Raphael Brito

We posted a preprint on all-to-all functional mapping of a cortical microcircuit in vivo. biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Yitong Qi developed molecular tools, optics, and protocols for massively parallel optogenetic stimulation and voltage imaging during animal behavior.

New preprint from our lab ⚡ Why do DA and BF bursting neurons carry such similar reward-prediction signals? Are they independent, driven by common input, or causally linked? We find a direct answer: DA activity rapidly and causally drives BF. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/10

Divergent Dopamine Dynamics within the Accumbens Core https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.23.753606v1

Synchronization in the visual cortex is coordinated with hippocampal sharp-wave-ripples during awake immobility. The effect is stronger in high cortical synchrony and constricted pupil phase.

WILD: a wireless device for studies of brain activity in freely moving animals under naturalistic conditions. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Spatial goals trap hippocampal replay https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.02.748857v1

Two large-scale electrophysiologyical studies of psilocybin's effects in mice, from @alleninstitute.org @torbenott.bsky.social and others. Should be a treasure trove of data for those interested in perceptual effects of #psychedelics www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New paper from the lab! In this project we identified different ripple types and link them to behavior and other sleep oscillations doi.org/10.1093/slee...

First study out! Using a new cooperative paradigm and multi-agent inverse RL, we show that mice spontaneously adopt leader/follower roles, and the prefrontal cortex encodes these role dynamics and an egocentric social value map of the partner’s position. (1/3) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🔥🔥New paper alert! Super excited to share our paper, out today in @nathumbehav.nature.com, led by the wonderful Dr. Nofar Mizrachi! nature.com/articles/s41... To me, this finding fundamentally changes how we should think about the relationship between cognition and immune regulation:

🌙 Our new preprint is out! We present Nyx, an open-source unsupervised framework for sleep scoring across species, lifespan and modalities. Validated on 19 datasets and 8,000 hours of sleep, from mice to humans, lizards and birds, across development, ageing, health and disease.

Parallel independent #voltage #computing along #dendrites of #CA3 pyramidal #neurons | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

We have a new preprint! By studying neuronal heterogeneity in CA3, we found a weird but powerful new feature in the hippocampal circuitry! 🧠 #neuroskyence 🧵.. Morse-Mora et al. | Hippocampal CA3 forms a two-layer network of molecularly distinct cell types in mice and humans doi.org/10.64898/202...

Our work on goal-directed theta sweeps is out! We found two different types of theta sweeps in the rat hippocampus. During random foraging, left-right alternating sweeps dominated (Vollan, 25). However, during memory-guided navigation sweeps pointing to hidden goal locations emerged with learning.

📢 We just updated our preprint with new data and analyses! @haberlmatt.bsky.social Our study links hippocampal cFos-defined engram cells to sharp-wave ripple (SWR) reactivation during post-experience rest. 🧵👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/10

Really excited about this work with the awesome Will de Cothi & @shipleysj.bsky.social, out in Nature Reviews Neuroscience. We propose acetylcholine is an analogue of dopamine — tracking not reward prediction errors but state-transition prediction errors. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41583-026-01058-w

so I just realized I forgot to #skeetprint my Contactomes paper... (is that what we're calling it?) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @kordinglab.bsky.social @dacolon.bsky.social smithneurallab.weebly.com @jhuapl.bsky.social #academicsky #preprint #neuroscience

New paper from Ulanovsky's group: With brain recordings from🦇 flying in a 200m tunnel, the group discovered that place cells of CA1 exhibit dense spatial coding, i.e., multiple place fields, and cells of CA3 exhibit ultrasparse coding, i.e., one place field. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How animals sense Earth’s magnetic field is one of biology’s enduring mysteries. Superparamagnetic macrophages in the livers of rock pigeons are crucial for magnetic sensing. The unexpected role for immune cells in sensory perception may fundamentally change our understanding of animal navigation.

“Researchers looked at two high-profile AI agent tools developed to help computer scientists in the field of machine learning. Both systems engaged in acts that violate research integrity, including making up data & p-hacking: running an experiment multiple times but only reporting best outcome.” 🧪

Do you think that the canonical cortical circuit is complicated? It's so much worse than that! Overlayed on top of the wired connectome, there are *18* different signal-carrying peptides in cortex! Their range is ~similar to the size of a cortical column elifesciences.org/articles/47889 1/

The brain has an underappreciated communication system made of astrocytes that spreads electrical influences independently of spikes and synapses. Astrocytes connect specific brain regions through plastic networks www.nature.com/articles/s41... #neuroscience

How do social netowrks form and evolve? We looked at a bunch of bats to explore this! doi.org/10.1111/nyas...

NAC coding for distance to goal is dependant on VTA's dopamine, but not HPC or PFC activity. Really cool stuff from the Ito group!

Our paper is out today!!! (not an April fool's day joke) Congrats to authors @azulsilva.bsky.social, @belalima-paiva.bsky.social, Ele Pronier, and mostly to the amazing scientist and human being who led this project @facuumm.bsky.social #neuroskyence #hippocampus www.nature.com/articles/s41...

My main postdoc work is now published: www.nature.com/articles/s41...! We (myself, Isabel Low, Frances Cho, and @lgiocomo.bsky.social) discovered task-relevant remote representations in entorhinal cortex independent of CA1. #paperthread below! 1/13

🚀 New preprint from the lab! Our first foray into the subiculum uses in vivo whole-cell recordings to show that dendritic plateaus are a prominent, learning-dependent signaling mode of subicular neurons. Feedback is welcome! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Really nice work from the Holmes lab looking at amygdala astrocytes in fear memory and extinction! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

⚠️ New paper alert and what a way to end 2025! 🎉 Happy to share our story “Sleep-dependent infraslow rhythms are evolutionarily conserved across reptiles and mammals.” published today in Nature Neuroscience. Sleeping dragons 🦎 and functional ultrasound! Read the full paper here: rdcu.be/eWJHb 1/8

I’m pleased to share our new paper, “Hippocampal ripple diversity organizes neuronal reactivation dynamics in the offline brain”, out in @cp-neuron.bsky.social ! With @vitorlds.bsky.social and David Dupret, we show that diversity in ripple current profiles shapes reactivation dynamics

1/ 🚨 New preprint! 🚨 Excited and proud (& a little nervous 😅) to share our latest work on the importance of #theta-timescale spiking during #locomotion in #learning. If you care about how organisms learn, buckle up. 🧵👇 📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 💻 code + data 🔗 below 🤩 #neuroskyence

Allothetic and idiothetic spatial cues control the multiplexed theta phase coding of place cells www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Cool new findings on interneurons and spatial coding. Nice! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Excited to share our new preprint on the brain-wide organization of intrinsic timescales at single neuron resolution. Work w/ @roxana-zeraati.bsky.social, @intlbrainlab.bsky.social, Anna Levina, @engeltatiana.bsky.social : www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🧠 Are you an early-career brain science researcher interested to attend #FENS2026 in Barcelona, Europe’s largest #neuroscience meeting? Apply for the ALBA-CHS Travel Awards! ✈️ Tiered grants for EU & non-EU candidates ✅ Final-year PhD/MD or ≤10 years post-PhD/MD 👉🏽 loom.ly/7FOgCJc 📆 21 Oct 2025

Happy to announce our new paper in Nature Communications: rdcu.be/eBpGY We show how CRH in the thalamic reticular nucleus modulates NREM sleep, helping to understand how stress impacts sleep Congrats to Loredana Cumpana and team, in work led by Simone Astori! @epfl-brainmind.bsky.social‬

"The lack of full-bodied locomotion and extensive exploratory behaviors in head-fixed paradigms indicates that in our experimental setup the behavioral state is not directly analogous to the preparatory and consummatory phases seen in freely moving tasks."

Mirror neurons making a comeback?

Remote activation of place codes by gaze in a highly visual animal www.nature.com/articles/s41... - very cool study with chickadees!

Really beautiful hippocampal connectomics from @zhihaozheng.bsky.social et al. Such high quality data shows many interesting circuit wiring surprises - an incredible resource to digest! Great also to see the parallels with our physiology work on neuronal heterogeneity www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I haven't seen this one pop in my feed but I find it super interestingl! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Very impressive work!

Very cool work from Chris Ford's group out in @science.org

Nicotine doesn’t just “turn on” the brain’s reward circuits — it reshapes them. Our new paper in Nature Communications shows that activating reward-linked dopamine neurons also sets off a feedback loop that drives negative emotional states. www.nature.com/articles/s41...