Yuta Senzai @yutasenzai Twitter profile

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Yuta Senzai

5 months

Thrilled to announce that I will start my lab at Northwestern University @NUFeinbergMed @Neuroscience_NU @NuinComm in January 2025!! My lab will study circuit mechanisms for active vision and dream perception, using behaving/sleeping mice.

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 years

I am happy to share our new paper now on @Science . We discovered that rapid eye movements (REM) during sleep provide a readout of the internal representation of head direction, suggesting they could reveal gaze shifts in dreams. Link: -Brief🧵follows⬇️ 1/7

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 months

New preprint post! We show that motor commands in the superior colliculus shift the internal representation of heading during REM sleep despite the immobility of sleeping mice. Thus, the brain simulates actions and their consequences during REM sleep.🧵1/7

The brain simulates actions and their consequences during REM sleep

Vivid dreams mostly occur during a phase of sleep called REM[1][1]–[5][2]. During REM sleep, the brain’s internal representation of direction keeps shifting like that of an awake animal moving...

www.biorxiv.org

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 years

P.S. Shameless self-promotion: I am looking for a faculty job to take an endeavor further into the mystery of REM sleep. If you know about any great opportunities, please let me know! 7/7

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

11 months

At #SfN23 Sunday PM Board TT21, I will present my poster! I am going talk about dreams of sleeping mice💤, especially about the brain structure that triggers virtual head turn during REM sleep “dreaming”. Please stop by! Looking forward to seeing you all.

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 years

If you are at #SfN2022 and interested in sleep, rapid eye movements, head direction cells or the superior colliculus, please drop by my poster. I will be presenting my poster on November 13th, Sunday afternoon 1-5pm at [237.10 / VV13]. Looking forward to seeing you!

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 years

Strikingly, we discovered that eye movement direction in sleeping mice precisely matched changes in virtual HD, very much like gaze shifts in the awake mouse. This discovery suggests that eye movements during REM sleep disclose gaze shifts in the virtual world of REM sleep. 5/7

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

12 days

I will be attending SFN at Chicago and present a poster on Saturday PM (Board F21). Please drop by if you will be around!

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 years

For this work, I appreciate the support from my postdoc mentor, Massimo Scanziani, and all who have helped me throughout my career. Among them, I will show special thanks to @apeyrache since I got a huge inspiration from the great work done by him and colleagues. 6/7

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 months

My new lab at @NorthwesternU @NuinComm will study the SC as a hub orchestrating perception in waking life and dreams during sleep. We study its interactions with thalamocortical circuits for active vision and navigation. We are hiring at all levels! 7/7

Postdoctoral Scholar – Active Perception in Navigation and Dreams - Chicago, Illinois

The Senzai Lab (https://sites.northwestern.edu/senzailab/) is launching at Northwestern University in January 2025, and we are seeking highly motiv...

neurojobs.sfn.org

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 years

Thank you all for the kind words and helpful information. I am actually happily overwhelmed by the amount of responses. Sorry if I have not responded to your comments yet. Still figuring out how to use twitter properly (sometimes I can see one comment but not the other time).

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 months

During REM sleep, associated with vivid dreams, the brain’s internal representation of heading keeps shifting, as @apeyrache found. What causes these shifts? We tested for the contribution of the superior colliculus (SC), a midbrain structure involved in orienting movements. 2/7

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 years

The significance of rapid eye movements during REM sleep has intrigued many scientists. Do they reveal gaze shifts in the world of dreams or simply reflect random brainstem activity? To address this question, we harnessed the head direction (HD) cells in the mouse thalamus. 2/7

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 months

Finally, to establish causality between SC activity and virtual heading, we blocked activity in the right SC that contributes to left (CCW) turns in awake mice. Strikingly, this abolished CCW shifts in virtual heading during REM sleep, leading to biased virtual head turns. 5/7

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 years

In order to test this idea, we monitored rapid eye movements with head-mounted cameras, while recording HD cells to decode virtual HD during REM sleep. Fortunately for neuroscientists, mice often sleep with their eyes open. 4/7

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 months

This study suggests that the sleeping brain uses its internal model of the world to simulate interactions with it and that the SC orchestrates such an internal model. Lastly, I'd like to thank @eric_denovellis for sharing his amazing decoder, which works great on HD cells! 6/7

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

1 year

My Facebook account seems to be hacked a few days ago. I would appreciate it if someone knows how to recover the account (somebody already changed the email and the password). I tried some online suggestions but they did not work well..

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 years

HD cells report actual HD in awake mice and virtual HD during REM sleep. We focused on HD cells because the head and eyes move to the same direction to shit gazes in freely moving animals. Does a similar coordination exist in the sleeping mouse? 3/7

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

4 months

Thank you @KentaM_Hagihara @tak_miyawaki for having me in the Japanese neuroscience podcast @NeuroRadio_ !! I had a lot of fun and yes, I am hiring at all levels!

Kenta M. Hagihara

@KentaM_Hagihara

4 months

Yuta ( @yutasenzai ), formerly trained in Scanziani/Buzsaki labs as a hardcore e-physiologist, is opening his lab in Jan and recruiting. Get in touch!

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 months

We first examined the activity of SC turn cells during REM sleep, whose activity is modulated by head turns in awake mice. We found that turn cells that fire together in awake mice also fire together during REM sleep, giving rise to “population turn events” in sleeping mice. 3/7

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

3 years

My first tweet ever is for my SfN poster. In addition to the group chat at 8:45am CST on Nov 9, I will present my poster over Zoom 4:30-7pm CST on Nov 9 and 10. The link is on the poster. If you are not on the virtual SfN, I can send you the link over DM, so please let me know.

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 months

We then tested whether SC activity during REM sleep predicts shifts in the virtual representation of heading, decoded from head direction (HD) cells. We discovered that SC turn cell firing, especially during population turn events, can predict shifts in virtual heading. 4/7

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 years

We also thank @edyong209 for his article in @TheAtlantic . I feel very humble to have comments from neuroscientists I respect. I agree with their criticism in terms of the interpretation of our results. I hope future studies will untangle the issues. 5/5

A New Test for an Old Theory About Dreams

When a sleeping animal’s eyes twitch beneath its eyelids, is it looking around a dream world?

www.theatlantic.com

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

5 months

I will be looking for research technicians, graduate students, and postdocs to join the lab and enjoy science together. Please contact me if you are interested! I will be at meetings such as Neuro2024 in Japan and SfN in Chicago(!!), so please feel free to get in touch to chat!

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 years

I would also like to share some coverages for our work. First, I thank @boron110 from Science Podcast for making the great piece with her brilliant editing. Also thank you for the opportunity. 1/5

Chasing Arctic cyclones, brain coordination in REM sleep, and a book on seafood in the information...

On this week’s show: Monitoring summer cyclones in the Arctic, how eye movements during sleep may reflect movements in dreams, and the latest in our series of books on the science of food and...

www.science.org

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

5 months

I am very grateful that I have been supported and guided by my incredible mentors and friends, especially Gyuri @brainrhythms , Massimo, and all those who helped me along the way at @UCSFNSGrad @NYULH_Neuro @KyotoU_News and many other places. Thank you!!

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 years

We also thank @ClareWilsonMed for her article in @newscientist . 4/5

Rapid eye movements during sleep reveal where mice look in dreams

If rapid eye movements during human sleep show the same correlation, researchers may be able see where we are heading in our dreams

www.newscientist.com

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 months

@chrisXrodgers Thank you for your comment! It is hard to know how the mouse "actually thinks". My future lab will investigate the extent the sensori-motor-navigation systems are coordinated during REM sleep to approach the question.

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

2 years

@KayserLab Thank you for the information!

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Yuta Senzai

@yutasenzai

5 months

@feynman1104 @NUFeinbergMed @Neuroscience_NU @NuinComm Thank you! Also, thank you for all your help!!