Laura Grima
Research Scientist in the Dudman lab @HHMIJanelia. PhD @Oxford, BSc @RoyalHolloway.
dopamine | foraging | decision-making | hippocampus | reinforcement learning
🧠🧪👩🔬🐭💻
Wondering what mice are thinking about.
- Reposted by Laura GrimaExcited to share “Orofacial behaviors, not eye movements, govern neural activity in mouse visual cortex” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Summary below...
- Reposted by Laura GrimaThis is not limited to #zebrafish but includes all organismal research. If you can spare 15 minutes, you may help safeguard the future of responsible animal research in the UK. 🙏
- As the political climate around animal research becomes less supportive in the UK, it is our interest to argue for & protect organismal biology. BBSRC opened a survey, which gives us a timely platform. Please fill & share link among colleagues. Deadline: 9/2 engagementhub.ukri.org/mrc-bbsrc/la...
- Reposted by Laura GrimaStatistical Tests as Thought Experiments “The only populations that can be referred to in a test of significance have no objective reality, being exclusively the product of the statistician’s imagination through the hypotheses which he has decided to test” (Fisher, 1956, p. 77).
- Reposted by Laura GrimaTaking the #GRCBasalGanglia Oath ✋🏼 I acknowledge that the go/no-go model of the BG was useful but it is outdated and incorrect, or at least incomplete. I pledge not to use the go/no-go model as a strawman to motivate my work.
- I’ve recently read a couple of papers (mostly from psychopharm) where the methods are placed after the intro and not buried at the end of the paper. It’s so refreshing! N animals excluded, plans for statistical tests, etc. all up front and easy to access. Why did we stop doing this in sys neuro?
- Or maybe it’s more a function of journal? Either way I’m fully convinced that the rigor of a lot of science would increase if we were all forced to put our methods front and centre
- Reposted by Laura GrimaJunior scientists 👉 applications are open for our workshop on the mechanistic basis of #cognition. 🧠 🤝 Joint sessions with our #TheoreticalNeuroscience workshop ✈️ Hotel, meals + reasonable travel expenses covered Apply by May 7 ➡️ janelia.news/CNW26 @michaelreiser.bsky.social @jvoigts.bsky.social
- Throwback to this Reddit post I saw in 2024 and that I still think about sometimes
- Can’t forget this excellent follow-up post too
- Anyone looking for the opportunity to do some truly exciting science during their postdoc (with an excellent mentor to boot) - check this out!
- 📢 Join us, the Haberkern lab, @uni-wuerzburg.de for a postdoc studying neural circuit mechanisms of navigation. You’ll spearheading neurophysiology experiments on our brand new 2P! ⏳ Apply by 28th February 2026 Details: www.haberkernlab.de/docs/ENPostd... #neuroscience #academicjobs #postdoc
- Reposted by Laura GrimaAll research is exploratory if you’re confused enough
- Reposted by Laura GrimaHippocampal relay for remote planning from Brian, Albert Lee’s group! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
- Reposted by Laura GrimaSoapbox time: the problem with metabolic efficiency arguments in neuroscience is that they often confuse energy efficiency with energy expenditure. Biological systems are optimized for energy efficiency, but that does NOT imply they are optimized for low energy expenditure 🧵 1/
- Reposted by Laura GrimaNew paper out today w @dalmaijer.bsky.social @barbaraklump.bsky.social and @lucymaplin.bsky.social as part of the Phil Trans special issue doi.org/10.1098/rstb.... Over 2 years, we studied a population of cockatoos thought to be the source of the innovation of bin-opening.
- Thanks so much for having me Cian!
- Move over RPE, hello FoMO... such a great seminar today by visitor @lauragrima.bsky.social who told us about her joint experimental-computational work on mouse foraging behaviour in *naive learning* contexts using RL, feat. cool novel role for dopamine. Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Beautiful set of experiments. Congrats Lauren et al!
- Thought now was as good a time as ever to join bsky - Excited to share a big part of my PhD work is finally published- 7+ years of experiments from a great team of people. Wishing I could be at #sfn2025 to celebrate with you guys! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Laura GrimaExcited to announce our new pre-print (www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...)! This collaborative work (co-led by Adriane Otopalik and Gerry Rubin) examines how neuronal circuits regulate social behaviors, like courtship🫶 and aggression🥊, across sexes. #neuroscience #Drosophila #WomenInSTEM 🧪1/
- Reposted by Laura Grima'Foraging as an ethological framework for neuroscience' by @LauraGrima.bsky.social, @Hannah-Haberkern.bsky.social, Rishika Mohanta, @MaimMorimoto.bsky.social @adiraj95.bsky.social @EmmavScholey.bsky.social www.cell.com/trends/neuro...
- Reposted by Laura Grima🚨Registration for Mechanistic Basis of Foraging 2025 closes October 20th 🚨 Speakers @mkflugge.bsky.social @aaronbornstein.bsky.social @benhayden.bsky.social @ellileadbeater.bsky.social @davidrobbe.bsky.social @dlbarack.bsky.social @becketebs.bsky.social uobevents.eventsair.com/the-mechanis...
- Reposted by Laura GrimaAmazing! Hard to believe this didn't exist until now.
- I’m thrilled to share my postdoc work and the first paper from the McKinley Lab! 🎉 @karalmckinley.bsky.social We built the first transgenic model of menstruation in mice. We used it to uncover how the endometrium organizes and sheds during menstruation. 🧪 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵
- Reposted by Laura GrimaWe started our RL debate series! www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0A0...
- Reposted by Laura GrimaWe're very proud to be releasing the complete male fly CNS connectome! It's the product of a huge team effort here at Janelia in partnership with the Cambridge Fly Connectomics group (@jefferis.bsky.social and colleagues), plus invaluable collaborators. More soon... www.janelia.org/project-team...
- A little backstory on this one: sometime during the pandemic @hannah-haberkern.bsky.social and I were chatting in the servery at @hhmijanelia.bsky.social about how to encourage interactions between people working on foraging (+ neuroscience) across different species and perspectives... 1/n
- Pleased to have this review out in @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social. In it we discuss various aspects of the intersection between foraging behaviors and neuroscience, and offer some future directions: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Thanks to the state of the world at the time, an online seminar series seemed a good start. So we, along with some of our friends at @champalimaudf.bsky.social, set up 'The Future of Foraging', kicking off with a great talk from Alex Kacelnik on "What is foraging?" www.youtube.com/watch?v=B44M...
- Our team grew, and the seminar series ended up spanning 16 episodes across 3 seasons, from 2021-2023. All episodes can be found on our YouTube channel here: www.youtube.com/@futureoffor...
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View full threadTo end, I am very grateful for all of the people who contributed to any of this work at various stages - and of course in particular my co-authors/conference organizers @hannah-haberkern.bsky.social @adiraj95.bsky.social @maimmorimoto.bsky.social @neurorishika.bsky.social @emmavscholey.bsky.social
- Reposted by Laura GrimaHad a lot of fun co-writing to this review! Discussing #foraging through the lens of neuroscience.
- Pleased to have this review out in @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social. In it we discuss various aspects of the intersection between foraging behaviors and neuroscience, and offer some future directions: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Reposted by Laura GrimaIf you want to hear about more like this, come join us at the University of Birmingham for ‘The Mechanistic Basis of Foraging’ conference. Registration closes 20th October! uobevents.eventsair.com/the-mechanis...
- Reposted by Laura GrimaReally excited to share a review I contributed to, out now in @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social. We explore how foraging can offer a framework for studying brain and behaviour in natural contexts. It’s been a pleasure working with colleagues across species and disciplines on this. Check it out! 👇
- Pleased to have this review out in @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social. In it we discuss various aspects of the intersection between foraging behaviors and neuroscience, and offer some future directions: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Reposted by Laura GrimaYears ago @lauragrima.bsky.social talked about what a pity it is when scientists who work on #foraging miss out on fruitful interactions because they work with different animals. Together with collegues we started a virtual seminar series, which grew into a conference and now a review!
- Reposted by Laura GrimaInspired by discussions at several recent foraging-related seminar series and conferences, our review in @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social explores an expanded role for foraging as a framework in neuroscience and discusses future directions for the field. Do check it out. doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...
- Pleased to have this review out in @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social. In it we discuss various aspects of the intersection between foraging behaviors and neuroscience, and offer some future directions: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Pleased to have this review out in @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social. In it we discuss various aspects of the intersection between foraging behaviors and neuroscience, and offer some future directions: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Very fun to write this with such great co-authors - @hannah-haberkern.bsky.social @maimmorimoto.bsky.social @maimmorimoto.bsky.social @adiraj95.bsky.social @emmavscholey.bsky.social and Rishika Mohanta.
- Registration closes in just 2 weeks! We’ve got a great line up of speakers, definitely not a conference to miss if you’re into interesting behavior…!
- Super excited to announce a follow-up to the Janelia 'mechanistic basis of foraging' conference - this time held in Birmingham, UK! Join us from the 3rd - 5th November to discuss all things foraging: uobevents.eventsair.com/the-mechanis...
- My favourite sentence to read in a sys neuro paper is “we designed a new task…” What strange little game have you given your rodents to play, eh? Are they pushing levers or pulling strings? Do they have to move things around, lick them? What clues do you give them - sights, sounds, smells? Such fun!
- On a related note I will never not be convinced that a rodent version of the Crystal Maze wouldn’t be a good idea youtu.be/lbhnmwosgBo?...
- Enjoying a flying visit to Boston. Strange to think that last time I was here was back in 2017, on the way to my first GRC (Catecholamines). I remember my PhD advisor’s sage advice when choosing between conferences: SfN is fun, but go to a GRC to really make connections with people in the field.
- Caught most of the @python.org documentary as part of a showing today @hhmijanelia.bsky.social. Fun and interesting viewing for fellow pythonistas: m.youtube.com/watch?v=GfH4... (Also appreciated the commentary on getting women into coding!)
- Reposted by Laura GrimaPreprint - 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...
