John Tuthill

How do neural circuits generate the walking rhythm? Using connectome simulations, @sarahpugly.bsky.social found a minimal central pattern generator (CPG) that produces oscillations in leg motor neurons. Same circuit motif for each 🪰 leg. w @bingbrunton.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

in case all the bots out there trying to build connectome-constrained models of fly behavior also happen to read bsky, just added this clarification to my lab website (www.tuthill.casa)

New paper on the population dynamics in the brainstem respiratory network! - Congrats to Nick Bush and the rest of the team www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Early career faculty? #FreemanHrabowski Scholar applications open Nov. 3! In the words of current Scholar Claudia Moreno (@uwdeptmedicine.bsky.social), “Don’t think twice — apply." Register now to check your eligibility, preview the application, unlock additional resources, & more: bit.ly/fhs26.

In two 1926 articles, Edgar Douglas Adrian revealed that neurons communicate through trains of spikes. @carandinilab.net describes the remarkable discovery and how it shifted focus from the medium (the nerve) to the message (the neural code). #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/history-of-n...

DHS just proposed a $70,000 fee for every international student who uses OPT. For an undergrad that wants to work for a year as a tech before a PhD, that’s more than her salary. We train these students, then they have to leave? It's incredibly dumb Comment here: www.regulations.gov/commenton/IC...

Happy to be hosting my post-doc advisor for a seminar @uwmedicine.bsky.social tomorrow. Rachel gives a damn fine seminar, not to be missed.

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...

The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social just published a piece on this: www.thetransmitter.org/connectome/b...

Here's the ad for the Genome Sciences faculty positions ap.washington.edu/ahr/position...

Single-neuron computations depend on the subcellular distribution and voltage sensitivity of ion channels. | @pnas.org #HorizonEU @erc.europa.eu (1/5) www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I am in Delhi, visiting only thankfully, and walked into a library before dinner 10 minutes ago, and from the shelf picked a copy of the @lrb.co.uk I always read the letters first, hoping to find interesting humans who write interesting letters (most fume).

New lab preprint: @grace-padilla.bsky.social studied how zebrafish respond to chemical cues of death and decay. Brief exposure initiated a persistent state, but not through olfaction. Instead, these cues' basic pH was detected by trigeminal neurons and TrpA1 channels www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

The legend Heiner Römer, who was among the first to do intracellular electrophysiological recordings in the field. His work showed that auditory tuning curves measured in the lab poorly predict communication outdoors. link.springer.com/article/10.1... At the sensory ecology course in Lund.

this story about @couchmicroscopy.bsky.social captures science at its best: a scrappy team, a homemade microscope in a motel room, working under funding duress, pursuing a fundamental question about the evolution of photosynthetic organelles. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/26/s...

Applications are now open for the San Juan Winter School 2027 on Connectomics and Brain Simulation! Join us to learn how to analyze and simulate connectomes. sjcabs.com

This stuff may be fun, but sorry to say, it is thin soup, scientifically. See: www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur... for a readable description of the issue.

supposedly, NIH study section members can still submit grants a couple weeks late if the panel meets within four weeks of the deadline. but the language is vaguely ominous. has anyone actually done this successfully? grants.nih.gov/grants-proce...

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

a good summary of how we got here and what it means. i would add is that everyone who works with the fly connectome datasets knows that they all far from "complete". each one, though monumental, has major reconstruction/annotation issues, not to mention the lack of a peripheral nervous system.

This article is so frustrating to read. First, this is not just “google’s brain” - there has been so much effort made by scientists around the world to get these connectomes to where they are today, and none of that is recognized here, instead it’s all turned into “big tech company 👍🏻”. And second -

The sphinxes are multiplying! I can't believe our preprint didn't solve this issue.

Biologists have tried to uncover the mechanism behind the magnetic sense of animals for so long that some call it a holy grail. New work in insects offers fresh leads. By @callimcflurry.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/sensory-syst...

In his essay, Auke Ijspeert discusses why physics-based simulators and robotics models are particularly useful for demonstrating the sufficiency of specific mechanisms of motor control as opposed to just their necessity. www.thetransmitter.org/motor-behavi...

When fruit flies catch a whiff of apple cider vinegar, they zigzag along the edge of the odor plume rather than traveling through the middle, new work shows. #neuroskyence By @callimcflurry.bsky.social www.thetransmitter.org/olfaction/fr...

Surprisingly wide range of prey of the extinct "American cheetah": "Yukon population occupying an elevated trophic position consistent with exploitation of anadromous fish, while the Wyoming population functioned as a generalist terrestrial predator." cell.com/current-biol... 🧪⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio

New oldest insect! 24 legs, lived 324 million years ago, in present-day Texas www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The complete #connectome of the adult Drosophila male CNS has allowed researchers, inc @jefferis.bsky.social’s group, to compare male & female brains at synaptic-resolution for the first time. Read more here: mrclmb.ac.uk/news-events/... #LMBResearch 1/2

A working scientist in the Massachusetts state legislature. Congrats to @benforward3.bsky.social!

longtime reader, first time writer to @lrb.co.uk www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

My department, Neurobiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington (nbio.uw.edu), is hiring a new tenure-track Assistant Professor, application deadline 09/30/26. It's a broad search — molecular to organismal, all of neuroscience/physiology/biophysics welcome. apply.interfolio.com/187735

NSF just announced its GRFP solicitation due in October - deadline varies by field: www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo... Now for the bad news... * NSF estimates they will issue 1,500 awards, down from 2,500+ last year. * NSF removed STEM Education and Learning Research as a Major Field.

Junior faculty position in Basic Sciences @fredhutch.org! Please repost!

New story in the Wall Street Journal highlighting some of the investigators and their research disrupted by all of the chaos. nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

Our digital sphinx, a cautionary tale about the interpretation of connectome-body models, is now a reviewed preprint at @elife.bsky.social. We are grateful to the reviewers for engaging seriously with what we hope is a useful (if absurd) demonstration. elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

Check out our newest research paper! We looked at touch in Surinam toads (Pipa pipa), showing huge neural representation of and reliance upon their unusual fingertips. rdcu.be/fy3SE

Thank you to @annmclemens.bsky.social and Michael Brecht for their support and mentorship as we brought this project that started @mblscience.bsky.social @nsb-mbl.bsky.social this summer from idea to paper form, it was so much fun to work with Sandra, @simonerencken.bsky.social, Adam, Tom and Pam.

this would be a huge blow to US biomedical science. the K99/R00 program has historically played a key role in recruiting top international post-docs to stay in the US to start their own labs.

great interview with the always thoughtful and lucid @ishmailsaboor.bsky.social

When you start running, your breathing speeds up before your body needs the oxygen. Turns out flies do the same thing and @camellyc.bsky.social worked out the circuit that makes it happen. Check out our new preprint on how the nervous system coordinates breathing with movement.

This short-term funding bill blocks a corrupt policy that would allow Trump to hold even more federal grants hostage—and it closes House Republicans' loophole to pull funding for other agencies to give to Border Patrol. My full statement.⬇️

And here we go: Final day of the #ICN2026 is started by Maude Baldwin with the plenary talk "Functional #evolution of taste and digestive system in #vertebrates" #icn2026vancouver