Mert Erginkaya
A fruit fly walks into a bar... while I'm looking at the activity of some of its neurons. Postdoc in Ache Lab @uniwuerzburg.bsky.social
- Reposted by Mert ErginkayaHow does the brain control locomotion? In our new preprint, we uncover a brain circuit in Drosophila that controls forward walking independently of turning. This dedicated locomotor circuit enables flexible motor control and might reflect a shared principle across species. doi.org/10.64898/202...
- Reposted by Mert Erginkaya📢 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 Mert ErginkayaHow do animals channel sensory information into motor pathways to generate flexible behavioral output? Excited to share a new preprint addressing this question by leveraging the new #maleCNS connectome, behavioral experiments, and in-vivo recordings: doi.org/10.64898/202.... A long🧵...
- Reposted by Mert Erginkaya🧠 Applications for the International Neuroscience Doctoral Programme (INDP) @champalimaudf.bsky.social open until 31 January 2026. ☀️ Join our vibrant and international research community in sunny Lisbon! 🔗 fchampalimaud.org/champalimaud...
- Reposted by Mert ErginkayaNow 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 Mert ErginkayaFlyBase needs your help! We ask that European labs continue to contribute to Cambridge, UK FlyBase, whereas US and other non-European labs can contribute to US FlyBase. For more information and how to donate: wiki.flybase.org/wiki/FlyBase...
- Reposted by Mert ErginkayaThe 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...
- Reposted by Mert ErginkayaPreprint Alert! Walking mostly feels natural and easy to us - but the neuronal control of walking is actually incredibly complex. We leveraged the fruit fly as a genetically tractable animal model with a compact nervous system to ask how the brain controls walking direction: tinyurl.com/flywalk. 🧵..
- Reposted by Mert Erginkaya[This post could not be retrieved]
- Reposted by Mert Erginkaya👀 For more than 15 years, Janelia researchers have been on a mission to catalogue the neurons of the fly optic lobes & develop genetic tools to study them. This effort has culminated in a complete inventory of all the visual neurons in the fruit fly ➡️ www.nature.com/articles/d41...
- Reposted by Mert ErginkayaWe currently have a call for support that has gone out to European labs, to support FlyBase-UK. We are asking our colleagues from labs in the US and other countries to wait for a similar call to them that will go out in the near future, to support the US sites. We thank you for your patience.
- URGENT: FlyBase has lost practically all its funding overnight; even user fees are tied up in denied grant funding. 🤬🤯 Any lab using @flybase.bsky.social please donate using the link in post below. This incredible community, on whose backs our #Drosophila labs depend, can't be left out to dry.
- Reposted by Mert ErginkayaExcited to contribute imaging data to this project! The axons of these sensory neurons showed beautiful calcium signals in the nerve cord when the fly's leg joints reached the limits of their movement range. Check out the full story!
- New preprint from the lab, led by grad student Brandon Pratt, on the encoding properties and sensorimotor function of proprioceptive limit detectors (ie, hair plates) in the fly leg. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reposted by Mert ErginkayaHappy to announce that our paper examining the function of leg mechanosensory neurons by way of their connectivity is finally officially published! rdcu.be/ekqVt
