Wow!

What?!!!!! They are ending continuous submission? grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Acetylcholine demixes heterogeneous dopamine signals for learning and moving Nature Neuroscience - Jang et al. measured dopamine and acetylcholine release in the striatum of rats performing a decision-making task and found that the relative timing of cholinergic and...

Thrilled to share our new paper, which shows that the relative timing of cholinergic and dopamine release dynamically gates whether dopamine acts as an RPE for in vivo plasticity and reinforcement learning. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I'm sure folks have thoughts..... grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

FFS

A line graph showing the fraction of R01 applications funded as a function of percentile for NIMH. The estimated success rate for FY2024 was 20.4% compared with 10.0% for FY2025.

9/25

A new Department of Cognitive Science is being created at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy.

Here is the call for a cluster hire (for around 10 faculty) in all areas of cognitive science, at both junior and senior levels:

www.unibocconi.it/en/faculty-a...

Deadline: May 4th, 2026

The impact is already hitting science agencies hard. The NIH—the world's largest public biomedical research funder—has had to rely on leftover stopgap funds.

New grant awards have slowed to a trickle — exacerbating the effects of a record-long shutdown in October.

(h/t @jeremymberg.bsky.social)

The Journal of Neuroscience: 46 (8)

Very excited to share a Special Collection at the Journal of Neuroscience (@sfnjournals.bsky.social) - Central Questions for Social Neuroscience Research. This issue includes some of the latest perspectives on social neuroscience research. Please check it out!👇

www.jneurosci.org/content/46/8

NIMH is being “rebranded” to “NIH innovates”

Come be our colleague! The Center for Neural Science at NYU is accepting applications at the Assistant Professor level in computational neuroscience and/or neural engineering apply.interfolio.com/182074

NYU's Center for Neural Science is seeking a faculty candidate that would be jointly appointed with our Tandon School of Engineering. We are looking for post-doc applicants with neuroengineering or computational backgrounds.

apply.interfolio.com/182074

Experimental task. Trials began with variable fixation (500–1,000 ms) and placeholder (500–1,000 ms) intervals, followed by two spatial cues (100 ms) on opposite sides of the visual field to indicate the likely locations of both a subsequent near-threshold target and a salient distractor (100 ms). Cue validity was 70% for both cue types. Targets and distractors were presented after a variable delay (500–1,600 ms). Stimulus displays could include (i) both a target and a distractor, (ii) a target only, (iii) a distractor only, or (iv) neither a target nor a distractor. The number pad on a computer keyboard was used to indicate the presence of a target at the cued location, a target at a non-cued location, or no target.

Attentional resources vary rhythmically, but what about susceptibility to #distractors?@fiebelkornian.bsky.social &co show that theta & alpha phases modulate sensitivity & distractor impact, revealing rhythm-specific mechanisms shaping #attention & distractability @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4tU0vh4

Our paper is out in @natneuro.nature.com!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We develop a geometric theory of how neural populations support generalization across many tasks.

@zuckermanbrain.bsky.social
@flatironinstitute.org
@kempnerinstitute.bsky.social

1/14

Don’t get me started on the hypocrisy of this organization aligning with the current NIH/HHS “leaders”: kill all the animals you want to eat more and more animal flesh and fat but it is unethical to use animals for life saving medical research

This is a catastrophic unforced error.

It was quite something to hear @ohsunews.bsky.social President Shereef Elnahal equate the shambolic lies of fringe groups (“others”) with the heartfelt & credible testimony of the scientists & veterinarians in his employ.

“Teammates” don’t support rivals.

Take action TODAY. Provide public comment in writing by emailing ohsuboard@ohsu.edu by THIS FRIDAY, Feb. 6 at noon PT. Include “For public comment” in the subject line. The battles are local AND national. All NHP researchers in the USA are at risk next.

www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

Our lab will be boycotting biotech vendors that have contracts with ICE (e.g., Fisher, Agilent), and telling them why. If you google “vendorname usa spending”, you can see purchases for specific depts including ICE on usaspending.gov. Please talk to your labs and email your vendors!

SfN Neuronline logo. Webinar series: Meet-the-Expert. Nonhuman Primate Neuroscience: A 20-Year History of Unplanned Advocacy. Wednesday, February 11, 1–2 p.m. EST. Michele A. Basso, PhD.

Nonhuman primate neuroscience research remains crucial in advancing scientific discovery.

Hear from someone with more than 20 years of experience in this space on how to educate and advocate in this upcoming Meet-the-Expert webinar.

Register now 🔗: vist.ly/4prsr

#neurosky #academicchatter

OHSU board contemplates closure of primate research center; its scientists plead for support Scientists at the Oregon National Primate Research Center say their work is driving critical medical advances. But leadership at the federal level has questioned the value of the research model, and c...

The same conservatives pushing to close facilities like this will then go on to ridicule biomedical research done on lower animals as "wasteful and irrelevant to human health". You can't have it both ways. www.opb.org/article/2026...

Jobs | City University of New York

I'm very excited to announce that the Psychology Department at Brooklyn College of CUNY is hiring a tenure-track line in Cognitive Neuroscience. Applications are being accepted now, and review will begin on or after February 23rd, please repost!

#PsychSciSky #neuroskyence

cuny.jobs/brooklyn-ny/...

House Appropriations minibus bill funding NIH is out now.
- $400M increase
- Multiyear funding of new awards capped at 2025 levels.
- No line item for BRAIN Initiative

text here: docs.house.gov/billsthiswee...

Screenshots from Dem summary and Sec 240 (multiyear funding text).

Congrats Sean!! 🎉

Come join us for 2026 GRC Cognition! Registration is limited, so sign up early. 🧠 💪

2026 Trans Girl Scouts To Order Cookies From! This year, consider ordering your Girl Scout cookies from a trans girl scout to make their day!

1. Did you know that Girl Scouts has, for a long time, accepted trans girls and nonbinary scouts?

Trans kids are under attack. Every year, I make a thread of trans and nonbinary girl scouts you can get your cookies from.

Lets get our cookies from them this year in solidarity!

Come join us for 2026 GRC Cognition! Registration is limited, so sign up early. 🧠 💪

We are excited to announce the 2026 GRC Neurobiology of Cognition (7/19-24) in beautiful Waterville Valley, NH! Registration/abstract submission open. Wonderful speakers/program covering cognition across scales & species, incl. AI & neuromodulation! @desrocherslab.bsky.social @erinlrich.bsky.social

Dorsal striatal dopamine integrates sensory and reward prediction errors to guide perceptual decisions Perceptual decisions are shaped by expectations about sensory stimuli and rewards, learned through sensory and reward prediction errors. Dopamine is known to convey reward prediction errors that shape...

New preprint. We show that in addition to reward prediction errors (RPEs), dorsal striatal dopamine signals encode sensory prediction errors (SPEs), the difference between sensory prior & observed stimulus. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New paper in Current Biology from the Hikosaka lab and @nienborglab.bsky.social at the NEI, collaborating with us. First author Xuefei Yu @xuefeiyu.bsky.social applied a host of optogenetic techniques to dissect out the functions of a pathway from frontal cortex to brainstem in behaving primates.

📣We have 2 open faculty positions for senior researchers in Neuroscience at Queen's University!

healthsci.queensu.ca/administrati...

1. a new Director for our Centre for Neuroscience Studies
2. a non-human primate NeuroAI researcher

Please share widely and reach out for questions!