@SWC_Neuro

The Sainsbury Wellcome Centre aims to discover the fundamental principles of how the brain drives behaviour. Based at @ucl, funded by Gatsby and @wellcometrust

 London, England
sainsburywellcome.org
Joined June 2016
  • Tweets4.8K
  • Following858
  • Followers5.3K
1.7KMedia
We’re also on: Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/sainsburywe… Mastodon: neuromatch.social/@SWC_Neuro LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/sainsbu… Instagram: instagram.com/sainsburywellc…
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Heading for #Cosyne2026? Check out SWC researchers’ posters and talks! sainsburywellcome.org/conten… Thursday's posters ⤵️
List of posters from Sainsbury Wellcome Centre researchers being presented on 12 March at the COSYNE 2026 conference.

ALT List of posters from Sainsbury Wellcome Centre researchers being presented on 12 March at the COSYNE 2026 conference.

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Friday's posters from Sainsbury Wellcome Centre researchers #Cosyne2026 ⤵️
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Saturday posters and talks from SWC researchers at #Cosyne2026
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Why do we sleep? We asked leading neuroscientists for their thoughts on what happens in the brain as we snooze. ⤵️ sainsburywellcome.org/web/bl… #WorldSleepDay #Neuroscience #WorldSleepDay2026
'Six reasons your brain needs sleep. Insights from neuroscientists, SWC Speaker Series,' and a photo of a sleeping koala (koalas sleep for 18-22 hours per day).

ALT 'Six reasons your brain needs sleep. Insights from neuroscientists, SWC Speaker Series,' and a photo of a sleeping koala (koalas sleep for 18-22 hours per day).

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Whether the hippocampus is involved in unrewarded learning has been a controversial question. A new preprint finds that it may be critical for passively learning information. By @natmesanash thetransmitter.org/memory/hi…

Hippocampus a ‘general-purpose statistical learning machine’

New cross-species findings may help settle a long-standing debate about whether the hippocampus is required for passively learning information.

thetransmitter.org
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A new review maps the convergence and divergence of statistical and reinforcement learning, from origins to neural implementation. From Athena Akrami, Ambra Ferrari and Floris P. de Lange. Blog: sainsburywellcome.org/blog/t… Paper: sciencedirect.com/science/ar…

Two engines of learning: how the brain builds a model of the world | Sainsbury Wellcome Centre

A new review from Dr Athena Akrami, Group Leader at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, explores the differences and similarities between reinforcement learning and statistical learning, and future...

sainsburywellcome.org
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New research has reconstructed movies from the activity of neurons in the mouse visual cortex. Out now in @eLife from Joel Bauer, Troy Margrie and Claudia Clopath. Paper: elifesciences.org/articles/1… Blog: sainsburywellcome.org/blog/l…
Movies alongside their reconstructions generated directly from neural activity

ALT Movies alongside their reconstructions generated directly from neural activity

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We are recruiting a research software engineer to build pipelines for processing of weeks of continuous neural and behavioural recordings from freely moving animals collected with the Aeon platform (aeon.swc.ucl.ac.uk). ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/search…
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This British Science Week, check out our free neuroscience teaching resources, including lesson plans, videos, career profiles and activities! sainsburywellcome.org/resour… #BritishScienceWeek #STEM #Education #Teaching
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Dr Saurabh Vyas, Carnegie Mellon University, is advancing methods to interpret neural dynamics underlying unique, first-ever cognitive events. As a 2025 Emerging Neuroscientists Seminar Series winner, he recently spoke at SWC. Q&A: sainsburywellcome.org/qa/sol…
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New @eLife publication from SWC Senior Research Fellow @MSableMeyer Completed at Collège de France & @NeuroSpin_91 with @StanDehaene, the study explores the language of geometry and how we perceive shapes. Blog: sainsburywellcome.org/blog/l… Paper: elifesciences.org/articles/1…
Geometric shapes in black, red, yellow and blue.

ALT Geometric shapes in black, red, yellow and blue.

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New preprint from the Akrami Lab shows that mice can quickly learn patterns in sounds, including abstract rules, simply from experience. The hippocampus is essential for this capacity. Preprint: biorxiv.org/content/10.64898… Blog: sainsburywellcome.org/web/bl…
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We’re hiring a Group Leader! Join us to lead a transformative initiative in human systems neuroscience. Find out more and apply ⤵️ sainsburywellcome.org/conten…
We're hiring! This is a unique opportunity to translate our understanding of neural computation - from circuit-level mechanisms to computational principles - into the human brain, through the establishment of cutting-edge human neural recording capabilities with collaborators in London and abroad.

ALT We're hiring! This is a unique opportunity to translate our understanding of neural computation - from circuit-level mechanisms to computational principles - into the human brain, through the establishment of cutting-edge human neural recording capabilities with collaborators in London and abroad.

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Congratulations to @OleChSylte on receiving a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship! 🎉 Ole will investigate how the brain transforms spatial knowledge into goal-directed actions.
“I'm excited to start this fellowship at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, studying how the brain turns knowledge of where you are into decisions about where to go next.” – Dr Ole Christian Sylte

ALT “I'm excited to start this fellowship at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, studying how the brain turns knowledge of where you are into decisions about where to go next.” – Dr Ole Christian Sylte

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Studies using fruit flies by University of Oxford researchers @RafSarnataro & Dr Peter Hasenhuetl are providing new insights into how sleep is controlled. As two winners of the Emerging Neuroscientist Seminar Series 2025, they recently spoke at SWC ⤵️ sainsburywellcome.org/blog/w…
Maximum intensity projection of a fly midbrain where dorsal fan-shaped body neurons have their mitochondria labelled green, overlaid with ‘SWC Speaker Series’

ALT Maximum intensity projection of a fly midbrain where dorsal fan-shaped body neurons have their mitochondria labelled green, overlaid with ‘SWC Speaker Series’

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📢 We’re hiring! We’re looking for a Scientific Instrument Maker to join our expert team carrying out highly skilled precision work in the design, development, construction, and validation of scientific instruments. ⏰ Apply by 22 Feb: ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/search…
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Learning to read is a key stage in education that deeply changes the brain. @StanDehaene, Chair of Experimental Cognitive Psychology at the Collège de France, discusses the neuroscience of reading at our Annual Lecture. ⤵️ youtube.com/watch?v=eqHUkMme…
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New protocol from SWC reduces off-target effects in optogenetics 🚥 Light can unintentionally activate retinal cells, complicating results. The protocol minimises light leakage and verifies off-target activity is reduced. ➡️ Paper in @STARProtocols star-protocols.cell.com/prot…
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➡️For full details of the method and its use, check out the paper in iScience: cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S… xitter.cf/SimonWeiler3/status/18…

Overcoming off-target optical stimulation-evoked cortical activity in the mouse brain in vivo

Natural sciences; Biological sciences; Neuroscience; Systems neuroscience; Techniques in neuroscience

cell.com
sweiler@SimonWeiler319 Aug 2024
Are you working with in vivo optogenetics? Ever wondered what the impact of shining laser light within the brain in the absence of exogenous opsins has on neuronal activity? PLEASE SEE biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/… & READ 🧵👇 work done @SWC_Neuro, thx Mateo Velez-Fort & Troy Margrie

Overcoming off-target optical stimulation-evoked cortical activity in the mouse brain in vivo

Genetic engineering of exogenous opsins sensitive to a wide range of lightwavelengths allows the interrogation of brain circuits to an unprecedented temporal and spatial precision. In particular,...

biorxiv.org
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New work from Jeffrey Erlich (SWC) & Evgeniya Lukinova (@UniofNottingham) links cortisol measures to reduced willingness to wait for larger rewards, but only when participants actually experienced the delay. Paper ⬇️ frontiersin.org/journals/psy… Blog ⬇️ sainsburywellcome.org/web/bl…

Frontiers | Willingness to wait covaries with endogenous variation in cortisol

Stress is a normal part of our everyday lives, alerting us to changes in our environment and working as an early warning system. However, when stress is prol...

frontiersin.org
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