Neural circuits

…relationship across the lifespan, neural mechanisms of blindsight, negative self-beliefs and mental health, navigation circuits in Drosophila, biometals in brain disease, human decision-making, ovarian hormones and mental health,

Investigate how neural circuits generate and regulate behaviour in model organisms. The search emphasizes large-scale measurements and perturbations of neural activity, molecular tools, functional recording and complex behaviours in naturalistic environments. The successful scholar joins Biology or Psychological and Brain Sciences, develops independent research and teaches and mentors students. Priority review is 15 November 2026.

…and cellular mechanisms that shape neural circuits using imaging, mouse models and complementary experimental approaches.

…cells outside the brain influence neural circuits implicated in anxiety and depression. The session examines stress-related disruption of neuroimmune communication, including inflammation and increased monocyte abundance. It connects these mechanisms with translational efforts to develop targeted interventions for major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

…Topics include neural circuits, neurotransmitter switching, genetics, cholinergic transmission, axon guidance, synapse formation and neurodevelopmental disorders. Under the principal investigators, Project Scientists design, manage and conduct experiments, train students, lead lab projects, present at scientific meetings and write manuscripts and grant propo

…to investigate how experience shapes neural circuits and learned behavior. The role combines songbird behavior, neurophysiology, molecular approaches, histology, data analysis, and laboratory-colony support, with opportunities for direct research involvement and mentorship.

…investigate how social behaviour and neural circuits affect responses to pathogen infection. The programme aims to understand brain–body and neuroimmune regulation of physiological functions and whether neural activity can modulate immune responses. The appointment is based at the Wako campus; employment is planned from 1 April 202

…Perception studies how Drosophila neural circuits process sensory information and generate behavior. The part-time researcher will support genetic crosses, experiments and analysis involving anatomy, in-vivo physiology and behavior. Employment begins 1 April 2027, negotiable. The Wako-based appointment pays JPY 1,600–2,200 per hour, with negotiable weekday hours and renewable one-year contracts. Applications are open until filled. Upload the documents through the official link and notify the laboratory as its instructions require.

The goal of the Neural Dynamics accelerator is to understand how the brain generates flexible behavior. We aim to uncover the algorithms—implemented by dynamics in brain-wide neural circuits—that allow animals to build internal models, process information, and choose actions. We are searching for a Scientist to develop data-driven theories of how circuit structure shapes neural computation. The Scientist will use the Institute's large-scale connectivity atlases and brain-wide recordings to understand how the brain's wiring organizes neural dynamics and drives flexible behavior. The position o

…Research may address neural circuits and population dynamics, development, perception, cognition, learning, behaviour or machine-learning analysis of neural data. The appointee establishes an independent funded programme and collaborates with experimental researchers across Duke. Priority consideration applies to submissions received by 1 December 2026.

Investigate how neural circuits support motor learning and skilled movement. The work combines electrophysiology, genetic targeting, circuit manipulation and analysis of behaviour and neural activity.

…cell tagging, interventions in neural circuits and analyses across the brain to investigate these transformations. The talk considers how changes in memory representations influence flexible behavior, including circumstances in which that flexibility becomes maladapti

…a postdoctoral scholar to study neural circuits governing survival and homeostatic behaviors. The project combines systems neuroscience, Neuropixels recordings, imaging, circuit manipulation and transcriptomics in the SciLifeLab and Department of Neuroscience research environment.

…could provide new ways to observe neural circuits and study how the brain develops and functions.

Computations in neural circuits are often construed as being implemented through the coordinated dynamics of neurons. In this picture, the role of synaptic connectivity is to sculpt neuronal dynamics to implement computations of interest. Of course, synapses are not static but change on a variety of timescales, including fast timescales comparable to those of neurons. Thus, a more accurate view of computation in neural circuits may involve the coupled dynamics of neurons and synapses. This form of computation is closer to what is implemented by Transformers via an equivalence between ongoing s

Modern experimental techniques now reveal the structure and function of neural circuits at unprecedented scale and resolution. How can we use this wealth of data to understand how cells and circuits implement computations underlying behaviour? Achieving this goal requires models that are consistent with biophysical mechanisms and circuit dynamics, yet flexible enough to capture behaviourally relevant computations. We develop simulation-based machine learning methods that address this challenge. I will show how these approaches—in combination with connectomic measurements—make it possible to bu

Lloyd Minor and Karl Deisseroth discuss how tools for mapping and controlling neural circuits are reshaping research on the human mind. Deisseroth recounts the development of optogenetics and its use in investigating the brain activity underlying emotion and behavior. They explore Stanford Medicine's Human Neural Circuitry research program and how advances in circuit-level neuroscience could improve understanding and treatment of mental illness. The conversation also considers scientific discovery and the importance of humility in research.

…across scales—from behaviour and neural circuits to cells, synapses, and molecules. In our work, we use computational modelling and data analysis to explore how the physical properties of neurons and neural circuits constrain learning. These include limits imposed by brain wiring, energy availability, molecular noise, and the 3D structure of dendritic spines. In this talk I will describe one such project testing if wiring motifs from fly brain connectomes can improve performance of reservoir computers, a type of recurrent neural network

Identifying and characterizing the wiring rules of neural circuits is critical for our understanding of the computations that they perform and how they learn. The reconstruction of complete connectivity maps of neural networks at the single cell resolution make the quantitative study of their design principles possible. We examined the detailed connectivity of a column of the mouse visual cortex with a generative model that predicts connectivity based on explicit biological and physical features: excitatory or inhibitory cell type, the distance between cell bodies, and cell's depth, which is c

Targeted photostimulation optogenetics offers unprecedented precision in perturbing neural circuits in action. However, due to the complexity of neural responses, perturbing neurons chosen randomly or based on their task selectivity often produces weak or counter-intuitive effects. Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) trained to replicate neural activity and task behavior hold promise for guiding the design of targeted perturbations. Yet, it remains uncertain whether low-dimensional neural responses during cognitive tasks sufficiently constrain high-dimensional models to predict outcomes of patter

…behavioral dynamics, and the neural circuits underlying embodied control. The appropriate level of abstraction for modeling body actuation is highly debated and each actuator type comes with associated tradeoffs.

Understanding how neural circuits process and interpret information can be challenging, as connectivity and activity continuously influence each other. Activity-dependent synaptic plasticity shapes and refines this intricate relationship. Connectivity motifs, small subnetworks of a few neurons, have been found to play a key role in linking circuit structure to the dynamical properties of neural activity, such as covariability and dimensionality. Significant progress has been made in measuring precise neural connectivity; multipatch experiments and recent connectomic studies have quantified thr

…is ubiquitous among organisms, but its neural circuit basis is presently unclear. Most existing work on navigation, a key component of foraging, involves animals in small, fully observable arenas with few-to-no obstacles, partly because recording neural activity in naturalistic settings is challenging. How do animals successfully forage in complex naturalistic environments, especially given realistic neural circuit constraints on capacity and connectivity? To s

Neural circuits display both input-driven activity that is necessary for the real-time control of behavior and internally generated activity that is necessary for memory, planning, and other cognitive processes. A key mediator between these intrinsic and evoked dynamics is arousal, an internal state variable that determines an animal's level of engagement with its environment. In this work, we show that a continuous Hopfield network embellished with a single additional parameter---recurrent gain---captures some essential effects of arousal state at neural and cognitive levels. Using the model