Congrats! Krembil is an amazing place.

Header for my new publication (linked)

It’s published… the first manuscript from the Rich Lab is officially typeset and published!!!

What an absolutely surreal moment… that I’m going to try my best to enjoy while awaiting the results of a study section from last week 😅😅😅

journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

Study section for a resubmission is meeting today. Send me good vibes… and suggestions to distract myself ;)

5/n Contemporary evidence shows that cortical ACh concentrations vary over milliseconds, which we hypothesize plays a role in the effects of vagus nerve stimulation. These results show changes in ACh on this timescale are critical, as they exert profound control over neuronal network oscillations.

4/n We further dissect these unique dynamics using computational tools, identifying the E->I synaptic weight as exerting tight control over both the duration of synchrony and which of two distinct mechanisms drives desynchronization.

Figure 4 of Pandian and Rich 2026. When subject to time-varying cholinergic modulation, E-I networks with dominant inter-connectivity respond similarly to systems with tonic modulation. However, systems with dominant intra-connectivity respond uniquely to this new dynamic modulation, maintaining synchronous behavior at higher levels of modeled cholinergic tone.

3/n Simplified cortical microcircuits subjected to this dynamic cholinergic modulation retain synchronous dynamics for larger modeled cholinergic tone than analogous systems subject to tonic modulation. This indicates that the time course of ACh is critical to network dynamics.

2/n Spearheaded by one of the lab's first undergraduate research assistants, in this work we built a model in which cholinergic modulation can vary dynamically over time. To this point computational modeling has almost exclusively considered cholinergic tone as a set feature of a given network.

Dynamic cholinergic signaling differentially desynchronizes cortical microcircuits dependent on modulation rate and network connectivity Author summary Acetylcholine (ACh) is a chemical messenger that alters the intrinsic properties of neurons and in turn regulates brain activity related to cognitive functions such as sensory processin...

1/n Good news everyone!

I'm excited to announce the lab's first manuscript is accepted and (preliminarily) published at @plos.org Computational Biology!

This is an absolutely surreal moment as a #NewPI 😀

#neuroskyence #compneuro #AcademicSky 🧪

journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol...

It’s brutal in academia right now. A lot is out of our control, but it doesn’t cost anything to remember that there are humans behind papers and grants…reviewers, program officials and funders can be more empathetic in the face of unprecedented chaos in the US scientific enterprise.

a basketball player wearing a michigan jersey stands on the court during a game ALT: a basketball player wearing a michigan jersey stands on the court during a game

I remember Tractor Traylor.

I remember irrelevance.

I remember John Beilein winning with 0* recruits Zak Novak and Stu Douglass.

I remember Spike Albrecht nearly becoming a legend.

I remember Captain Hook.

Now, for the first time in my lifetime… Michigan Basketball are NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!

To my all the amazing @uconn.bsky.social students, some friendly advice:

Generally speaking, it’s never good to imitate Buckeyes ;)

Oh, and GO BLUE!!!

A friend is an engineer in Silicon Valley. Unsurprisingly, AI is integral to his day-to-day. Somewhat surprisingly, he’s fully on board.

I believe relying on AI undermines the creative thought required for research. But now I’m thinking, what tasks, if any, WOULD be an appropriate use of AI for us?

Second desk rejection in 48ish hours arrives at 7 pm on a Friday night, and with it the realization that my skin is not nearly as thick as I thought it was 2 years into being a PI. 🫠🫠🫠

How heterogeneity shapes dynamics and computation in the brain No two neurons are the same, yet models often treat neural populations as pools of identical and interchangeable elements. Here, Dahmen et al. highlight recent theoretical advances that reveal the imp...

At the Bernstein Conference 2024, Jeremie Lefebvre and I organized a workshop on the computational consequences of neural heterogeneity. Now, slightly more than a year later, we funneled the emerging discussions into a perspective piece: www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

5/5 This is another example of a scenario in which more accurately approximating the biophysical reality, rather than idealizing it away, better captures critical in vivo brain dynamics.

Doing so by accounting for the heterogeneity of the brain will continue to be a main focus of my lab 😀

4/5 This convergent in silico and analytical evidence shows that biophysical detail does not "break" existing theory of gamma oscillations in neuronal microcircuits. Instead, it biases such systems away from traditional, idealized rhythms and towards newly described, more realistic gamma activity.

Snapshot of a figure from "Physiologically realistic gamma activity produced in silico by weakening the PING attractor state" showcasing a phase portrait of Wilson Cowan equations that yield transient gamma activity (illustrated via firing rate plots and associated spectral analysis).

Snapshot of a figure from "Physiologically realistic gamma activity produced in silico by weakening the PING attractor state" showcasing a phase portrait of a dynamical system with a co-existing stable limit cycle and stable focus.

3/5 We explain this phenomenon via mathematical analysis: these transient gamma events share a striking resemblance to dynamics caused by damped oscillations. While PING rhythms are traditionally associated with stable limit cycles, we also show that both phenomena commonly coexist.

Snapshot of a figure from "Physiologically realistic gamma activity produced in silico by weakening the PING attractor state" showcasing a transient gamma event via a raster plot, firing rate histogram, and spectral analysis.

2/5 We studied sources of biophysical realism that have classically been viewed as "breaking" idealized in silico Pyramidal Interneuron Network Gamma rhythms. But these changes ALSO create transient gamma events that more closely mirror the in vivo reality of gamma activity!

1/5 Big news: the pre-print for my final postdoc paper is (finally) out!

Why did it take so long? We significantly expanded the manuscript thanks largely to the incredible work of one of my first undergraduates here at @uconn.bsky.social @uconnresearch.bsky.social 😀

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Since the Scrubs reboot was actually enjoyable, my lizard millennial brain reverted to thinking maybe I should’ve been a medical doctor.

Then I finally started The Pitt… and I’m pretty sure I made the right choice.

Balance 😅😂

Coming soon: The Mohegan Sun Rich Lab presented by Dr. Pepper.

cool people, follow them!

I built a bluesky labeler for neuroscience methods.

1️⃣ follow/subscribe to: @neuromethods.bsky.social
2️⃣ like the post with your favorite method
➡️ get a shiny methods label in your profile/posts. 🌟

NIH research grant funding rates plummeted in 2025 Agency acknowledges young investigators are losing out as result of multiyear funding policy imposed by White House

www.science.org/content/arti...

Cool time to start a science career. As a grad student in the early 2010’s I thought I was lucky because I didn’t have to worry about funding at the time and things would be better when I was trying to start my lab

WHAT. A. GOAL.

Sorry Canadian friends and family 😅😅😅

Hear me out… maybe putting an athlete who toils in relative obscurity for 99% of their life under a two week international microscope that defines their entire career doesn’t do them any good.

I will always be proud to be (half) Canadian.

I wish more senior academics would explicitly say this to their peers.

The traditional trajectory of building a lab and getting tenure has been completely upended. Validating the anxieties that stem from this new reality means so much more than (even well meaning) “back in my day” advice.

Being interdisciplinary mostly means everyone agrees your work is interesting but not for their journal.

I’ve always been proud to be an alumnus of the Duke Chronicle (even though I was in the Sports section, hahaha).

The Chronicle has always been a bastion for quality, independent student journalism. Seeing that recognized is such a boost 😀😀😀

If you parent a college student, could you pretty please with sugar on top ask them to stop using ChatGPT to email their professors? These emails are driving us slowly bananas.