Britton Sauerbrei
Neurophysiologist working on motor control and neural population dynamics. Assistant Prof. at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
sauerbreilab.org
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiWe have updated this preprint. I think the deeper dive that @mkashefi.bsky.social has done on the 'shift' condition-independent signal is particularly interesting. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Excited to share my latest work with @jonathanamichaels.bsky.social @diedrichsenjorn.bsky.social & @andpru.bsky.social! We asked: How does the motor cortex account for arm posture when generating movement? Paper 👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/10
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiWhere does learning through imitation happen in the brain? In juvenile zebra finches, we pinpoint a synaptic locus of song learning in a cortico-basal ganglia circuit and leverage this localization to measure the timescale of consolidation and make birds learn faster! #neuroskyence (1/14)
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiVery excited to share a new preprint - my first paper in the @mikeeconomo.bsky.social lab where we asked when and why the motor cortex is recruited for movement control:🧠👇https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.13.699314v1
- The lab comedians wanted some natural light. @eric-kirk.bsky.social
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiThe Neural Control and Computation Lab is seeking a skilled part-time software engineer in Toronto to lead the development of ATHENA (Automatically Tracking Hands Expertly with No Annotations), our open-source, Python-based toolbox for 3D markerless tracking! www.yorku.ca/health/resea...
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiCongrats @danielavallentin.bsky.social happy to see this out in @currentbiology.bsky.social
- Nightingales are masters of imitation! New research shows: During territorial contests, a male matches a rival’s song in real time by tracking and imitating both, pitch and syllable duration. This shows a remarkable precision in hearing and vocal control. 🔗More: www.bi.mpg.de/news/2026-01-vallentin
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiExcited to share @rbrianroome.bsky.social ‘s beautiful paper on development of the dorsal horn of the mouse spinal cord @science.org This is how the anatomical organization and cell types that process pain, touch, body position and more are laid down. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
- Reposted by Britton Sauerbreiwww.cell.com/cell/fulltex... We had a lot of fun working on this project (led by Itzel Ishida, not on bluesky). Some interesting highlights from the paper -
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiHere's another, showing raw voltage throughout the dendritic tree, the virtual reality location of the animal, the mouse-eye view, and the voltage at the neuron's soma.
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiWhat is the computational role of dendritic excitations? Byung Hun Lee and team mapped voltage dynamics throughout the dendritic trees of CA1 pyramidal neurons in mice navigating in virtual reality. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
- Ruskin on generative AI.
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiVery nice paper by Matt Kaufman's group: "Routing of task-relevant information in mouse PPC during continuous visuomotor control". www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
- This would be a disaster for science and medicine.
- U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has vowed to end U.S. monkey imports and push for retirement of research primates. His remarks, made Saturday on a Fox News program, have sent shock waves through the biomedical community. scim.ag/48Qp5Hp
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiGreat news! We are looking for an NHP neuroscientist as the assistant professor level. We have no preconceived ideas -- looking for the most exciting research going. If you have any questions, please reach out. universityaffairs.ca/search-jobs/...
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiHow 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...
- Forgetfulness in science. A reminder for students, postdocs, colleagues, and myself: don't neglect to dig up old papers relevant to your problem. www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SiL...
- Holldobler & Wilson: The Ants. Monumental.
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiHave you ever wondered what you would find if you could keep your eyes on a bee for more than a few meters? Us, too! preprint (with videos!) + thread 🧵 Precise, individualized foraging flights in honey #bees 🐝 revealed by multicopter drone-based tracking www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/9
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiJoin us for Fall 2026. In our group, you can run studies from human behavior and neuroimaging, to large-scale NHP ephys, and join them up with a robust computational foundation. Bonus: you can help build the reading list.
- The Sensorimotor Superlab with @gribblelab.org and @andpru.bsky.social is a unique place to work and learn. We are now accepting MSc and PhD applications for Fall 2026. Join our awesome team at Western University... For application instructions see diedrichsenlab.org and gribblelab.org/join.html!
- EMG is shaping up. Lucky to have a pro around! @eric-kirk.bsky.social
- Filippino Lippi and Rome: a wonderful exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiAs a longtime fan of cool papers in @currentbiology.bsky.social, I am really thrilled to see this out! This study sets the stage for understanding the origins of novel (vocal) behaviors. Big shout out to the main architects of this work @xmikezheng20.bsky.social and @cliffscience.bsky.social
- Great @currentbiology.bsky.social study by @xmikezheng20.bsky.social @cliffscience.bsky.social @arkarupbanerjee.bsky.social 🧪🧠🐭🎶 Vocal repertoire expansion in singing mice by co-opting a conserved midbrain circuit node www.cell.com/current-biol...
- Reposted by Britton Sauerbrei#SfN2025 Planning & making a reach involve different brain areas and neural populations, but are coordinated behavioral computations. Check out Ryan's poster tomorrow morning (PSTR076.02, M14) where he uses neuropixel recordings to test hypotheses about how neural populations implement this feat!
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiGot this gem (1956 edition!) from Minotavros Books in Whitby, ON!
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiI entirely agree. Research in rodents has enabled remarkable technical advances and deepened our understanding of brainstem circuits and general brain physiology. However, only NHPs possess cognitive, visual, and motor faculties necessary to advance human-relevant systems neuroscience.
- Research in primate brains has been essential for the development of brain-computer interfaces and artificial neural networks. New funding and policy changes put future such advances at risk, write Cory Miller, @movshon.bsky.social and Doris Tsao. #neuroskyence bit.ly/47MXYLH
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiResearch in primate brains has been essential for the development of brain-computer interfaces and artificial neural networks. New funding and policy changes put future such advances at risk, write Cory Miller, @movshon.bsky.social and Doris Tsao. #neuroskyence bit.ly/47MXYLH
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiDelighted to see this finally out: rdcu.be/eO9oW We tested whether brief striatal dopamine release events influence the vigor of skilled movements. Despite popular belief, we did not find any evidence linking rapid dopamine dynamics to motor vigor on a moment-by-moment basis.
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiNew preprint: Neural manifolds that orchestrate walking and stopping Here we develop a new theory for neural generation of walking and how it can stop- Next we test the theory using Neuropixels probes in the lumber spinal cord of freely moving rats. See more: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiFear, monkeys, and institutional courage When news broke of an explosion inside Harvard’s neurobiology building early Saturday morning, every scientist who works with monkeys felt it—an involuntary jolt, a spike of cortisol, the silent thought: what if it had been us? Neither animals nor people…
- Considering an “adversarial journal club,” with pro and anti presentations followed by an open discussion aimed at achieving consensus. Has anyone tried this format?
- A remarkable monograph.
- Reposted by Britton Sauerbrei🚨Job alert🚨 The lab has up to *3 postdoc openings* for comp systems neuroscientists interested in describing and manipulating neural population dynamics mediating behaviour This is part of a collaborative ARIA grant "4D precision control of cortical dynamics" euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/383909
- A delightful academic farce.
- “Like the reading of tea leaves, this approach can be used to create an impression, by projecting conceptual schemes onto suggestive patterns. … Thus, the search for explicit coding may actually be misleading …”
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiStoked to see our study out in final form! Big kudos to @jonathanamichaels.bsky.social for driving this along for the past 5 years.
- Thrilled that our paper is out today in Nature! www.nature.com/articles/s4...
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiThrilled that our paper is out today in Nature! www.nature.com/articles/s4...
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiApply to become a CSHL-Simons Fellow in Neuroscience! Run your own lab, pursue bold ideas, join a highly collaborative community! All areas including experimental or computational neuro, including NeuroAI & systems PhD required; ≤~1 yr postdoc www.cshl.edu/about-us/car...
- Reposted by Britton Sauerbrei🧠🌟🐭 Excited to share some of my postdoc work on the evolution of dexterity! We compared deer mice evolved in forest vs prairie habitats. We found that forest mice have: (1) more corticospinal neurons (CSNs) (2) better hand dexterity (3) more dexterous climbing, which is linked to CSN number🧵
- Evolutionary expansion of the corticospinal system is linked to dexterity in Peromyscus mice biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiExcited that this work discovering cross-species signatures of stabilizing foot placement control is now out in PNAS! pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @antoinecomite.bsky.social
- How do animals walk stably in the presence of intrinsic noise or external perturbations? biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We lack a unified answer to this question across species. In this preprint, we find that legged species use a shared strategy for stable locomotion: foot placement control! (1/6)
- Reposted by Britton Sauerbrei🚨Pre-print alert! 🚨https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.17.683171v1 Our new study tackles the question: do all neurons in motor cortices (MC) encode movement & coordinate as we move? Answering this question will be key for effectively targeting motor representations in BCIs.
- Agreed! I find Nelson Goodman’s analysis persuasive:
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiToday my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiNeuroscience faculty job Alert! We are hiring at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine! Apply at apply.interfolio.com/171533. Please repost.
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiDespite These Times...my department is hiring! I really like my department, we have a good mix of disciplines and organisms and we're really low-drama. We also get pizza at faculty meeting. So if you're a computational and structural biologist, join us! 🧪 jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/260...
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiThe neural control & computation lab is recruiting! If you're interested in using large-scale neural population recordings to study how the brain learns to produce complex and flexible behaviours, please get in touch. www.ncclab.ca
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiThe Department of Kinesiology at Penn State is inviting applications for an open-rank faculty position in sensorimotor control and rehabilitation neuroscience. Please share this opportunity with interested colleagues in your network. psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/PSU_Academic...
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiThe Agrawal lab is moving! This January we will be setting up shop at #UBC in Vancouver, in the department of #Zoology! We are actively recruiting at all levels, especially masters and PhD students. These position are #funded! Please send anyone interested my way!
- My department at Case Western Reserve is recruiting an Assistant / Associate Professor of Neurosciences - come be our colleague! www.nature.com/naturecareer...
- Milton’s prose: as timeless as his verse. www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6...
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiNow out in @nature.com: Our study discovering a neural circuit in Drosophila that predictively inhibits proprioceptor axons during voluntary leg movements, such as walking and grooming. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiStoked to see this paper finally out! It answers two big questions: where visual objects are encoded in the brain, and how head-direction cells get oriented using visual landmarks. Super fun collaboration with @mace-lab.bsky.social and Stuart Trenholm. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
- Thrilled to share that our work is now published in Science! ✨ We found a preference for visual objects in the mouse spatial navigation system where they dynamically refine head-direction coding. In short, objects boost our inner compass! 🧭 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧵1/
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiHere, the 'ballistic tongues' paper by Yu Zeng and team www.cell.com/current-biol... plus dispatch by Sam Van Wassenbergh www.cell.com/current-biol...
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiOf potential interest to those keen on motor control and/or multi-task networks. Congrats to Elom and Eric. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiPreprint - Excited to present WHOLISTIC, which extends the concept of whole-brain functional imaging to the entire body. Pioneering work by incredibly talented Virginia Ruetten @vmsruetten.bsky.social, this platform reveals whole-organism cellular dynamics in vivo. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- A warning from Dr. Johnson (imitating Juvenal): poets.org/poem/vanity-...
- Reposted by Britton Sauerbrei📣 This is a big one that we've been cooking for a while! We think it adds to the heart of motor control: 'how does motor cortex work'. Congratulations @mkashefi.bsky.social!
- Excited to share my latest work with @jonathanamichaels.bsky.social @diedrichsenjorn.bsky.social & @andpru.bsky.social! We asked: How does the motor cortex account for arm posture when generating movement? Paper 👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 1/10
- Reposted by Britton Sauerbrei2026 Internships at CTRL Labs at Meta Reality Labs It's intern application season for summer 2026 with the CTRL Labs (Electromyogram (EMG)) team at Meta Reality Labs! 🚀 You can see our latest work covered in this Nature article. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiCome join us at University of Toronto. We're hiring a Professor of computational cognitive neuroscience. #neuroAI #compneuro jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-...
- Maps are indispensable in neuroscience. Even when constructed with relatively crude methods, they can reveal clear specialization of brain areas. Here’s a nice example from 1902 (Grunbaum & Sherrington).
- If your experiment tells you that all brain areas do the same thing, but is not designed in a way that could replicate any of the key established properties that distinguish neurons in these areas, your readers’ conclusions may relate less to physiology than experimental design.
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiThrilled to share our new paper out in BMC, part of my postdoc at @cornellvet.bsky.social! 🐘🐀 We found that larger mammals evolve more diverse morphologies, while smaller ones can explore many locomotor strategies without much change to their forelimbs. bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....
- Sensation ≠ perception: a fascinating case study. A patient with damage to visual cortex points at a light he cannot perceive. academic.oup.com/brain/articl...
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiPlease repost! We have an open rank, tenure-line faculty position in biomechanics in the School of Kinesiology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. At U-M we have great colleagues, exceptional resources, and biomechanics can be found all across the campus. #BiomechSky
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiThe Cullen and Charles Labs (Biomedical Engineering, JHU) are recruiting a postdoctoral fellow to join a multi-PI collaborative project developing a cerebellar neuroprosthesis to restore gait, tremor, and balance in cerebellar disorders. For details, see: thecullenlab.org/opportunities/
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiATTN🚨: I will be looking for PhD students through NYU's Center for Data Science PhD program this year. Applicants should have an interest in either NeuroAI (specifically biological attention or AI interpretability) or ML for Remote Sensing. Visit my lab website for more info: lindsay-lab.github.io
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiPlease repost. The School of Kinesiology at the University of Michigan is seeking applications and nominations for our next Dean! Click the "leadership profile" link on the careers page below for full details. And Go Blue!
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiJim Hudspeth has died 💔 I am so sad. He was probably my favorite hearing researcher of all time. Absolute genius and also generous - he spent hours on the phone advising me on my career even tho we barely knew each other. May his memory be a blessing. www.ted.com/talks/jim_hu...
- Reposted by Britton SauerbreiDecoding inner speech. A volunteer who cannot speak imagines saying the sentence on the screen. A computer decodes the signals from an implant in her brain and correctly guesses what she's saying to herself. Here's my story (gift link): nyti.ms/3UpEiat
