Why would sea squirts eat their own brains? In his new book, “The Fox, The Shrew, and You: How Brains Evolved,” Rogier Mars provides a detailed account of this and other quirks in animal and human brain evolution.
#neuroskyence
www.thetransmitter.org/evolution/th...
We are hiring! www.ru.nl/en/working-a...
And one #CompMRI in Paris this year!
Don't forget! ⏰ Early Bird Registration for #EHBEA2026 closes TOMORROW! 🐦✨
Don’t miss your chance to secure a discounted spot at four days of inspiring research, stimulating keynotes & vibrant discussion in Leiden 🇳🇱🧠🌷
Register now and join us 14–17 April! 📅
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I snuck an evolutionary neuroscience talk into the Neuroscience program here and the feedback from the students has been very positive.
Which one is this?
I think drawing parallels as a goal is not enough and will mean we’ll just end up deceiving ourselves. We need to understand and appreciate the differences. There is no ‘yes/no’ answer.
So, I’m optimistic that we can solve this problem!
As 2: there are many data-sharing initiatives now within species (e.g, PRIME-DE for primates and @grandjeanlab.bsky.social’s work on rodent MRI), as well as some multi-species repositories Digital Brain Zoo, brain collection, MaMi database)—increasingly we have the same data in many species
We started #CompMRI as a forum for this a few years back and are hoping to have another meeting in Oxford next year And there are many other nice meetings now. we reviewed the state of frameworks a while back in doi.org/10.1146/annu... and would love to hear people’s thoughts on this
Ad (1): this is something my group is working on, and there are many fantastic studies from other groups as well. It is not yet mainstream, but I think we’re close to people at least thinking about this problem, rather than ignore it as “somebody else’s problem”.
Ah, this is a problem I care deeply about. I think two important avenues of progress are are: (1) formal frameworks that allow quantitative translation across species and (2) studying more species where diversity across species is treated as a feature, not a bug.
We had 95/100 and rejected as well. The submission/success ratios are insane.
Deadline in 3 days (Thursday 5th) to apply for a PhD with me and @ktsetsos.bsky.social at Trinity College Dublin in Cognitive Computational Neuroscience / neuro-AI. Please share!
Both MRC and BBSRC responsive modes now withdrawn until further notice. Existing applications unlikely to succeed (late 2025 round expecting 1-5% success rate).
Listen, I get that UKRI wants to pivot. But killing both at once is devastating.
Let's hope at least one opens by summer... #AcademicSky
Very nice work. If you're ever thinking of extending your skills to visualising comparative anatomy, please feel free to give us a shout!
It's finally fully 'version of record' out! As @magdalenaboch.bsky.social says, more to come.
Save the date! FSL Course 2026 is provisionally planned in-person for June 22nd - 26th in Bordeaux, France. More details and the registration link will be posted on the FSL Course website soon.
open.oxcin.ox.ac.uk/pages/fslcou...
Looking forward to speaking @ehbea2026.bsky.social!
Looking forward to our future collaborations!
Congratulations!
Well, I guess I don‘t agree with their research ;-)
If that's the attitude: As soon as there is a MPI near a nice beach I will start disagreeing with them so they can fly me out. ;-)
⏳ONE WEEK LEFT⏳
We hope you’re rested and ready for an exciting new year!🚀 Don't forget: abstract submission for #EHBEA2026 closes THIS FRIDAY, 9 January—don’t miss your chance to present your work in Leiden, 14-17 April 2026!🌟
Submit now: ehbea2026.com
#EHBEA2026 #BehaviouralScience #AIvolution
Finally, the full version of our paper on the distribution of functions within monkey VLPF is out! For anyone interested, I'll briefly explain the main results in this thread (1/5) @plosbiology.org #prefrontal #neuroscience #ephys #dataanalysis
Christmas reading book 3: @lewisdartnell.bsky.social’s Being Human is my kind of book: wide ranging, fast paced, and about the interaction between biology and history
New maps of brain folds from 26 carnivoran species show how differences in behaviour and ecology appear in their anatomy.
buff.ly/IQvBHbh
Totally agree the field needs new data—but I think the authors of the paper don’t dispute that? Funders need to get on board with the idea that phylogenetically rich datasets are important
Paper alert! Jasper Hunt’s DPhil project w @zoltan-molnar.bsky.social, @swarringtonmri.bsky.social, @saadjbabdi.bsky.social, @mristam.bsky.social @oxcin.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/cerc...
