Drew Schreiner

An adult crested caracara sitting on top of a triangular shaped rock, with its back to the camera and looking over its shoulder

A zoomed out view of the crested caracara with nearby grassy hill in the foreground and a large mountain in the background.

A Crested Caracara looking out over the Patagonian steppe
#birds #Chile

Of Mice and Men: Minding the Translational Gap

(This one's a twofer on title cliches! Perhaps also a temporary moratorium on the title construction of-
Punny/Referential Title: Actual Title

New paper hot off the (pre-)press! We dig into the evolutionary origins of neural computations for behavioral control across mice, monkeys, and humans: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6....

As our lab's first foray into comparative analysis of neural dynamics, I’m super excited about this work! 1/18

Community gathers at Bell Tower to 'Stand Up for Science', protesting national limitations to research Attendees spoke about a range of issues impacting scientific inquiry and the environment — from national funding cuts to state rulings impacting environmental health and safety.

Thanks to UNC's Daily Tarheel for great coverage of Saturday's Stand Up for Science UNC rally, including the important role played by UNC undergraduates in SUNRISE UNC 🧪
www.dailytarheel.com/article/univ...

Ah, reminds me I'll need to head to Duke Gardens soon!

bright yellow daffodil flowers growing out of clover

Daffodils certainly think it's spring

Remember the helpful advice:
If they're Keynesian lie down, if they're Chicago fight back

Shagged by a rare parrot | Last Chance To See - BBC YouTube video by BBC

though it seems i misremembered and this was Stephen Fry narrating rather than attenborough

a monkey is sitting on top of a man 's head . Alt: a kakapo is shagging a man's head as David attenborough narrates

getting shagged by a rare parrot

Let’s teach neuroscientists how to be thoughtful and fair reviewers Blanco-Suárez revamped the traditional journal club by developing a course in which students peer review preprints alongside the published papers that evolved from them.

Cool idea for how to run a journal club from @eblancosuarez.bsky.social. Have students review a preprint and compare to the actual changes in the published version

A drawing on the cover of the journal Neuron. Each section of the fan has a drawing of a mouse. Each mouse has a slightly different pose. The tassel of the fan resembles a neuron.

My first cover of 2026
"Spontaneous behavior is a succession of self-directed tasks"
www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
#sciArt #Scicom #illustration #neuroskyence

We made a highly blue-light resistant red-fluorescent genetically encoded calcium sensor GECI) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

BluePrint™ 🗺️ below:

Few are this solution-oriented

As NIH moves to parent NOFOs another resource for finding out what topics are of interest. grants.nih.gov/funding/find...

See also, Hartgood's law. A metric initially uncorrelated with quality later becomes correlated. Often a prelude to Goodhart's law

E.g. A selective conference is not necessarily better in any real sense initially but once that becomes a prestige signal it attracts better reviewers/submissions/etc

A blizzard of snow geese

I mean, talk about a prediction error!

You know those moments when you see research that so well aligns with your personal interests that ask yourself if you went into the wrong scientific field... yeah, that's this for me. 😜

a raccoon is holding a piece of paper in its mouth Alt: a raccoon tries to wash some cotton candy before eating it but it immediately disappears

still waiting for someone to study racoon cotton-candy-washing disappointment

An optogenetics-compatible red fluorescent calcium indicator with negligible blue light photoactivation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.28.708321v1

Vectorized instructive signals in cortical dendrites - Nature Mice learning a neurofeedback brain–computer interface task show neuron-specific teaching signals in cortical dendrites, consistent with a vectorized solution for credit assignment in the brain.

Nature research paper: Vectorized instructive signals in cortical dendrites

go.nature.com/3MPQwsG

SWEBAGS Webinar March 2026 – SWEBAGS Swedish Basal Ganglia Society

Join us on Friday, March 20th at 16:00 CET for our next SWEBAGS webinar:
“Striatal activity in natural behavior” with Henry Yin & Eric Yttri.
We’ll dive into how basal ganglia circuits support real-world behavior.
More info & Zoom link: swebags.ebrains.se/events/sweba...
#BasalGanglia #Neuroscience

The emergence of the language system in the toddler brain | bioRxiv www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

They are going from 10 to 15 study sections (surprising) - public.csr.nih.gov/EvaluationIn...

NAL is dead

NMB is dead

ARM is dead

I know I’m a good reviewer because authors always thank me for my helpful comments.

Research Technician Research Technician position available in the Grienberger lab at Brandeis University. We are a new neuroscience group studying the cellular basis of learning and memory in the mammalian brain. This is...

We’re looking for a new Research Tech! Our research tech is heading to graduate school (very exciting!), which means we’re recruiting someone new to join our team. The position involves hands-on neuroscience research in a collaborative environment.
brandeis.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/Jobs/job/Bra...

Million dollar idea: The cowbird cake. Instead of hiding a fake baby like a King Cake, hide a small fake egg. Whoever finds it has to raise the egg to adulthood (i.e., buy the next cake)