EPFL Brain Mind Institute

Does visual cortex size predict susceptibility to visual illusions? Michael Herzog’s @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social lab found no significant links between illusion susceptibility and visual functional neuroanatomy, failing to replicate earlier findings - doi.org/10.1167/jov....

Looking forward to the Centro de Neurociencias Cajal International Symposium on #Drosophila Neuroscience on October 30 in Madrid with Bassem Hassan, Marta Zlatic, Dr Albert Cardona, Lucia Prieto Godino & Efthimios (Makis) Skoulakis. Register here: form.jotform.com/262652809189...

What makes our behaviors individual? Beyond genes & environment, learning matters too. Ana Marija Jakšić's @merianelion.bsky.social group studied thousands of #Drosophila, & revealed that learning can produce behavioral differences even among genetically identical animals - doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

A new dataset from the lab of @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social professor Henry Markram includes 244 reconstructions and 641 curated recordings of juvenile rat cortical neurons, linked so researchers can examine structure and electrical behaviour in the same cells - doi.org/10.3389/fnin...

We look forward to welcoming a new professor Lindsey Salay whose lab will work on how the brain combines sensory, social and internal signals to guide adaptive behaviours. actu.epfl.ch/news/appoint...

Congratulations to @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social professor Gioele La Manno @gioelelamanno.bsky.social for winning the 25th Eppendorf & Science Magazine Prize for Neurobiology!

HCN channels help set electrical rhythms including neuronal excitability. But how does temperature affect them? A new study by Rajnish Ranjan in the Markram lab compares mouse, rat & human HCN channels, revealing conserved kinetics and faster gating at higher temperatures: doi.org/10.1113/EP09...

Deep learning could help improve cortical visual prostheses - Michael Herzog’s lab in the @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social found that a deep neural network–based strategy reduced the number of phosphenes needed for object recognition, especially at low electrode densities: doi.org/10.1088/1741...

CRISPR HDR genome editing uses a repair template. But the @mccabelab.org in @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social found these templates sneak into the #Drosophila genome uninvited, corrupting downstream results. Their fix is a template design that makes stray insertions easy to catch: doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Why are some of us more willing to put in more effort & what changes when that fades? The Sandi @carmensandi10.bsky.social lab links effort-based motivation to mitochondrial health in D1 ventral striatum neurons. Males & females have the same deficit but via distinct routes: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

How does the brain know when a sensation should trigger an action? Ghaderi, Crochet & Petersen in the @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social find that whisker secondary motor cortex (wM2) is where context meets touch, predicting a mouse's lick within 30 ms of a whisker deflection: doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Congratulations to Gioele La Manno @gioelelamanno.bsky.social upon receiving the the 2026 Boehringer Ingelheim Research Award at #FENS.

Congratulations to Carmen Sandi @carmensandi10.bsky.social upon receiving the 2026 Chica and Heinz Schaller Foundation Award today at #FENS.

The same touch can mean different things. New work from Carl Petersen's lab in the @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social mapped the cortical circuits underlying this in mice and found a surprise; the retrosplenial cortex was the first area to tell contexts apart after a whisker touch doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

Do good vision test scores predict better performance on other vision tests? A new study by the @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social group of Michael Herzog says: not really. Weak correlations across tests suggest we may be measuring methods, not vision itself. Read more: doi.org/10.1016/j.is...

Minis, aka spontaneous synaptic neurotransmitter vesicle release, was long dismissed as noise. Our new 📄 using optical electrophysiology shows minis are not spontaneous at all. They're an independent release modality regulated by Unc-5 & critical for synapse preservation 👉 doi.org/10.64898/202...

Honored to share that I’ve been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure at @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social @epfl-ai-center.bsky.social (EPFL)! 🎉 Deeply grateful to my current and past incredible lab members, collaborators, and mentors who’ve made this journey possible. 🧠✨🙏🏼

Electrophysiological recording feature extraction is hard to standardise. Prof. Henry Markram's @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social lab introduces eFEL: an open-source, cross-platform library defining 90+ electrophysiological features for efficient, reproducible, FAIR analysis: doi.org/10.1093/bioi...

New CmeCUT&Tag method from the lab of Fides Zenk @epign.bsky.social in @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social maps DNA methylation genome-wide both faster & cheaper. Validated across stem cells, organoids & tumours, its matches the gold standard of bisulfite sequencing doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Congratulations to @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social professors Mackenzie Weygandt Mathis @trackingactions.bsky.social and Alexander Mathis @trackingskills.bsky.social on their well-deserved promotion to Associate Professor! actu.epfl.ch/news/appoint...

I‘m looking for postdoc candidates in computer vision and control theory (2 positions). Get in touch if you’re interested.

Can microglia be stimulated to help fight #Alzheimer’s disease (AD)? New work from the Gräff @graeffjohannes.bsky.social & Sanchez-Mut groups shows PM20D1, via its metabolite OLE, promotes microglial engagement with amyloid plaques and neuroprotection in AD models - doi.org/10.1038/s413...

New work by Simone Astori in Carmen Sandi's @carmensandi10.bsky.social lab shows that nucleus accumbens medium spiny neurons rapidly tune their excitability to mitochondrial energy shifts via K-ATP channels, linking neuronal bioenergetics to effort-related motivated behaviour doi.org/10.1038/s413...

Many motor tasks require precise coordination between multiple motor & sensory systems. New #Drosophila work by the @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social group of Pavan Ramdya reveals the centralized neural circuits necessary to solve antennal grooming synchronized motor-control - doi.org/10.1038/s414...

🧠 Carmen Sandi | Chica and Heinz Schaller Foundation Award Lecture 🌟 At #FENS2026, join Prof. Carmen Sandi, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, on 9 July! 🔗 Meet all the speakers: buff.ly/1EBdiLL

Carl Petersen: Cortical circuits for whisker sensory perception—From barrel columns to brain-wide interactions doi.org/10.1016/j.co...

Two new @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social group reviews: The lab of Alexander Mathis @trackingskills.bsky.social: The behavior biopsy: Interpreting animal behavior as embodied, situated, and hierarchical doi.org/10.1016/j.co...

Many congratulations to @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social professor Gioele La Manno @gioelelamanno.bsky.social!

Novelty is not just about whats new, but also what feels new given past experience. New study from Sophia Becker in Wulfram Gerstner’s @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social lab posits a model showing how similarity between familiar and novel stimuli shapes exploration and learning - doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...

How does circuit structure shape neural activity? The lab of @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social Prof. Wulfram Gerstner shows that distinct neural circuits can produce similar low-dimensional dynamics, while retaining clear signatures in single neuron and population activity data: doi.org/10.1016/j.ne...

When objects are close together, seeing details is harder 👉visual crowding. @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social prof. Michael Herzog's lab shows that a single nearby object barely affects perception, but many can aid or impede it, depending on alignment, challenging current theories doi.org/10.1177/1747...

Understanding how brain regions communicate to shape behavior requires realistic models. The @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social labs of Carl Petersen & Wulfram Gerstner show that adding biological features to neural networks improves the prediction of brain responses to stimulation doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

Identifying individual wild animals is key for conservation. The lab of @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social professor Alexander Mathis @trackingskills.bsky.social uses AI and images of Alaskan brown bears to non-invasively identify individuals & their behavior across seasons & years doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

EPFL ELISIR apps now open go.epfl.ch/ELISIR. Fantastic opportunity for young neuroscientists to start an independent lab right after PhD, just like @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social ELISIR group leaders @jamespriestley.bsky.social & @ashleymaynard.bsky.social. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjPD... 👉 April 1 26

@epfl-brainmind.bsky.social professor Michael Herzog's lab carried out a simulation study to identify how many visual elements are needed for object recognition by cortical visual prostheses, establishing a practical lower-bound phosphene estimate for more effective function: doi.org/10.1016/j.vi...

The group of @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social professor Johannes Gräff @graeffjohannes.bsky.social show that altering histone acetylation enhances fear memory recall, while reducing it weakens recall, demonstrating a functional link to the activity of memory engram cells: doi.org/10.1002/hipo...

Prof. Carmen Sandi's @carmensandi10.bsky.social group reviews the potential for modulation of metabolic pathways to treat anorexia nervosa - www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Chica and Heinz Schaller Foundation and #FENS are thrilled to announce the winner of the Chica and Heinz Schaller Foundation Award in Translational Neuroscience 2026: Prof. Carmen Sandi (@carmensandi10.bsky.social)! 🧠 👉 https://loom.ly/Uh0TghU

The group of @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social professor Henry Markram shows that glucose-dependent N-glycosylation drives variability in the Kv3.4 ion channel, regulating activity & cell excitability. N-glycosylation regulation may link neurological disorders & glucose metabolism: doi.org/10.1016/j.is...

How do we weigh curiosity, effort, and reward? The labs of @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social professors Wulfram Gerstner & Michael Herzog find humans overexplore when seeking monetary reward, drawn to novel options even when more exploration offers no advantage. Explore the paper 👉 doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

New study by the group of @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social professor Carmen Sandi @carmensandi10.bsky.social shows that three mitochondrial associated metabolites in the dmPFC/dACC brain region can predict mental effort choices - www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Last chance to apply for the EPFL Neuroscience tenure track assistant professor faculty position - the deadline is tomorrow October 1. Submit now! go.epfl.ch/neurofaculty.