What can math tell us about the mind? Our Center for Theoretical Neuroscience @cu_neurotheory builds mathematical models of the brain that help explain everything from how its electrical activity remains stable to how memories are stored.
Meet some of the scientists advancing this young field, using tools borrowed from physics, statistics and other disciplines.
youtu.be/J1EOgsqyYn0
Meet some of the scientists advancing this young field, using tools borrowed from physics, statistics and other disciplines.
youtu.be/J1EOgsqyYn0
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Thank you to everyone who supported the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute on #ColumbiaGivingDay! Thanks to your help we won two separate hourly challenges yesterday that awarded additional bonus funds for our early-career scientists.
Please contact us if you have any to learn more about The Future in Mind Initiative:
tinyurl.com/ydm49pz9
Please contact us if you have any to learn more about The Future in Mind Initiative:
tinyurl.com/ydm49pz9
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Please join us on Nov 4 for our next @SNForg Brain Insight Lecture, Looking Within the Autistic Experience.
Experts from education and psychology will come together to discuss the importance of centering autistic narratives in research.
Learn more and register:
zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/stavros-niarch…
Experts from education and psychology will come together to discuss the importance of centering autistic narratives in research.
Learn more and register:
zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/stavros-niarch…
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It’s #ColumbiaGivingDay! 🧠 Donate to @Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute before midnight to support early-career scientists—from undergrads to junior faculty. Every dollar fuels neuroscience research, and first-time gifts are 100% MATCHED (up to $1,000) bit.ly/ZMBBIWeb2026.
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Congratulations to neuroscientist @GogosLabZMBBI and @ColumbiaMed physician-scientist Stephen Kushner, whose innovative research advancing the understanding and treatment of mental illness is being recognized by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation @BBRFoundation.
bbrfoundation.org/content/brain-…
bbrfoundation.org/content/brain-…
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Amyloid fibers are best known as hallmarks of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. But they recently turned up in a surprising place: in sperm, shuttling genetic material. The new research from the @FitzpatrickLab holds potential for gene-editing technologies.
Learn l:
zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/protein-fibers…
@ColumbiaMed
Learn l:
zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/protein-fibers…
@ColumbiaMed
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Congratulations to the @NimaMesgarani lab’s Xiaomin He and alumnus @infinivishal, who received the Best Student Paper Award at #interspeech2026 for their work on brain-controlled hearing research. 👏🧠👏
Read more: isca-speech.org/ISCA-Awards
@ColumbiaMed
Read more: isca-speech.org/ISCA-Awards
@ColumbiaMed
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Save the date: Wednesday, October 28, is #ColumbiaGivingDay!
givingday.columbia.edu/pages/the-mort…
Stand for science on Giving Day! Your donation goes directly to supporting the students and postdocs who make research possible: the next generation of neuroscientists discovering incredible n and behavior at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute.
Please pass this along to friends and all who might be interested. All first-time gifts to the university or institute will be 100% matched (up to $1,000) on October 28, thanks to Giving Day Challenge Funds!
givingday.columbia.edu/pages/the-mort…
Stand for science on Giving Day! Your donation goes directly to supporting the students and postdocs who make research possible: the next generation of neuroscientists discovering incredible n and behavior at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute.
Please pass this along to friends and all who might be interested. All first-time gifts to the university or institute will be 100% matched (up to $1,000) on October 28, thanks to Giving Day Challenge Funds!
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Columbia University's Zuckerman Institute retweeted
How the Lab, an improv troupe started by a @Columbia neuroscientist, uses comedy to communicate science to the public. magazine.columbia.edu/article/neuros…
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Why study cuttlefish in a neuroscience lab? A recent @nytimes article dives deep into this creature’s ability to mimic on its skin what it sees in the environment.
Read more about Tessa Montague, Connor Gibbons Thomas Barlow and Erika Shook:
nytimes.com/2026/10/12/sci…
Read more about Tessa Montague, Connor Gibbons Thomas Barlow and Erika Shook:
nytimes.com/2026/10/12/sci…
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Columbia University's Zuckerman Institute retweeted
Exclusive: When Tessa Montague learned about #CRISPR, the gene-editing system that was supposed to make it easy to modify any organism, she set her sights on the cuttlefish. The Columbia University neuroscientist dreamed of injecting its embryos with genes that would prompt its they fired.
The flashes would let her track how this tentacled creature's brain controls one of its most striking behaviors: camouflaging itself by copying patterns it perceives in its surroundings onto its skin. Unlike most animals, she says, “cuttlefish can actually tell us what they see.”
Six years and thousands of embryos later, she has reached a milestone: seven cuttlefish that glow red under fluorescent light. Every cell in their boneless bodies contains a gene encoding a synthetic fluorescent protein—even their eggs and sperm, which means their cuttlebabies glow, too.
The work, posted as a preprint, marks the first time anyone has successfully added a new gene to a cephalopod. scim.ag/4ytddWd @NewsfromScience
The flashes would let her track how this tentacled creature's brain controls one of its most striking behaviors: camouflaging itself by copying patterns it perceives in its surroundings onto its skin. Unlike most animals, she says, “cuttlefish can actually tell us what they see.”
Six years and thousands of embryos later, she has reached a milestone: seven cuttlefish that glow red under fluorescent light. Every cell in their boneless bodies contains a gene encoding a synthetic fluorescent protein—even their eggs and sperm, which means their cuttlebabies glow, too.
The work, posted as a preprint, marks the first time anyone has successfully added a new gene to a cephalopod. scim.ag/4ytddWd @NewsfromScience
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As we congratulate @Columbia economist Michael Woodford on his Nobel Prize, we remember an unusual collaboration he undertook years ago with neuroscientist Jacqueline Gottlieb: an exploration of what motivates us to pay attention to certain pieces of information and invest in acquiring them.
youtube.com/watch?v=OF7hDE…
youtube.com/watch?v=OF7hDE…
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Things are getting spooky at Saturday Science!
Join us on October 17 for Spooky Senses, an afternoon of hands-on activities exploring the science of the brain and our senses. Bring the whole family for some spooky science fun!
Free and open to all ages! Register at bit.ly/Oct2026SS
Join us on October 17 for Spooky Senses, an afternoon of hands-on activities exploring the science of the brain and our senses. Bring the whole family for some spooky science fun!
Free and open to all ages! Register at bit.ly/Oct2026SS
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RT @Columbia: “I offer my deepest congratulations to Michael Woodford on this tremendous honor. What a tribute to his groundbreaking work a…
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This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine honors optogenetics: a tool that has revolutionized neuroscience by allowing scientists to turn specific brain cells on and off with light. We congratulate the pioneers of this technology (a mainstay in many of our labs) at @Stanford, @HumboldtUni and @Uni_WUE
👏🧠👏
👏🧠👏
BREAKING NEWS
The 2026 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel “for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.”
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Columbia University's Zuckerman Institute retweeted
ANNOUNCING THE 2026 WOLF PRIZE LAUREATE IN MEDICINE
The 2026 Wolf Prize in Medicine is awarded to Charles S. Zuker of Columbia University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, “for revolutionizing our understanding of taste, the last of our senses to be elucidated.”
Sweet. ami:
Zuker’s research revealed the cells and receptors responsible for each of the five basic tastes - and showed how those signals are encoded and represented in the brain.
His experiments went even further: by rewiring taste receptors in mice, his team demonstrated that what makes something feel “sweet” or “bitter” is not simply the receptor itself, but the specific neural pathway activated between the tongue and the brain.
By defining how chemical signals on the tongue are translated into perception and behavior, Zuker transformed taste from one of the least understood sensory systems into one of the best mapped in modern neuroscience.
Congratulations to Charles S. Zuker, 2026 Wolf Prize Laureate in Medicine.
The 2026 Wolf Prize in Medicine is awarded to Charles S. Zuker of Columbia University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, “for revolutionizing our understanding of taste, the last of our senses to be elucidated.”
Sweet. ami:
Zuker’s research revealed the cells and receptors responsible for each of the five basic tastes - and showed how those signals are encoded and represented in the brain.
His experiments went even further: by rewiring taste receptors in mice, his team demonstrated that what makes something feel “sweet” or “bitter” is not simply the receptor itself, but the specific neural pathway activated between the tongue and the brain.
By defining how chemical signals on the tongue are translated into perception and behavior, Zuker transformed taste from one of the least understood sensory systems into one of the best mapped in modern neuroscience.
Congratulations to Charles S. Zuker, 2026 Wolf Prize Laureate in Medicine.
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