Blog | Sainsbury Wellcome Centre

Brain waves: causes, correlations and controversies

Based at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr Vikaas Sohal's lab investigates the brain circuits underlying fundamental aspects of cognition and emotion. Following his SWC Seminar, Dr Sohal shared his key findings, clinical implications and next steps.

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Autism: could reduced error monitoring be a reliable biomarker?

To understand how the brain responds to feedback, researchers set up a perceptual task for participants and used electroencephalography to measure their brain activity related to an area called the anterior cingulate cortex, which is known to be crucial in dynamic environments. The findings from the study provide insights into differences in updating perceptual priors and testing whether reduced error monitoring could act as a reliable biomarker for autism.

Mysteries of sleep: insights and discoveries

From a chance encounter with a review article on histamine and wakefulness, to leading a research group investigating the fundamental purpose of sleep, SWC Seminar Speaker Professor William Wisden shares in this interview some intriguing findings.

Understanding sensory and gastrointestinal differences in autism spectrum disorder

Many people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience sensory abnormalities and gastrointestinal issues, but the neural circuit disruptions underlying these differences are not well understood. Following her SWC Seminar, Professor Lauren Orefice shares her key findings and the potential clinical implications of her work.

How does space travel impact astronauts’ kidneys? SWC Advanced Microscopy team aids new study

In a pioneering study that bridges the realms of space exploration and biomedical science, a UCL-led team of researchers embarked upon a mission to understand the effects of space travel on kidney health. The SWC Advanced Microscopy team played a pivotal role in this research, providing cutting-edge imaging techniques that were crucial to the study’s success.

Inaugural symposium brings animal technicians together

Organised by Eleni Amaniti and Amy Lynch of the SWC Neurobiological Research Facility, the Career Pathways for Animal Technicians Symposium sought to gather together voices from various parts of the animal technology and husbandry industry to: inspire career pathways for young technicians, provide space for further networking, and collectively confirm best practices for animal research in the biomedical sciences.

Neuroinformatics Unit paves way for open science initiatives

The Neuroinformatics Unit works closely with researchers at SWC and the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit on multiple projects spanning the enhancement of BrainGlobe, standardisation of data structures, and refinement of pipelines for microscopy images, among others. Their ethos? Open science.

Gaze and cooperative strategy: interareal interactions in the social brain

In this Q&A, SWC Seminar speaker Professor Steve Chang discusses his journey into studying the neural bases of social interaction. He shares his work developing an automated cooperation paradigm for marmosets, discovering different frequency modules for processing rewards in the brain, and more.

Tunnelling into social codes of the bat hippocampus

In the evolving landscape of neuroscience, understanding brain function in naturalistic settings has been challenging. Professor Nachum Ulanovsky sheds light on the recent breakthroughs overcoming these obstacles, focusing on his research with bats. He elaborates on his team’s discovery of how the hippocampus codes social variables and recent experiments on an uninhabited island in Tanzania.

Public Engagement

Navigating real-world challenges at the Neuronauts School Club

First organised in 2023, the Neuronauts School Club has invited London secondary school students to increase accessibility, excitement, and career prospects in science.

Painting of two mice interacting, one with Repix

Repix: facilitating chronic Neuropixels recordings

When studying social behaviours, it is crucial that animals engage in natural interactions. But carrying out neural recordings in freely moving animals can be challenging. To solve these problems, a large team of scientists at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre at UCL collaborated with expert engineers in the SWC fabrication laboratory to create Repix.

Tracking behaviour in 3D

In his recent SWC Seminar, Dr Timothy Dunn presented a new approach for multi-animal 3D tracking and social behaviour analysis in rats. In this Q&A, Dr Dunn explains how his new approach differs from previous tools and the implications of 3D tracking on understanding autism and Parkinson’s.