Adrian Wanner
SERI-funded #ERCStG Group Leader at PSI https://structuralneurobiology.ch, CV Starr Fellow at Princeton Neuroscience Institute, founder of https://ariadne.ai
- Are earthworms sentient? What about microscopic nematode worms? Or single-celled organisms? Here is a deep dive I wrote for Asimov Press magazine about what investigations at the scale of neurons tell us about sentience. www.asimov.press/p/sentience
- The winner of the 2026 Pradel Research Award is H. Sebastian Seung of @princetonneuro.bsky.social! He is being honored for for transformative advances in computational neuroscience. Learn more about his discoveries: www.nasonline.org/award/pradel... #NASaward #neuroscience
- What's the relation between voltage and calcium in dendrites? Xiang Wu studied this in CA2 hippocampal pyramidal cells in behaving mice. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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- Here's a spotlight article on our recent study! Tissue ultrastructure can be resolved with X-rays, which impacts not only how we can study neuronal circuits but soft tissues more generally. Kudos to Ana Diaz, @adrianawanner.bsky.social, @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social and all authors.
- 🔬🔦Our latest ‘Imaging spotlight’, by @carlesbosch.bsky.social, Ana Diaz, @adrianawanner.bsky.social & @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social, highlights the non-destructive X-ray tomography pipeline that the authors developed to map mouse brain ultrastructure & considers future applications & developments.
- Our dispatch: sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii… on the recent Hydra volume EM paper by Zhang, Rafa Yuste and colleagues: #connectomics, without synapses sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii… #neuroscience
- A paper from my PhD lab is on Science! This is a really cool new way to utilize EM connectome datasets. Congrats to the team! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
- 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...
- Last night Adam Kampff, the glue, the light, the catalyst, the builder, the smile, left us. He and his work transformed the lives of many labs, scientists, students. He inspired and was generous to his last transformation, working tirelessly to set up a foundation to continue the work.Thank you!
- Our Method of the Year 2025 is...drumroll please...EM-based connectomics!! Our Editorial introduces our choice and highlights six Comments and other related content in this special issue. Please join us in celebrating EM-based connectomics! 🎉🧠🔬 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Connectomics is Method of the Year 2025!! @natmethods.nature.com just released the news nature.com/articles/s41... In my perspective piece, I afford some predictions into the future and compare how we are doing vs. genomics www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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- An optimized X-ray nanotomography method offers an attractive alternative to volume EM for connectomics. @crick.ac.uk @psich.bsky.social psich.bsky.social @adrianawanner.bsky.social @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social @ucl.ac.uk @uclnpp.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- I was glad to receive a Science Achievement Award from @crick.ac.uk! Thanks!! Cheers to all co-authors of our study showing that tissue ultrastructure can be resolved by X-rays. www.nature.com/articles/s41... And congrats as well to all the other awardees - such a pleasure to be in this lot!
- Our new paper showcasing molecular connectomics with pan-expansion microscopy is out in @natbiotech.nature.com! www.nature.com/articles/s41... This wonderful collaboration with @bewersdorflab.bsky.social was led by Ons M'Saad (now founder/CEO of Panluminate) and @allisonphysics.bsky.social. (1/5)
- #paper! X-rays can resolve #ultrastructure in tissues non-destructively. www.nature.com/articles/s41... Shoutout to key collaborators at @crick.ac.uk and @psich.bsky.social Ana Diaz, @adrianawanner.bsky.social and @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social, and to the whole team that made this possible.
- Enthusiastic about connectomics and X-rays? Several positions in our group at Crick for postdocs and senior scientists (permanent!). DM me if interested – and let’s talk if you are at Sfn next days or at the NIH BRAIN CONNECTS meeting today! Please share!
- Excited to share my most recent postdoctoral work in the Jeanne lab @yaleneuro.bsky.social ! “Sensory processing reformats odor coding around valence and dynamics” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We ask: how is a sensory code transformed across multiple stages of processing to inform behavior?
- Very excited to continue our amazing collaboration with @apacureanu.bsky.social at @esrf.fr - thank you @wellcometrust.bsky.social and all the collaborators at @crick.ac.uk and @esrf.fr
- Congratulations to @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social on receiving a £3.8 million @wellcometrust.bsky.social Discovery Award, working with @esrf.fr, to chart the brain circuity behind the sense of smell in mice. www.crick.ac.uk/news/2025-10...
- I am happy to share that the main story of my PhD is now available as a preprint! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We analyses over 8500 neurons in a songbird basal ganglia dataset. To explore this and two other stories more interactively, also check out our website! www.songbird-connectomics.org
- So proud of my new lab! Check out the recent songbird basal ganglia connectome - great job @alexandrarother.bsky.social !! @jmrko.bsky.social !! songbird-connectomics.org
- Thank you so much @wellcometrust.bsky.social for supporting us to push the the limits of #X-ray #nanoimaging and #connectomics, and to make technology more broadly available to the scientific community! 🙏
- ESRF scientist Alexandra Pacureanu is the recipient of the Wellcome Discovery Award, together with a team at the Francis Crick Institute, to develop X-ray nanoimaging technology to study the mechanisms of information processing in the neural circuits of olfaction. www.esrf.fr/home/news/ge...
- The Crick is an absolutely amazing place to work in - please share this opportunity widely with your colleagues and postdocs - and DM me if I can help in any way
- We're now recruiting early career group leaders at the Crick to lead ambitious research programmes and explore bold scientific questions. Hear our Director, Edith Heard, explain why the Crick is a unique place for curiosity-driven research. Apply now ➡️ www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...
- Apply now!!! 🔥
- New blog post, where I review some recent interesting papers on the role of cell organelles for neuronal calcium signaling: gcamp6f.com/2025/08/11/i... Featuring work by @lorenabenedetti.bsky.social, O'Hare et al. and Lin et al.!
- Combinatorial protein barcodes enable self-correcting neuron tracing with nanoscale molecular context biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
- Great opportunity to work with an amazing team on the frontiers of X-ray connectomics www.psi.ch/en/hr/job-op...
- #Nanoimaging symposium @crick.ac.uk! At #CrickXrays25 we'll tackle: 💫synchrotron upgrades 📈current limits in throughput, volume, resolution 🧪sample preparation for X-ray PC imaging 🧠♥️applications in neuroscience and tissue life science 🗓️13th October 2025 🇬🇧🌐 London & online tinyurl.com/crickxrays25
- #preprint: We optimised the preparation of tissues for #X-ray phase contrast imaging. Drying tissue samples (instead of embedding them) brings more signal in #X-ray phase contrast images. The process largely preserves #ultrastructure. @safekhan.bsky.social @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social
- Our pre-print is out! Critical point drying of brain tissue for x-ray phase contrast imaging. @apeart.bsky.social @yuxinzhang.bsky.social @jkbrmn.bsky.social @apacureanu.bsky.social @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social @carlesbosch.bsky.social @esrf.fr @crick.ac.uk bioarXiv: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
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- Nature research paper: Supervised learning in DNA neural networks go.nature.com/4mOb9lH
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- It was a good experience to step back and briefly take stock of the amazing progress in connectomics since I started working on this stuff (20 years ago!) thanks as well to @natrevneuro.nature.com for the constructive editorial interactions.
- Synaptic connectomics: status and prospects — a Comment article by Davi D. Bock @dddavi.bsky.social #neuroscience #neuroskyence www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Couldn't agree more. There’s still so much to be uncovered in the dataset. One thing that wasn’t emphasized before is how it enables access to specific circuit motifs down to identified cells. 12 examples are highlighted in the preprint, but again just the tip of the iceberg.
- Multiplexed Neuromodulatory-Type-Annotated EM-Reconstruction of Larval Zebrafish biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
- Amazing work
- How is the nervous system organized to coordinate behavior? To approach this massive question, a team led by @asbates.bsky.social, @jasper-tms.bsky.social, @mindyisminsu.bsky.social, & Helen Yang present the BANC: a Brain and Nerve Cord connectome. Preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2025... 🧪#Neuroskyence
- New preprint from @darbly.bsky.social @briandepasquale.bsky.social and my labs! If you love (or hate) mosquitoes, have a look: doi.org/10.1101/2025... We used TEM to describe the circuitry used for CO2 detection by mosquitoes. As usual with mosquitoes, nothing is as expected! 🌬️🦟
- The first full central nervous system connectome dataset of an adult fly, with the most comprehensive annotation of sensory and motor neurons to date. A heroic effort with contributions from many groups, a product of the collaborative spirit of the Drosophila neuroscience community.
- Happy Friday! The female adult fly brain-and-nerve-cord (BANC) connectome is now LIVE! Explore the data here: codex.flywire.ai?dataset=banc Check out the preprint here: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

- Happy to share our publication - Comparative connectomics of two distantly related nematode species reveals patterns of nervous system evolution www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
- Fantastic to see this collaborative work with Hopi Hoekstra out in Nature (tinyurl.com/3at3zvby). Lead by @felixbaier.bsky.social and @katjareinhard.bsky.social. Not possible without @bramnuttin.bsky.social , Chen Liu and @arnausd.bsky.social. Excited to see where this work leads.
- 📢 New paper out in Nature! The Hoekstra lab at Harvard and @farrowlab.bsky.social lab at NERF reveal how a brain switch is tuned by evolution to control freezing vs fleeing in two sister species of deer mice. 👏 Huge congratulations to the entire team tinyurl.com/3at3zvby
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- Excited to share a connectomics dataset of hippocampus CA3. Explore the dataset: pyr.ai Paper introducing the dataset and some of our discoveries: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Huge congratulations to Kedar Narayan who received the RMS Alan Agar Award for #ElectronMicroscopy from Paul Verkade this afternoon at #mmc2025 👏👏👏🔬🙌🥇 @rmsearlycareer.bsky.social @yorkbioimaging.bsky.social
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- Proud to share our latest paper. doi.org/10.1016/j.cr... Through the dedication of @glynnca.bsky.social and @cryingem.bsky.social we report a thorough method to image molecular organisation within hippocampus tissue. Structural biology in tissue is well and truly here! @rosfrankinst.bsky.social
- If you want to learn the latest developments in volumeEM from the experts, with hands-on experience on our instruments @embl.org, this course is for you! 🔬
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- Introducing warpfield, an open source Python library for GPU-accelerated non-rigid 3D registration. Warps and aligns gigavoxel volumes within seconds (not hours). For 3D microscopy, region-to-region and cell-to-cell matching. A collaboration with @mh123.bsky.social 🚀 github.com/danionella/w...