A new preprint from the lab! Fun new territory for the lab!

Nine subcortical/cerebellar atlases included in the subcortex_visualization Python package (and subcortexVisualizationR package in R). The atlases are depicted in two-dimensional vector graphic format.

The extended version of my thesis procrastination project/subcortex visualization package is out now in both Python and R, now that I’ve graduated 🤠 This figure shows the 9 atlases included (and counting)!

Preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Website: anniegbryant.github.io/subcortex_vi...

2025: A Review of the Year in Neuroscience Enlightening the brain

Just published my review of neuroscience in 2025, on The Spike.

The 10th of these, would you believe?

This year we have foundation models, breakthroughs in using light to understand the brain, a gene therapy, and more

Enjoy!

medium.com/the-spike/20...

This paper had a pretty shocking headline result (40% of voxels!), so I dug into it, and I think it is wrong. Essentially: they compare two noisy measures and find that about 40% of voxels have different sign between the two. I think this is just noise!

8x8 grid depicting the approach to stimulus creation. Feature pairs are on the axes and images are in the cells. The x-axis represents the high-level feature pairs: setting (green) and object (teal). For example, the first column of images all depict “truck” (object) in “field” (setting) rendered in various textures and patterns. The y-axis represents low-level feature pairs: texture (blue) and pattern (purple). For example, the first row of images all depict different objects and settings rendered as if drawn with crayon (texture) and containing large horizontal edges (pattern).

Excited to release the SPOT grid: a new image set that factorially crosses scene-object & texture-pattern pairings.

We hope these stimuli will be useful to researchers aiming to (partially) disentangle the contributions of lower- and higher-level visual features to behavior & brain activity.

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Greeted an old Dutch couple at the hotel. We spot a mess on the ground.

Gentleman, without hesitation: “You did this, right?"

Me: "We do not do such a thing."

His wife with elite improv: “You guys just swim on it.”

It's fun to experience the coexistence of the best bike system and improvisation.

I’m thrilled to share the preprint with @sangkjyuson.bksy.social. It’s a fun example of applying dynamical systems approaches to social behavior, and the first two-author manuscript from Y-Lab.

Sangkyu has put together a well-written thread to walk you through the ideas (see below ⬇️)

Sungkyunkwan University - Wikipedia

the university (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sungkyu...) has just approved the establishment of a new department of Brain Science and Engineering. so we'll be hiring~

I wrote an article earlier in the week arguing that we need to give junior researchers more independence earlier, and this should be our focus, not moonshot mega projects led by senior researchers.

I was surprised how much agreement I'm seeing.

So next question: how do we do this?

Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions - rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking steps to make sure students can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope others follow suit.

It was a fun project with @dskwon.bsky.social and Won Mok seeking informative subspace from fMRI time-series!

As I cannot find alt-text, I just translate it directly ‘protect democracy!’

Thank you so much! I am a newbie to bluesky, thus, did not know. I will try it!

And now!

(Pic is not my own, and I appreciate one who posted it)

As a powerless scientist, there is little I can do beyond posting on social media and standing in solidarity with the crowd. But I beg you to spread the word so that more people become aware of the crisis South Koreans are facing. I hope that injustices like this will not be repeated anywhere else.

I already owe an immense debt to those who stood up and impeached Ms. Park, securing democracy in this society while I was pursuing my Ph.D.

Of course, I could hang posters in my office and claim I am deeply concerned. But how can I sit in a warm, cozy office while this crisis unfolds and so many people face physical threats in the cold streets?

Whatever the reason is, I find myself back in South Korea, where a nationwide injustice has erupted. People thought it was overturned by parliament, but it was not over yet. Like many other scientists, I have manuscripts and grants to write, students to teach, and a lab to run.

However, the most profound lesson I learned from them is that scientists are also citizens with a responsibility to raise their voices when confronted with injustice.

While pursuing my Ph.D. with @benhayden.bsky.social, I had the privilege of learning many invaluable academic skills from him and the broader community, including @spiantado.bsky.social, @cantlonlab.bsky.social, @celestekidd.bsky.social, @srheilbronner.bsky.social, Brad Mahon and Dick Aslin.

I did not know my first bluesky post is about the illegal martial law in Korea. Please help spread the words.

Semi-orthogonal subspaces for value mediate a binding and generalization trade-off - Nature Neuroscience This study shows that the brain can link action to value through neural population subspaces, balancing reliable binding of action to value and generalization to novel stimuli.

New from the lab! “Semi-orthogonal subspaces for value mediate a binding and generalization trade-off” led by @wjj.bsky.social and @justfineneuro.bsky.social!

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

State-dependent Online Reactivations for Different Learning Strategies in Foraging bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution

New Preprint from Sangkyu Son, Michael Yoo, and Maya Wang!

State-dependent Online Reactivations for Different Learning Strategies in Foraging

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...