After three years , this joint review with my dear friend Emily Jane Dennis is finally in press. The review provides a glimpse on what constitutes an integrative approach to neurobiology of foraging. Out in the next issue of Annual Reviews of Neuroscience.
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
These workshops are amazing opportunities for deep discussions on how cognition is implemented in the brain, from theory to behavior and circuits. Apply by May 7 & spread the word!
Applications are open for the most fun neuroscience summer school on this planet. 9/10 attendees end up with a fresh perspective on their work and being able to do previously impossible experiments. Apply & spread the word!
We are organizing again with @allysonsgro.bsky.social Junior Scientist workshop for theoretical biophysics at @hhmijanelia.bsky.social ,September 13 - 18, 2026.
Deadline: April 16, 2026
All details here: tinyurl.com/yc66fawc
Lead a lab at Janelia Pioneer next-generation tools for biological discovery Apply by Feb. 3, 2026 janelia.org/groupleader
Apply by Feb. 3 to become a Janelia Group Leader!
Group Leaders drive breakthroughs & experimental approaches in imaging, molecular engineering, protein chemistry, mass spectrometry, & methods that don't yet exist. Learn more: janelia.org/groupleader 🧪
Konstanz school of Collective Behavior will take place again from 20th July to 7th August , 2026. We have an amazing line up of speakers covering state of the art research on collective behavior across systems. Application deadline : March 15th
Details here: www.exc.uni-konstanz.de/kscb/applica...
🪰 A new ‘Eyemap’ developed by a team led by Arthur Zhao & @michaelreiser.bsky.social reveals how visual information detected by the fly’s eye shows up in neurons deep in the brain. Remarkably, the eye’s shape determines how flies see motion.👁️
🔗 hhmi.news/4kSZjou
Being a good Bayesian, I strive to maintain a posterior distribution over scientific hypotheses at all times :P
a peek through fall foliage to some people at the University of Pennsylvania, photo by Eric Sucar
Seeking applications from recent PhDs in neuro, psych, ling, philo, comp sci, or other cog sci discipline, for our MindCORE Fellowship.
MindCORE is an interdisciplinary effort at Penn to understand human intelligence and behavior.
Apply by Dec 1: mindcore.sas.upenn.edu/post-doctora...
Excited to announce our new pre-print (www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...)!
This collaborative work (co-led by Adriane Otopalik and Gerry Rubin) examines how neuronal circuits regulate social behaviors, like courtship🫶 and aggression🥊, across sexes. #neuroscience #Drosophila #WomenInSTEM 🧪1/
Join the team at Janelia to use #theory, computation, and modeling to tackle bold questions in #biology. Collaborate across scientific disciplines to drive discovery.
Apply by Nov. 3 @ https://janelia.link/theoryfellowprogram
#computationalbiology #sciencecareers
Pleased to have this review out in @cp-trendsneuro.bsky.social. In it we discuss various aspects of the intersection between foraging behaviors and neuroscience, and offer some future directions: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
In this sense, the normative theory / optimization framework is less of a theory itself, but a epistemological tool to organize our knowledege about why certain "solution" exists in the brain.
And then he wrote: "Hence, the study of the
behavior of an adaptive system like the human mind is
not *a logical study of optimization* but an *empirical study
of the side conditions* that place limits on the approach to the optimum".
The debate of whether the brain is optimal is the wrong one. Quoting one of my favorite writings from Herbert Simon (1992): The predictions of an optimizing theory depend as much on the postulated side conditions as on the optimization assumption. (By side conditions here, he meant constraints).
✨ We’re #hiring Theory Fellows!✨
Janelia is recruiting early-career scientists to join our collaborative research environment and use #computation & #theory to tackle bold questions in #biology.
🔗 Apply by Nov. 3 👉 janelia.link/theoryfellow...
@hhmi.org
📢We're #hiring Group Leaders!
Apply to lead a lab at Janelia & advance biology using theory, computational modeling & machine learning.
🔹5-year renewable appointment
🔹Pioneer new tools & approaches
🔹Collaborate across disciplines
Apply by Nov. 4👉 https://janelia.link/groupleader
Bayesians in shambles
📢 Students & postdocs in #TheoreticalNeuroscience 👉 Join us this November for a "by the students, for the students" workshop featuring whiteboard-style tutorials, in-depth discussions, and research talks.
✈️ Travel, lodging & registration covered
Apply by Aug. 5 @ janelia.news/THE25
What is the probability of an image? What do the highest and lowest probability images look like? Do natural images lie on a low-dimensional manifold?
In a new preprint with Zahra Kadkhodaie and @eerosim.bsky.social, we develop a novel energy-based model in order to answer these questions: 🧵
Thanks!! There are no major changes in the main text re results. We did refine the vignetting analysis, but it didn't make a huge difference in the end results. We also added a polar ROI analysis in the supplement, complementary to the eccentricity ROI in Fig. 5.
Very excited to be part of this. Huge thank you to the @simonsfoundation.org for their support and vision.
www.simonsfoundation.org/2025/04/24/s...
Also, job openings in this context! Please apply and forward to anyone who may be interested!
hr.myu.umn.edu/jobs/ext/367...
Thanks Megan!!
Same here!!
And I'm very excited to see how this theoretical framework (the original credit goes to www.nature.com/articles/nrn...) might explain many other illusions (e.g., motion aftereffect) in a principled way! (6/6)
Lastly, our results, together with some recent work such as journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol... and www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @mariodipoppa.bsky.social, are painting a compelling picture of how contextual effects (both spatial and temporal) can be interpreted as adaptive efficient coding. (5/6)
In addition, the change in encoding is sufficient to predict the behavioral characteristics of the tilt illusion using a Bayesian observer model. (4/6)
With an oriented surround, encoding precision is locally increased for stimuli similar to the surround orientation, specifically in higher areas of the visual cortex. This encoding change also reflects the surround-conditioned orientation statistics in natural scene. (3/6)
We measured sensory encoding precision (in terms of Fisher information) from both behavioral and neural data in an orientation estimation task. At baseline, encoding reflects the natural scene statistics of orientation. (We observe the cardinal bias in different parts of the visual cortex!). (2/6)
