Yoav Livneh
Neuroscientist | Happy father |
PI at Weizmann Institue | FENS-Kavli Network Scholar | Brain-body interactions
weizmann.ac.il/brain-sciences/labs…
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehSend us nominations for the FKNE Mentoring Prize 2026!The award will be presented at FENS Forum 2026 in Barcelona to a scientist who has demontrated leadership in fostering the careers of neuroscientists. Deadline: 15 February 2026 2cm.es/1gh-m
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehThe representation of omitted sounds in the mouse auditory cortex www.nature.com/articles/s41... #neuroscience
- Reposted by Yoav Livneh"These findings challenge the traditional brain-centric view of reward processing, supporting a more integrated model in which vagus-mediated interoceptive signals intrinsically shape motivation and reinforcement." Awesome work by @peppeganga.bsky.social & his team 👏 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
- Reposted by Yoav Livnehwww.nature.com/articles/s41... beautiful work from Stephen Liberles’ lab on neural mechanisms of sensing blood volume.
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehReward as drive reduction, the return! This opinion piece on the explanatory and unifying power of the homeostatic reinforcement learning framework is amazingly accessible, despite its technical nature, and extremely insightful 👏 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 1/2
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehThe video abstract is amazing. And very cool work - tool use in cows! Certainly challenges a lot of uniqueness arguments. Always lots to learn. Flexible use of a multi-purpose tool by a cow: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol... #neuroscience #science
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehNew in Nature Neuroscience: We developed a flexible model that reveals how animals learn tasks—uncovering stages, sudden insights, and gradual improvements unique to each animal. Learning isn't monotonic, and our model captures that complexity 🐭📊 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehNew @naturemedicine.bsky.social The power of our mind to shape immune response, as seen in a randomized trial of trained neurofeedback for increased reward activity. More positive expectation-> more antibody response nature.com/articles/s41... nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehStep into a Europe-wide community of neuroscience leaders. Junior & mid-career group leaders: apply by 30 Jan to become a FENS-Kavli Network Scholar and connect, collaborate, and contribute to shaping neuroscience in Europe. rb.gy/havqur
- Reposted by Yoav Livneh📣First preprint of the lab📣 Did that really happen?😅 Enteric neurons, aka somatic postmitotic cells, must hold on to their sex identity tight, to deliver a tuned response to signals from the ovary that instruct the animal to engage sex-matched behavioural programmes. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
- Reposted by Yoav Livneh
For aficionados of timing, prediction, psychophysics-and anyone who wants to look at something other than the news to be distracted-a new study by Matthias Grabenhorst and Georgios Michalareas: The anticipation of imminent events is time-scale invariant www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.... #neuroskyence - Reposted by Yoav LivnehHot off the @nature.com press!! Our A-SOiD behavior library developed specifically for pain to quantify a new chemogenetic gene therapy that targets opioid circuit in ACC without addictive properties @flybottleescape.bsky.social @cmu-neuroscience.bsky.social @cmu.edu www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehWhat 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...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehExcited to share new work from our lab showing, for the first time, a link between breathing dysregulation, stress responses, and energy metabolism via a neuropeptide receptor mechanism. This opens new ways of understanding #brainbody interactions! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehJust published my review of neuroscience in 2025, on The Spike. The 10th of these, would you believe? This year we have foundation models, breakthroughs in using light to understand the brain, a gene therapy, and more Enjoy! medium.com/the-spike/20...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehFrom sensory to perceptual manifolds: The twist of neural geometry doi.org/10.1126/scia... #neuroscience
- Reposted by Yoav Livneh
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehI am excited to share our new paper, where we developed and used a new approach that allows us to dynamically monitor autophagy in the intact mouse brain! biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
- Reposted by Yoav Livneh**Rethinking the centrality of brain areas in understanding functional organization** New paper I anticipate will become a classic in neuroscience and a must-read for students at all levels. Understanding brain function beyond brain areas. #neuroskyence www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehSequences are everywhere! In every brain region. And are written in stone. Invariant Activity Sequences Across the Mouse Brain. Out today, by Célian Bimbard, with @kenneth-harris.bsky.social. Based on data by Célian and by @intlbrainlab.bsky.social. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehNew study on axon initial segment plasticity by Chloé Benoit and Dan Ganea. Using a deep brain imaging approach, we find that AIS length changes dynamically during associative learning. Thank you to the wonderful team and collaborators who made this work possible. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehHow do biological agents learn for the future? Our perspective piece on the value of prospective learning in neuroscience is finally out. This is part of a long running collaboration with @kordinglab.bsky.social & Josh Vogelstein (as well as many other people) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehLast preprint 🎶(of the year). If vagus nerve stimulation alters motivation by amplifying internal signals, then bodily states should matter. Using milkshake vs. water loads, we show that tVNS-induced changes in Pavlovian bias are dependent on hunger. #neuroskyence 🩺 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
- lab preprint! Interopceptive predictions are central to many brain-body interactions theories, but it's unclear if/how they affect bodily physiology. We (fearless Einav Litvak et al) show that insular cortex predictions are essential for glucose homeostasis-THREAD.. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
- We show that just before a large meal insular cortex activity predicts the future post-meal state. We show this both with head-fixed 2p imaging as well as freely-moving 1p miniscope imaging. This prediction is essential for *learned* anticipatory insulin release AND...
- for subsequent post-meal glucose regulation, lipid regulation, as well as related liver signaling!
- Grateful to collaborators @sarahstern.bsky.social and Kfir Sharabi and lab members for their invaluable help!
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehHow do gut signals shape motivation? After years of hard work led by the fabulous @corcerebrum.bsky.social, we show that ghrelin infusions increase hunger, food motivation, and FC between the hypothalamus and the striatum. This is driven by more pulses in the NAcc. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
- Your stomach called – your striatum picked up! But does this actually happen in humans? Using simultaneous dopamine PET/fMRI, we show that the gut hormone ghrelin helps the brain adjust motivation to current metabolic need. Here’s what we found👇 Preprint: shorturl.at/pq4A3 #neuroskyence #🩺
- Check out this incredible paper! Proud of my wife and her lab (and very happy that I could make a minor contribution)
- Excited to share our new paper in Blood @bloodjournals.hematology.org! 🎉🧬 doi.org/10.1182/bloo... We reveal that dynamics of ribosome composition control translation across the hematopoietic hierarchy and are essential for hematopoietic stem cell fitness🔬🩸
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehA high #fat #diet increases risk taking and suppresses escape neurons in🐁🐁🐁 #neuroscience www.cell.com/current-biol...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehI’m proud to have helped launch the #PITraining survey of FKNE @fkne-scholars.bsky.social We ask PIs to share what really matters for effective research leadership. Your feedback = better support, better science. Take part or share: fenskavlinetwork.org/fkne-pi-surv... Deadline: 29 Dec 2025
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehThis study maps distinct enteric neuron subtypes and shows how each shapes key intestinal functions, from fecal output to feeding. A big step forward in understanding gut–brain neural circuits. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @karapedsgastrodoc.bsky.social
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehThe basal forebrain plays the cortex like a piano.
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehMight explain much about the weight gain following C-19 www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehThrilled to share our new paper! With @tomtom-auer.bsky.social team, we asked how #evolution reshapes what animals #eat to match their ecological niches. Using pan-neuronal Ca2+ imaging, we show that the changes are in how the brain processes #taste. Link @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehNature research paper: Connectivity underlying motor cortex activity during goal-directed behaviour go.nature.com/4pFLw7V
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehMore detailed functional interrogation of enteric neuron subpopulations www.cell.com/cell/abstrac...
- Reposted by Yoav Livneh(1/n) We are excited to share our new paper in Nature Communications, by Hagar Lavian (@hlavian.bsky.social) and team, revealing how the zebrafish brain integrates visual navigation signals! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehSo excited to see our latest paper out today in @natcomms.nature.com! Studies led by the amazing @margestelzner.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41.... VTA GABA neurons have a unique role in economic decision making - they integrate reward seeking motivation and the current cost of seeking
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehCall for junior or mid-career group leaders in neuroscience! Apply by 30 Jan to join the FENS-Kavli Network. We are looking for excellent and engaged future scholars who are committed to exchanging scientific ideas & improve neuroscience in Europe. fenskavlinetwork.org/who-we-are/a...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehExcited to share our new preprint: Blockade of associative spine enlargement impairs awake cortical function biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehOut now: Favila, Capece Marsico et al. 2025, Nature Communications: Using longitudinal deep-brain imaging, we report that amygdala interneurons exhibit complex and heterogeneous plasticity during associative learning, at both the single-cell and population level. 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehThe Crunchometer is a low-cost, open-source technology that uses bite sound to democratize the microstructural analysis of feeding bouts on solid food: 🧪 The Crunchometer: A Low-Cost, Open-Source Acoustic Analysis of Feeding Microstructure. doi.org/10.7554/eLif...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehNew essay in @currentbiology.bsky.social special brain-body issue! Fly lab meets psychiatrist: how bodily signals shape cognition and mental health. Great collaboration with Albino Oliveira-Maia showing @champalimaudf.bsky.social discovery ↔️ clinic at its best. www.cell.com/current-biol...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehI am excited to share my PhD work on head-direction cells recorded in the wild, now published in @science.org, where we recorded neurons in bats flying outdoors on an island. doi.org/10.1126/sci... With @ray-neuro.bsky.social, Shir Maimon, Liora Las, Nachum Ulanovsky and many others
- Reposted by Yoav Livnehwww.nature.com/articles/s41... Emiliani Lab
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehAll-optical experiments are great but @neurorussell.bsky.social found that opsin desensitization due to cross-talk between the imaging laser and the opsin causes major issues. These can be ameleorated with long inter-stimulus intervals & short imaging doses. All here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehWhy does the naked mole rat have the longest lifespan of any rodent, nearly 40 years? A 30-year long mystery unraveled @ScienceMagazine today! Its cGAS enzyme in cells has 4 missense mutations that upends its function, promoting DNA repair and suppressing inflammation www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
- Reposted by Yoav Livnehthey also don't have to be for fruit fly neurobiology to be interesting and worthy of study, so desperately trying to make flies = people is unnecessary and annoying.
- Reposted by Yoav Livneh🎇 Excited to finally share JL Romero Sosa’s publication! Results are from single-cell imaging in different subregions of rat frontal cortex during ✨de novo learning. Spoiler: everything is not everywhere all at once www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehCongratulations to @betleylab.bsky.social and team on this beautiful study! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehEver wonder if there are spatial maps in the brain outside the hippocampal-entorhinal regions? In this preprint, we describe a novel spatial map in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) that preserves the topological arrangements and distance between locations. However, ... www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
- Reposted by Yoav Livneh
- Important and exciting work!
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehEven after recovery, relapse is heartbreakingly common in anorexia nervosa. Could the answer lie in the gut’s hidden signals? 🧵
- Reposted by Yoav LivnehThe #FKNE Leadership Training Course for the Starting PI is open! Don't miss the opportunity to enhance your abilities and learn to tackle challenging moments as an early group leader! Application deadline: 15 Oct. 2025 fenskavlinetwork.org/fkne-leaders... @fens.org
