning på sjeldne sykdommer som barnedemens - forskning som gir håp der det trengs aller mest.

Les saken på NRK:

META2P will bridge neurotech and nanotech to enable high-resolution calcium imaging across multiple brain regions in freely moving animals. This could redefine how we study brain function, behaviour, and disease.

🚀 From MINI2P to META2P – pushing the frontier of in vivo neuroscience imaging.

🧠🔬 NOK 12M to #META2P from Kavli & SINTEF!

Neurophotonics PI @weijianzong.bsky.social at @kavlintnu.bsky.social is together with NorFab #MiNaLab PI Christopher Dirdal at SINTEF awarded NOK 12 million by the Research Council of Norway to develop the next generation of two-photon microscopes (1:2)

Harald V, King of Norway, opens a new dementia research centre in Trondheim A new Norwegian centre will work to understand how Alzheimer's and other dementias arise in the brain and find treatments.

norwegianscitechnews.com/2025/12/hara...

Board chair Bjarne Foss, @m-bmoser.bsky.social @edvardmoser.bsky.social @torgrande.bsky.social HM King Harald V, Secretary General of @nasjonalforeningen.no Bo Gleditsch, Centre Directors @asgeirkf.bsky.social Gøril Rolfseng Grøntvedt and Minister of Research Sigrun Aasland @kd.regjeringen.no

Today, Harald V King of Norway opened the Norwegian Health Association Centre for Dementia Research, at the Kavli Institute in Trondheim.

QQ11: RSC is using the HPC spatial code for good! We observed retrosplenial populations encode task structure when behaviourally relevant cues were present in a hippocampal-dependent spatial task.

QQ10: We see minute-scale population drift, not only in LEC, but also MEC and CA1 in conditions with minimal external stimuli, i.e., when mice are head-fixed on a wheel in darkness! @anelautrup.bsky.social