Andrew Pruszynski
@andpru.bsky.social
sports and neuroscience hot takes
Good interview question: what's the keyboard shortcut for an em-dash?
If an action results in error, each neuron requires an individualized teaching signal that guides change in its output. This is the credit assignment problem of learning. Are there neurons in the brain that can compute such a sophisticated teaching signal? Yes. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Climbing fibers encode the gradient of a loss function for the cerebellum
Neurons in the brain are often many synapses away from motoneurons, yet if a movement results in error, each distant neuron needs a teacher that considers its specific contribution to production of th...
biorxiv.org
What's the lowest effort way of having multiple people contribute to a list of papers? Assume no common existing apps. I was thinking just dump it into a Google Doc.
Happy Monday! Come learn how jellyfish swim. In a review led by fluid dynamics maestro Alex Hoover, we outline how neuromechanical modeling will help us understand how modulation of neural activity allows jellyfish to jet and pirouette through fluids www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
We're hiring! Postdoc position to study the neural control of reaching using high-density multi-area electrophysiology. 5 years of funding, great collaborative environment. Please share with anyone who may be interested. For details, see: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Pruszynski Postdoc 2026
Postdoctoral Researcher, Control Policies in the Primate Motor Circuit Pruszynski Lab @ Sensorimotor Superlab The Pruszynski Laboratory at Western University is seeking a postdoctoral researcher to j...
docs.google.com
Official job posting coming when I get back from the cottage but if you're interested in a post-doc doing multi-area high-density electrophysiology in the cortico-thalamic circuit during reaching, feel free to reach out!
Andrew Pruszynski@andpru.bsky.social · 2w agoVery happy to receive a CIHR Project Grant to continue our work on how sensory signals are organized in the thalamo-cortical motor circuit.
Very happy to receive a CIHR Project Grant to continue our work on how sensory signals are organized in the thalamo-cortical motor circuit.
LOL France -- this game has less energy than the most random group stage matchup.
I think that this SCA approach will prove quite useful in many applications. www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...
Sparse component analysis: A method that uncovers separable computations within neural population activity
Zimnik et al. provide a new, interpretable, unsupervised dimensionality approach for neural population activity. Their approach, sparse component analysis (SCA), reveals the latent factors correspondi...
cell.com
I don't know much about soccer but I know Europe is very good at it.
Soccer has the dumbest rules and the worst implementation of replay ever.
1/N Excited to share a major update to this work, which includes (1) identification of a thalamocortical communication subspace, (2) cortical lesions which induce selective behavioral deficits, and (3) extraction of cortical readouts by EMG decoding. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Thread:
Britton Sauerbrei@brittonsauerbrei.bsky.social · last yr.1/N How do neural dynamics in motor cortex interact with those in subcortical networks to flexibly control movement? I’m beyond thrilled to share our work on this problem, led by Eric Kirk @eric-kirk.bsky.social with help from Kangjia Cai! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
I am recruiting a postdoctoral researcher and a PhD student, funded by a new ERC grant. The grant focuses on the role of the hippocampus in visual perception, using 7T fMRI (hippocampal subfields, cortical layers) and MEG+iEEG. The intended start dates for both positions are in early 2027. 🧠🟦 1/3
Online planning of sequential actions Review by Jörn Diedrichsen (@diedrichsenjorn.bsky.social), Mehrdad Kashefi (@mkashefi.bsky.social), Amin Nazerzadeh, & J. Andrew Pruszynski (@andpru.bsky.social) tinyurl.com/2p9nbnbx
Many of the scientific questions we're interested in tackling require studying learning over long periods of time across the brain. This is challenging – which is why we're excited to say we've been developing a system for chronic wireless recording using long Neuropixels probes in macaque monkeys.
Natural behavior unfolds as a continuous stream of actions. Because these actions often occur in rapid succession, the brain must prepare multiple future actions while the current action is being executed. Our TICS piece explores how this works. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
sciencedirect.com
My dad and I talk in both Polish and English, in a pretty interchangeable way. But no matter the topic if the context is Poland somehow we talk in Polish. So if we talk about mowing our lawn it could be in Polish or English unless the lawn happens to be in Poland, in which case we use Polish.
This week's sensorimotor superlab reading list is out https://superlab.ca/posts/2026-06-05-list336.html @andpru.bsky.social @diedrichsenjorn.bsky.social @gribblelab.org #neuroskyence #psychscisky #Sensorimotor
Deeply grateful to Frank and Janice and to my university for its more than three decades support of @cfmm.bsky.social Watch for the Ad for this new endowed chair faculty position in the months to come.
Western University@westernu.ca · 2mo agoFamilies affected by brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s now have even more support behind them. A landmark gift from Frank and Janice Lochan of $4.1 million to #WesternU will accelerate neuroimaging research to improve diagnosis, treatment and care. buff.ly/y87nl8m #AllinWesternU
Somewhat comforted by today's presentation.
Andrew Pruszynski@andpru.bsky.social · 3mo agoCIHR has launched a trial ballon that suggests shifting to one competition a year. This is the worst idea I have heard in a long time. The only benefit is making top-line success rates look better than they are. Keep it as is, do in-person reviews, and keep the pain in the open.