David Schoppik

Our new work goes from genes to behavior to understand the molecular underpinnings of the most common childhood disorder of vision: strabismus. Led by UCSF-bound Emily Gershowitz & Kyla Hamling, plus rockstars @denagoldblatt.bsky.social & @paigel.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Today would have been my daughter's 21st birthday. It's a tough one. I miss her like crazy and would give anything to have her chaos back in our lives. What I can do today is ask for your help. We created the Sophie Burdine-Schwartz Impact Fund through the @angelmanfoundation.bsky.social /1

1/ Our brains probably don’t store a new copy of “red” when we encounter something red. Yet we can reinstate distinct memories of red objects. How do we reuse what we already know when encoding memories? Excited to share new work led by @haoliu4391.bsky.social, with @marcelomattar.bsky.social 🧠🧵

Smartphone cameras mean people can't call Black folk liars when we describe how much racism we receive. The cost of solar panels dropped so much that it's obvious that the US government *chooses* to stay on coal and gas, not that it *can't* get off of coal and gas. China planted 66 billion trees.

My department @uofubiology.bsky.social is searching for a tenure-track neuroscientist! Deadline 11/5. Please share and feel free to ask me anything. This is a great community! employment.utah.edu/salt-lake-ci...

The Department of Neurobiology at USC has launched a new PhD program and is recruiting our first cohort. Explore our labs: dornsife.usc.edu/neurobiology... Applications due December 1, 2026. GRE optional. Fee waivers available for demonstrated need. Apply here: dornsife.usc.edu/neurobiology...

Our multi-immersion oblique plane microscope manuscript is online now. A light-sheet system that can be adapted to different imaging tasks, including a volumetric correction for imaging in media of any refractive index. @amsikking.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our work is finally out! How do organs get the right shape and size on time? Using the zebrafish inner ear canal, we show that a mechanical feedback loop between the ECM and Yap1 drives timely tissue growth, and a built-in termination system shuts it down once morphogenesis is done.

Our paper is out in Nature, congrats to Qiyu, An et al! By stimulating ~20 motor cortex neurons carefully selected based on their activity, we could induce learned population activity and, sometimes, the movement itself, depending on the brain's state. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Yes! I believe Rachel Eckhard (later Matthews) was Adrian's next collaborator after Zotterman. Together they recorded from the optic nerve while the eye was stimulated with light. They started a field. More details here: doi.org/10.1098/rsbm...

Our new paper is out on Proceedings B! royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article... We reveal how environmental lighting and the biological clock shape swim strategies in larval zebrafish 🧵

bsky.app/profile/yunl... I’m so happy to see this paper finally out! Thank you, @yunluzhu.bsky.social and @schoppik.com, for all your guidance and support! 🎉

Hi friends & colleagues! I’m on the hunt for a tenure-track home! I’m a BRAIN Initiative K99/R00 scholar studying learning & memory at the intersection of experimental neuroscience, theory, & machine learning/AI. I’d love to connect & would appreciate help spreading the word! web.mit.edu/hsw/www/

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.

such an amazing story, i got a legit tingly feeling when i first saw kathy present a much earlier version

If you've ever wondered how the brain *really* keeps things in mind, come let Aaron, Nick & their colleagues in the Nagel lab tell you how the fly does it here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New preprint from the lab! We built an atlas of functional ensembles across the zebrafish hindbrain, linking whole-hindbrain activity to behavior, structural organization, and molecular features. A few highlights below 🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Preprint is out! Our BakingTray software turns a 2-photon microscope into a serial-section tomography system for automated whole-organ imaging. ~€35k to convert an existing scope. 11 systems worldwide, >7,000 samples at SWC alone #neuroskyence #microscopy www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Excited to share a new study from our lab in Cell: “Non-invasive control of gene editing in vivo by photoswitchable Cas12f and focused ultrasound” We engineered a compact CRISPR system that can be activated at specific locations in the body using focused ultrasound (🧵) www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

I'm excited to share our new preprint: Generation of a transgenic cephalopod tinyurl.com/pc86jxz8 Cephalopods (cuttlefish, octopus & squid) are crazy critters that dynamically camouflage to their surroundings by changing the color, pattern, & texture of their skin, which they control w their brain.

Repeated Inertial Stimulation Reveals Divergent Plasticity in Peripheral and Central Vestibular Pathways https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.22.752866v1

Precise structural and functional organization of the olfactory bulb neuropil early in development, revealed by volume EM, dense reconstruction and 2P calcium imaging in zebrafish. Great work by Ruth and others in collaboration with @michalwj.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

When a fish sees the world move, it immediately swims with it. This is the optomotor response: a visual reflex found across animals that helps us maintain our position and orientation as our surroundings appear to drift. 🐟👀

Are there key discoveries made with spatial RNA seq? Or what are your favorite spatial rna seq papers? Pls reski!

Rainy Saturday project complete.

Amazing sky before the storm tonight in #nyc.

Thrilled to see this published today! Truly special because we made the initial discovery >15 yrs ago! We found two copies of a human gene called BC200 embedded in a human poxvirus. BC200 blurs the line between gene & transposon—both functional & mutagenic! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧵1/n

The Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University is hiring! Come and do cutting edge research on the neural basis of natural behaviors at NBB (nbb.cornell.edu). No animal too small, no behavior too strange! Apply here: academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/32592

Our lab's latest paper on the neurobiology of collective behavior is now published www.nature.com/articles/s41... This is the work of a great team in the lab - led by Jo-Hsien Yu, with Geoff Meyerhof, Jimjohn Milan, and Julia Napoli @nature.com @danionella.bsky.social

preprint🚨 ✨A Stickiness Response System in Rats tinyurl.com/4wnu88v9 What underlies that sticky, icky feeling? Sticky sensing is surprisingly underexplored. we investigated its neural and behavioural basis Congrats to Sandra, @simonerencken.bsky.social @jasmine-stone.bsky.social Adam, Tom & Pam! 👏

Seeking a PhD at Cambridge in collaboration with NovoNordisk? Consider this funded opportunity titled "Human cellular models of leptin signalling and resistance": bbsrcdtp.lifesci.cam.ac.uk/project-refe... Application details: bbsrcdtp.lifesci.cam.ac.uk/how-apply Thanks for spreading the word!

1/11. New preprint from our lab! Serotonergic Control of Spine Morphology During Growth in Zebrafish www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Two parallel neural ectoderm progenitors contribute to the developing brain www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Agrawal lab has published its first paper! "Sticking the landing: leg mechanosensory feedback coordinates the transition from flight to landing" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... This project was led by a technician in the lab, Tse-Wei (Wayne) Kuo. Brief 🧵on what we found

This is timely, lucid, and something worth having handy the next time it comes up. Because it will keep coming up.

🧬🔬 Why are enhancers transcribed and how does that impact gene regulation? I’m really excited to share our new paper in @science.org showing that noncoding RNAs control the timing of gene activation in embryos. With Mike Levine #ScienceResearch @columbiamed.bsky.social A few highlights below... 🧵👇

Just out in Nat Neurosci: disentangling of neural odor manifolds in "olfactory cortex" of adult zebrafish after learning. Great work by Bo, Nesibe et al and wonderful collaboration with @sueyeonchung.bsky.social that fundamentally changed my view of olfactory cortex. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is a great resource that encapsulates a lot of hard-won knowhow.

Lovely article about a 99-year-old retired math professor who recently published a major result. It's the story of mentorship and multi-generational collaboration. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/s...

Nathan wrote a good article. I'm quote tweeting in the Black way (to talk about a different point without derailing his thread). 🤔If Ben thinks you need to play football to build character, learn teamwork, leadership, etc, and girls don't play football... what does that say about his view of women?

We are hiring! Come join us in the Straw Lab at the @biologyunifreiburg.bsky.social . Seeking a scientist to work on the neural and computational mechanisms of visual navigation in honey bees. uni-freiburg.de/en/job/00005...

I thought the point was to empty the building? 😝

“Lost media” no longer! I finally got permission to upload “AL’S BRAIN,” an 11-minute educational 3-D film attraction which ran at the Orange County and Western Washington fairs, and hasn’t been seen publicly since 2009. You can watch the whole thing here: youtu.be/2xujU87ZHt4

Happy to share our new study comparing aggression level across 7 strains of mice, led by a talented undergraduate student, Xiuzhi Dai. Strain differences in aggression can be explained a lot by differences in the physiological properties of VMHvl cells. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New PNAS paper from our lab! 🪰🐭👩‍🦰 We developed a toolbox AutoGaitA to compare locomotion across species, revealing conserved velocity gradients and aging effects despite divergent strategies for propulsion. A step toward understanding conserved principles of motor control. doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

I really want to see the protocol for this....