Writing out a conversation I’ve been having a lot at this conference:
Things in US science are far, far worse than people know.
Far worse than even other scientists know.
1/
STAND UP FOR SCIENCE CHICAGO NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION Take back our science, health, and democracy! MARCH 7TH, 2026 CHICAGO, IL AND NATIONWIDE! STAND UP FOR SCIENCE™ standupforscience.net/march7
CHICAGO! Join your local March 7th rally to take back our science! Learn more at standupforscience.net/march7
#rally
#March7
#ImpeachRFKJr
#science
#standupforscience
Excited to share our new work from @kenmiller.bsky.social lab!
How do different cell types, interacting via recurrent connections, give rise to context-dependent processing and circuit stability, and what dynamical signatures reveal their individual roles? (1/11)
doi.org/10.64898/2026.02.06.704473
Here, @philipcball.bsky.social sums up the whole ugly Epstein mess and why it matters (along multiple dimensions). Reading it was therapeutic.
If Jeff Bezos could afford to spend $75 million on the Melania movie & $500 million for a yacht to sail off to his $55 million wedding to give his wife a $5 million ring, please don't tell me he needed to fire one-third of the Washington Post staff.
Democracy dies in oligarchy.
A special year for the Cajal Course in Computational Neuroscience: the BRAIN Prize winners Haim Sompolinsky and Larry Abbott will join us as keynote speakers. And we will bring you the same great roster of instructors as every year. Applications are now open! cajal-training.org/on-site/comp...
We are very excited to announce that our new preprint with Saleh Esteki, @stefanofusi.bsky.social, and @roozbehkiani.bsky.social is now available on biorxiv! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6.... We investigated how reward context is learned, represented, and updated to bias decisions. Thread 🧵👇! 1/13
Incredible piece on Oliver Sacks. If you were ever awed at his supposedly true stories (I remember being stunned by the account of the autistic twins who rattled off large prime numbers), read this. He told wonderful stories, but they were in large part fiction.
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Finally got the job ad—looking for 2 PhD students to start spring next year:
www.gao-unit.com/join-us/
If comp neuro, ML, and AI4Neuro is your thing, or you just nerd out over brain recordings, apply!
I'm at neurips. DM me here / on the conference app or email if you want to meet 🏖️🌮
Reminder if you missed #SNUFA spiking neural network and neuromorphic workshop earlier this month, all our talks were recorded and are now available to watch. 🤖🧠🧪
www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
I'm presenting our recent preprint on "Assembly-based computations through contextual dendritic gating of plasticity" at the online workshop SNUFA tomorrow at 2:55pm (CET).
They have a really cool lineup, check the agenda and the (free) registration link below 👇
After 13 years in the US, I’ve made the difficult decision to leave. Having packed up everything and rethought about priorities, rather painstakingly, while I’m sad to leave the life I’ve made here, I’m also relieved that I won’t have to plan my life around immigration policies anymore.
Spiking NN fans - the #SNUFA workshop (Nov 5-6) agenda is finalised and online now. Make sure to register (free) soon. (Note you can register for either day and come to both.)
Agenda: snufa.net/2025/
Registration: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/snufa-2025...
Thanks to all who voted on abstracts!
🤖🧠🧪
📢 🚨 Technical Assistant Opportunity in Neuroscience 📢 🚨
Join us at @lmumuenchen.bsky.social and support research on how neural circuits 🧠 drive adaptive behavior!
⏳ Deadline: 15. November 2025
Learn more and apply: www.fens.org/careers/job-...
This moment from our latest episode with science writer @edyong209.bsky.social is 🔥
We asked Ed — how do we talk up the benefits of science in the face of government cuts? He told us that's the wrong approach. 🧪
Listen wherever, or watch on Spotify 👇
open.spotify.com/episode/7Evh...
Hi #Neuroscience,
Exciting news—I’m recruiting a PhD student to join my lab and study neuroscience in larval zebrafish 🧠🐟
Microscopy expertise is a big plus!
Link: drive.google.com/file/d/1Wb4h...
Thrilled to share our new Adesnik lab paper!!
Using holography in excitatory & inhibitory neurons, we reveal how a single cortical circuit can both complete and cancel predictable sensory activity, sharpening representations
📄www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08....
🧵
1/N What are the organizational principles underlying crossmodal cortical connections?
We address this in this new preprint, led by @alexegeaweiss.bsky.social & @bturner-bridger.bsky.social in collab w/ @petrznam.bsky.social @crick.ac.uk
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
I have heard about it, but I am not sure about the connection to our model. Could you share some papers with me that you think might be relevant? Thanks!
Thank you!
Yes, exactly, the idea is that (in cortex) the VIP-SST disinhibitory pathway gates plasticity at the dendrites, while PVs stabilize the activity of E cells. We have a paragraph about this with more details in the Discussion section of the manuscript.
Very happy to share this preprint from the lab led by @cmiehl.bsky.social, Sebastian and Maurycy on how to flexibly learn with nonlinear dendrites and inhibitory context-dependent gating, putting biological detail in ANNs. Check out Christoph's post below for a preview or the paper for more details!
This work has been co-led by Sebastian Onasch and me, with help from M. Maurycy Miękus under the guidance of @gjorjulijana.bsky.social.
Thanks to our funding sources @erc.europa.eu and @hfspo.bsky.social!
If you have questions/feedback, don’t hesitate to contact us! 12/12
In conclusion, we introduce new avenues for performing assembly computations with biologically inspired mechanisms, demonstrating flexible learning and combining of assemblies without forgetting, bridging the gap between biological realism and computational functionality in circuit modeling. 11/12
We show that in hierarchically connected areas, assemblies enhance recall & pattern completion in downstream areas, despite disruptions in previous areas.
Finally, we show how our model allows for learning of associations with existing assemblies, another key concept for flexible learning. 10/12
We designed a visual-auditory association task to demonstrate the applicability of this ‘assembly calculus’ framework in a real-world example. Our model can correctly classify letters and numbers in a downstream concept area, even if only part of the sensory information is presented. 9/12
We next investigated how the formed assemblies can be combined across areas. We focus on two assembly operations – projections and associations. In short, these operations can be learned across areas – importantly without any decay (forgetting) of previously learned structures. 8/12
In a recurrent network with 400 multi-compartment neurons, switching one inhibitory context “on” allows for learning of stable dendrite-specific assemblies at disinhibited dendritic compartments. 7/12
Assuming that inhibitory (sub-) populations encode “context” signals controlling distinct dendritic compartments, inhibitory neurons can flexibly gate plasticity on or off at each specific dendritic compartment. 6/12
We use a multi-compartment neuron model with a spiking soma in which synapses at the dendrites undergo voltage-dependent synaptic plasticity. Here, the balance of excitatory and inhibitory inputs at each dendrite determines the sign and amount of plasticity. 5/12
