New preprint from my lab! We study how reinforcement learning & selective attention interact. To do so, we built a set of models describing different ways that value & reward prediction error can modulate top-down attention. We compare model outcomes to monkey data from a color value learning task
Delighted to share our discoveries about one of the brain's neurotransmitter systems:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Together with colleagues at the @alleninstitute.org, we have learned a lot about a tiny cluster of neurons in the brainstem locus coeruleus (LC) that releases norepinephrine (NE). 1
We develop a new TMS targeting algorithm and test it in an open label trial in a treatment-resistant depression population with high comorbidities. Preprints by @rubykong92.bsky.social Phern-Chern Tor
1. doi.org/10.1101/2025...
2. doi.org/10.64898/202...
Our new approach ...
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called for the EU to end its Association Agreement with Israel.
Academic friends,
It's beyond heartbreaking to watch what's unfolding in Iran & the region.
A few of us drafted an open letter calling for protection of civilians & of educational, research, medical & cultural institutions.
Please read & sign if you agree:
sites.google.com/view/protect...
#IranWar
The Epstein files document what many women researchers have long experienced but rarely seen laid bare so starkly: exclusion operating behind closed doors, shaping who gets funded, invited, mentored, and taken seriously. How many of these networks, norms, and gatekeepers remain in place?
Some reports say over 500 schools, 55 libraries, & 25 universities hit.
You can debate the numbers, but hitting Sharif University & Beheshti is like hitting MIT & Stanford. I keep wondering: How would the scientific community respond differently if it was those universities? What’s the difference?
Want a dataset to test ideas on neural basis of decision making or how areas interact as we make choices? Check out our data published today @rudebecklab.bsky.social. >16,000 single neurons from 22 anatomically confirmed areas in macaques performing a decision task. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
100+ year old Pasteur Institute in Tehran was a premier infectious disease research institute and vaccine manufacturer
It is a reason Iranian kids like me born in 60s had access to measles vaccines soon after they were developed in the west
Constructing connectome-based neural networks
Really excited to share a new preprint!
𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗼 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘆 𝗿𝗼𝗯𝘂𝘀𝘁 & 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗯𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘀𝗲? We explore how!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
We built Connectome-based Neural Networks (CoNNs) using Drosophila wiring (larva&adult) & compared with random networks with same sparsity.
Excited to read this!
Non-random brain connectome wiring enables robust and efficient neural network function under high sparsity
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Since the headline is a bit confusing, the NYT is reporting that on the same day we hit the girl's school in Minab, we also sent a missile full of tungsten steel pellets at a girl's volleyball tournament hundreds of miles away in Lamerd. Twenty one dead.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/w...
Bombs keep falling from the sky. Some are closer to your home, and you can hear them. This one fell 6 blocks from my old house in Tehran. My childhood friend's mom was collateral damage:she was bombed, in passive voice. No one drops the bombs. No one pays for them to drop. No one is held accountable
🔔PREPRINT: Sleep ripples drive single-neuron reactivation for human memory consolidation
1/9: How does sleep support human memory consolidation? To test this, we recorded hundreds of neurons in the human medial temporal lobe (MTL) across learning, wakefulness, and sleep.
doi.org/10.64898/202...
Excited to share our new J Neurosci paper showing how subcortical inputs are routed through ventromedial (VM) thalamus to layer 1 interneurons in the medial PFC, all done by my graduate student Sanne Casello:
sannemcasello.bsky.social
www.jneurosci.org/content/earl...
Honored to share my story of growing up in group homes, and my work in neuroscience, on Armchair Expert!!
Job!
My lab is hiring a pre-doctoral research assistant to work on the neural computations of foraging, seeking common cross-species algorithms. In collaboration with @brainapps.bsky.social & Nathan Lepora.
Closes April 21st
Pls share!
jobs.nottingham.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...
Excited that my paper on metacontrol in humans and neural networks with @summerfieldlab.bsky.social and @lhuntneuro.bsky.social is out in PNAS! We examine the way that predictive representations of control enable behavioral adaptation across settings, and pathologies: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Thanks so much Renato
Hi Nils, our focus will be squarely on this problem over the next 4-7 years. Would be great to chat.
There is little work on NHPs now. Instead almost all the work is on mice. I can understand that this can tell us about human metabolism. But cognition depends on complex neural circuitry. We need to know what cognitive capacities we share with mice and what capacities are unique to primates or us.
The CANDLab at Yale is hiring a new full-time research assistant! Excellent opportunity to gain post-bacc experience before applying to PhD programs in child and adolescent clinical psychology and neuroscience. 🧠 candlab.yale.edu/sites/default/files/downloads/YaleCANDLab_RA_2026.pdf
Thank you for your nice words about our Cortically-embedded RNN work and for sharing the science from our field with a wider audience! I just wanted to acknowledge that it was Eva Sevenster and Aswathi Thrivikraman who co-presented the talk (as co-first authors). Sorry to have missed you at Cosyne!
One of my favourite talks ever
Zohran understands his history. This is the Ireland I know. Happy St. Patrick's Day. Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona daoibh.
I was lucky in 2021 to interview another inspiring Mincéir/Traveller woman: Dr. Sindy Joyce, academic and human rights defender, and the first Mincéir to receive a PhD in Ireland: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XOU...
I love this video from Nora Corcoran on her experience in higher education. Nora is from a Mincéir/Irish Traveller family. Mincéirí are an ethnic minority that still receive severe discrimination in Ireland and Britain
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eCP...
Hi, the link is not working for me. Not sure if there is an issue. Thanks!
