What are the real promises and looming perils of neural foundation models? 🧠
I put my thoughts on (virtual) paper for @thetransmitter.bsky.social following a very energised workshop at @cosynemeeting.bsky.social 2025.

It's also my first piece for them 😊

Computational framework to predict and shape human–machine interactions in closed-loop, co-adaptive neural interfaces - Nature Machine Intelligence Madduri et al. introduce a computational framework grounded in control and game theory to model co-adaptation between users and decoders in neural interfaces. This framework enables a principled desig...

If you're interested in emerging ideas in neural interfaces, I humbly suggest my lab's latest: www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Neural interfaces create dynamic interactions between the brain & devices. This means mean we need new engineering approaches beyond typical ML to "decode" a static brain

Juan Gallego on manifolds and populations of neurons A wealth of evidence supports the view that neural manifolds are real and useful, even if they may not solve the age-old mind-body problem.

On the latest episode, @braininspired.bsky.social with @juangallego.bsky.social about the wealth of evidence that supports the view that neural manifolds are real and useful, even if they may not completely solve the age-old mind-body problem.

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/brain-inspir...

🧵 New preprint led by @bingbrunton.bsky.social, @elliottabe.bsky.social, @lawrencehu.bsky.social

We gave a worm brain control of a fly body and it walked

What did we learn? Nothing, other than deep reinforcement learning is effective

We call it the digital sphinx

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

Congrats Tomohiko! I remember thinking this was awesome when you presented it at OIST — glad to see it out!

Primate dexterous hand movements are controlled by functionally distinct premotoneuronal systems Distinct spinal and cortical pathways coordinate muscle synergies and fine control to support primate dexterous hand movements.

Our paper is out in Science Advances!
What makes primate hands so dexterous?
We show that evolutionarily distinct spinal and cortical pathways work together to balance stability and flexibility, supporting remarkable primate hand control.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

“If your evidence is purely predictive, stop making mechanistic claims—or start designing the experiment that would let you”

Open PhD position in our neural interfaces lab at University of Zaragoza within the @bsicos.i3a.es to work in the framework of our @erc.europa.eu project ECHOES. The PhD will be focused on analyzing peripheral neural signals to muscles.
➕ℹ️ i3a.unizar.es/es/ofertas-d...

Share, please ;)

The Neural Control and Computation Lab is seeking a skilled part-time software engineer in Toronto to lead the development of ATHENA (Automatically Tracking Hands Expertly with No Annotations), our open-source, Python-based toolbox for 3D markerless tracking!

www.yorku.ca/health/resea...

Thanks for sharing! Here's the accompanying Bluetorial 😀

Thanks!! And for including it in “the list”

Hope to see you soon in Kobe 😀

Intuitive, multidimensional motor unit control after paralysing spinal cord injury using non-invasive recordings Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in profound motor impairment for approximately 20 million people worldwide. Regaining hand use is one of their highest priorities. Interestingly, even severely affecte...

An updated version of the preprint is available here!

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

Huge thanks to our clinical collaborators at Hillingdon Hospital, and our participants and their carers for their time, patience and efforts.

We'd also like to thank Meta for their support.

And finally Dario Farina and @juangallego.bsky.social for spearheading this project

13/13

In sum, we show intuitive, multidimensional motor unit-based control in tetraplegic SCI despite the lack of overt movement and presence of spasticity

This is an exciting approach that could enable functional restoration of hand function and rehabilitation

12/13

In a step towards controlling assistive devices, one participant controlled a virtual wheelchair. One motor unit drove it forward, whilst the other two units turned the chair left and right

11/13

And a version of Snake that could be played with two motor units -- one for clockwise and another for counter-clockwise turning

10/13

Successful deployment of this tech would need to go beyond these lab tasks. One way to do this is via gamified therapy!

We developed a version of Pong that could be controlled using the activity of a single motor unit

9/13

And 3D control!

8/13

More complex control requires simultaneous, independent control of multiple motor units. Our participants were able to control two independent motor units using two different attempted movements to enact 2D control

7/13

Control accuracy only got a little better with successive training sessions

Notably, we observed relatively high performance right from the first session. We also noted high performance in movements that didn't undergo training

We think this means motor unit control is intuitive

6/13

From the first session, participants could proportionately control the activity of a single motor unit to track three different 1D profiles

Control accuracy was better when they controlled a population of motor units, and both were better than using raw EMG

5/13

We identified several motor units during attempted movements despite no overt movement

Motor units were classified as controllable (fired exclusively during movement attempts) or tonic (fired continuously during both rest and movement attempts, likely due to underlying spasticity)

4/13

Using blind source separation, we decode (in real-time) the spiking activity of individual motor units

We assessed if people with cervical SCI and no hand function function, could use their residual motor unit activity for control

3/13

Even following a complete SCI, there remain residual connections between motor regions in the brain and spinal motoneurons below the injury. We can detect this residual muscle activity using surface EMG electrodes

2/13

Intuitive, multidimensional motor unit control after paralysing spinal cord injury using non-invasive recordings Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in profound motor impairment for approximately 20 million people worldwide. Regaining hand use is one of their highest priorities. Interestingly, even severely affecte...

New preprint! We show that people with tetraplegic spinal cord injury can use their residual motor unit activity to achieve up to three dimensional control using non-invasive high-density surface EMG

With my co-first authors Xingchen Yang and Ciara Gibbs

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

1/13

JAMA viewpoint article titled "Abstract Factory—Research Culture Harming Medical Education" by Samer Al Hadidi et al., published online December 18, 2025. The article discusses the impact of mass abstract submissions on medical education.

💬 Viewpoint: Mass abstract submissions in #MedEd have led to inflated metrics, less meaningful research, and misaligned incentives for trainees and institutions.

ja.ma/3MYsmvO

That said, tiny white matter lesions in specific areas cause massive deficits (e.g., capsular strokes)

Anecdotally, I see grey matter lesions resulting in a change in behaviour more often than white matter lesions

Although it’s surprising how people can be asymptomatic despite having significant small vessel disease. Or how not all white matter lesions in multiple sclerosis cause signs or symptoms

Exactly, he couldn’t not write (or use his hands for activities of daily living)! That said, he could make complex actions like number drawing… they attributed his deficits to the inability to correct errors.

P.S. David Marsden’s patient, not mine 😅